Computer Problems

sei046

Hey guys,
At my wits end with a new system i am running. Been running this a month or two now. Its a 2.6Ghz P4 with 2 gigs of ram. 3 hard drives, 2 on the normal Ides and one the raid. 250gig for audio, 80 for samples and 80 for Os. There are about 8 Usb slots at the back which dont all seem to work correctly. Running Cubase Sx and Xp Pro

My main problem with this machine is it can restart itself randomly. I could be copying from a Usb stick, in the middle of recording a take or mixing down a song and it will just restart. It also seems to be getting more frequent. Dying Hard Drive?

I also seem to run out of CPu pretty fast i think. To be fair i usually have maybe 15 tracks with autotunes or Comps and verbs i use are not really the most ram friendly. Did i answer my own question? whats the best route there? possibly SYSLINK with another machine for effects?

Think i have a few more Qs but will leave at that for now.

Any help would be great thanks

frobisher

A computer that turns itself off is a pretty major problem. If you haven't had a cubase file corrupted yet you're lucky, it will happen in these circumstances at some point. My advice there would be to save sequentially numbered file names as you work more on the file e.g. "The White Song 1", then when you save next after doing some work save it as "The White Song 2" all the way up 1000 if you need. That way if a file gets corrupted you can still go back to a perfectly working version if you need. This is general good housekeeping in handling DAW files and has been a lifesaver for me.

As for finding the root of your on/off problems? Do the problems occur at certain times or situations? 15 tracks of auto tune plus some reverbs is going to munch into your computer's power big time. Although my experience of crashing from overload hasn't ever involved the system just shutting off completely. It's sounds