total system failure (sort of)
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Posted on Mar 07, 2009 01:38 am
fortymile
Member Since: Jan 18, 2003
a while ago i posted something about how i was getting a stutter on playback of any songs that used two or more vsti's. its worse now. piano and drums by themselves are now impossible to pull off. i really would like to read that thread again but i can't even think of any keywords from it anymore.
db, ever think of adding a feature that lets you see all of your own posts, stretching back? i've been on other forums that allow for that.
anyway, wow. the problem is much worse now. now i can't even trigger a single drum via midi. instant endless stutter. a kick drum, snare, whatever--they all just sound decimated. the sound becomes just a patter of chopped up crap and it ratchets around in a way that makes it sound like it's coming through different EQ filters and stuff. it's just a total mess, unplayable.
i've tried moving vsti's to different drives. i have three external drives and two internal ones, although when this first started happening, i think my two VSTi's were on the same drive. but that had worked out fine for a long time, somehow. i'm pretty sure that's how it always was, even when it worked. so i don't even know why i'm fooling with the drives. i wanted a quick workaround i guess. i was just hoping to accidentally get things working since i now barely even remember how this all began and i just wanted to play tonight.
what's making me mad is how it seemed to happen for no reason. i adjusted something with a driver last year--i don't even remember what it was now!--and this crap started shortly thereafter.
what would you do if had this problem? i want to get back into music now. i need to write and actually finish stuff. i guess i need a troubleshooting list, a sequence of things to check. i don't really know where to start, though.
and i hate to go back to basics, but what's a good buffer setting if you've got one gig of ram and a 2.5 processor? i started playing around with the buffer too. it's now at 512 but i feel the lag a little bit too much. does anyone use 384? what's commonest? i used to have it set to where i personally perceived none, back in the days when i had no problems. it was clean and responsive. anyway, changing the buffer setting doesn't do anything for this problem that i can see. i just want to know what the heck i was using before. i think it must have been 384.
and here's a dumb question. what the hell does 'disable audio app use of monitor mixer and patchbay router' mean? its a checkbox i don't remember seeing on my old 2496 panel.
i need to start from square one with a new computer, but that can't happen anytime soon. i'm stuck with this stuff for a long time yet.
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Noize2uCzar of MidiAdministrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002
Mar 07, 2009 08:27 pm forty, have you got the most current drivers for your interface installed? That would be square one, as it sounds like an issue that could point toward the interface, but not always.
As for the buffer, with 1 gig of ram on a 2.5 cpu you might be OK at 256. You normally want to stay with multiples starting with 64, 128, 256, 512 and so on. 384 would be an odd number for a buffer setting.
The VSTi's can stay on the main drive without any trouble. But any samples that may be being used and or project audio should of course be on another drive.
I might suggest doing a full system defrag and clean up as well.
I forget what you are using for a DAW at the moment. There may have been windows updates as well that mucked about with the DAW or interface settings as well.
Mar 07, 2009 10:32 pm i will make sure the drivers are current later tonight. not sure if i remember how to do that, though. i guess in device manager. the soundcard is an audiophile 2496 btw. i wish i could remember precisely how this all started, but it was a long time ago and for a long time i just tolerated it. tolerating it involved closing down all nonessential programs, and when loading a project i'd been working on i'd have to wait a little while for things to stabilize. i would usually hit play and encounter a great deal of stuttering. then i'd go back to start and hit play again and now there'd be a tiny section of the song that would play. i'd keep doing that, and eventually the whole thing would play.
you might want to know that it's never been possible for me to load my piano and my drums without getting a memory warning. when the piano is like 80 percent done loading, windows will tell me that memory is getting low and do i want to continue. but again, it was just an inconvenience for a long time. i would always be able to at least PLAY both instruments, even if playback would take a few minutes to achieve the next time i'd load the project.
i noticed that i do not have drive caching enabled on any of my external drives, either. am i supposed to? i'm not really sure what that is. i hang out here, yes, but that entire time i've been focused more on just trying to get better at songwriting. hoping to pick up recording tips here and there. but somehow i failed to lay the groundwork in terms of computers and setup and all of that.
olddogMember
Since: Jul 02, 2003
Mar 07, 2009 11:19 pm Getting a 2nd gig of memory would probably do wonders forty, it's pretty cheap these days.
Don't enable write caching on an external drive unless you make sure you always use the 'Safely Remove Hardware', app in the taskbar tray, and you should also have your computer on a UPS incase of power failure, read caching can & should be set to on.
Other than that I think Noize has pretty well covered all the bases.
Dan
Mar 08, 2009 01:42 am as far as i know, this computer has two memory slots only, and they are each only capable of taking a 512 stick. this is what i was told last time i looked into this anyway. or it's what i 'heard' anyway. does this sound right? that some computers are set up to only allow for 512 in each slot? cuz i would totally get more ram if i could. i dont think i can.
that's why i have write caching turned off. power outages have been a problem every place i've lived, and i'm not familiar with the choices about surge protection (i just heard that many protectors don't really help?) but my question about that is do you guys use caching or not? what would be the purpose of it?
olddogMember
Since: Jul 02, 2003
Mar 08, 2009 03:20 am Well I can't be absolutely sure without knowing exactly what computer, and more importantly what Main Board it uses, but I'd be pretty surprised if all it could use was 512MB sticks. My old P4 system could use larger sizes, I had 2 1GB sticks in mine.
A UPS is different from a surge protector, though they also provide surge protection, it uses a battery to backup incase of power failure giving you time to shut things down properly.
Write caching probably wouldn't help much with your problem any way, as it's probably the read speed from the HD that is more important for using samples. But with only 1GB memory you're probably hitting the windows page file as well, and that is what is causing the problems. I use write caching on my internal drives, which is the default for Vista, and XP as well if I remember right, my external drives it's not enabled, but I don't use them for my music stuff anyway.
Dan
Dematrixhttp://www.reverbnation.com/2ndgMember
Since: Nov 27, 2007
Mar 08, 2009 03:45 am i have my latency on 256 for recording, (mac) but eventually it cracks a sad similar to the way you mention forty. that's only if i forget to put it back to 786 or whatever for editing and stuff though. tis fine for recording.
sometimes it just does weird **** similar to that, regardless of what setting its on, which might indicate as you mentioned, not enough ram for all the plug ins and stuff i have going on at the time.
im using 2 gig ram.
proly gonna get another 1g soon though i think.
but if yours was working before fine, then its a bit wierd.
have any issues with the rest of the computer?
i found once that i had a ram stick not quite in the slot enough, and the computer was playing up. i shook the computer around a bit (as i do) and then it wouldnt work at all. that's how i found the loose ram stick. it came slightly dislodged but was still sitting in the slot.
proly got nothing to do with your's but just saying.
Noize2uCzar of MidiAdministrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002
Mar 08, 2009 07:52 pm speaking of page file, have you tweaked that up to say 2.5 gig. In the case that that may be an older mobo unit you might be well of to do that.
Mar 09, 2009 12:14 am page file? what do you mean?
the drivers are up to date, btw.
this has the distinct feel of not enough memory. i can play either drums or piaano with no problem, but when both instruments are fully loaded i cannot play the drums.
i just don't know what happened, since it once worked.
CptTrippsCzar of Turd PolishMember
Since: Jun 20, 2006
Mar 09, 2009 01:16 pm Your running a P4, if that thing is limited to 1GB total I would be amazed. I would guess it could handle 2-4GB, post the manufacture and model # and we could find out. Ram is cheap nowadays and would be an amazing upgrade for you from 512, something you would notice night and day I'm guessing.
Mar 09, 2009 05:27 pm it's a dell dimension 4550
Mar 10, 2009 05:28 am windows tells me--every time i try to load both VSTI's at the same time--that it is going to increase the size of my paging file.
but this is great news that i can upgrade to twice my current RAM. amazing. everything's gonna be solved soon i think.
Mar 10, 2009 07:02 pm here's a dumb question (i know, a lot of this thread shows how much i've forgotten)...
for a little while i might be stuck with only the one 1 gb stick (finding the other one involves walking someone through locations in a house in another state) so that'd be one 512 and one 1 gig at first. is it ok to run an unbalanced pair made by two different companies, and if so is there a certain 'order' to it? on the motherboard, i mean. which one in which slot, etc.
olddogMember
Since: Jul 02, 2003
Mar 10, 2009 08:24 pm You shouldn't have any problems forty. Putting the 1GB first would probably be best, but it really doesn't matter much.
Dan
Noize2uCzar of MidiAdministrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002
Mar 11, 2009 09:28 pm Nope, my modded Dell which is now named DellBert was running mismatched sticks for awhile. Now its running 2 different makes of 1 gig sticks without any issues. Its my new surf box and actually is running older version's of Sonar and P5 as well. Works pretty good. I even shoved my Delta 44 in it and it didn't complain at all.
Mar 17, 2009 06:43 pm ok well, i got the one-gig stick today. in there now are two 512s. although it says in many places online not to do what i'm about to do, i do want to see if i can remove one of the 512s and replace with a one gig and see if i notice an improvement. it says not to do that in many places online, but you guys are telling me you've done it with no problems? what's the worst that could happen, is what i want to know. if anything goes wrong, it'll probably just show me as having 512 now, right? like, it won't recognize the new stick and will just ignore it? and if so i can just remove the thing and wait until i get the second one-gig stick (which will be thursday). i just don't want to seriously mess anything up...
waiting for one final 'yeah it's okay, forty' and then i will do it
Dematrixhttp://www.reverbnation.com/2ndgMember
Since: Nov 27, 2007
Mar 17, 2009 07:53 pm make sure you video the start up in case it blows up.
Mar 17, 2009 07:55 pm come on, just one more note of reassurance, someone! i want to do this around 7 or 8 PST.
zekthedeadcowEat Spam before it eats YOU!!!Member
Since: May 11, 2002
Mar 17, 2009 08:06 pm as long as the sticks are the same 'type' (DDR2/DDR3/etc) of RAM it'll work fine... the different sizes isn't an issue... worst thing that happens is that you'll get some BIOS beep code complaining and the computer doesn't turn on.
Noize2uCzar of MidiAdministrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002
Mar 17, 2009 08:48 pm Yep, one of three things will happen.
1: The bios beep as zek stated and it won't boot. Shut it down and swap the stick back out.
I do suggest putting the larger stick of ram in the primary or first slot.
2: The bios beeps and it does boot. But you only show one the one stick of rams value. Hopefully it will be the 1 gig stick, that will be more efficient.
3: I boots normally and all is good and you show 1.5 gig of ram.
wOOt!
Now the final scenario is very unlikely but it go like this.
4: Clickkkc k k k k Fizzzzzzz z z z zot!
But that is really not likely.
I've butchered the Dell I have here and modded it up a bit without any repercussion at all so don't worry.
Mar 17, 2009 10:04 pm k cool one more question if anyone's still around: how do i determine which is the primary or first slot?
Mar 17, 2009 10:33 pm put the stick in and try, usually on the mobo each slot has a number at ione end or the other...sometimes they are in pairs next to each other, sometimes the busses are staggered to every other slot.
Mar 17, 2009 11:49 pm i updated bios to the latest version as instructed, installed the two sticks, and the computer still shows that i have 1 gb of memory. the computer is working but only using half of what's available.
it's worth noting that there already WAS a 1 gb stick in there, followed by an old 512. i guess i must have tried to install one of these a few years ago and then looked to see if i ended up with 1.5 gigs or not. when i didn't--when it still showed 1 gig total--i must have given up.
why would this be happening? it seems to be using half the capacity of each stick. or it's checking the first slot, discovering 1 gig, and 'stopping' there, not using slot 2 at all. (the original configuration was one gig in the first slot, 512 in the second).
is there anything i can do? this sucks, i feel crippled with 1 gig.
Mar 18, 2009 02:25 am been in tech support with both dell and kingston tonight and just don't know what to think. the webpages show some people saying the upgrade works for them. but the kingston guy makes the case that if the computer is running but is only recongizing 512 in each slot, then it is something to do with the motherboard's ability to recognize more, because the memory i have here is clearly compatible (because the comp us running!
but yet, again, some people claim to have succeeded in going up to to 2 gigs. the only thing i can think of has to do with a little detail i see on one of these pages which says that the type of memory has to be x8. 1GB SDRAMs with an organization of x8. i'm not sure how to tell about that. looks like 8 chips, yeah, but eight on both sides. so is that 16 or 8? bmy old memory looks identical. chips on both sides, which i guess means 16? so i would have to seek out 1 gig sticks that have just 8 chips on the one side? is that x8?
maybe if i knew how to identify x8 i could make more progress on the phone with these peeps
Noize2uCzar of MidiAdministrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002
Mar 18, 2009 06:13 pm forty, try this page and download the little app. It will tell you how much is in each slot. I'm not sure how to determine what you have. Is there a little label or anything like a part number on it. This link will kind of tell you how to figure your part number out and then you can google what it is.
The little app is safe by the way. I DL'd it and did a virus scan and then used it myself.
www.ddrsdrammemory.com/id...ize_of_ram.html
Mar 19, 2009 01:43 am well basically all i need to know is what x8 and x16 mean. i know they are each 1 gb sticks.
and i see 16 black chips on them, 8 to a side.
i can google this later i guess but i am guessing it's going to be hard to track down a definition. unless you're saying that this program just tells you this bit of info
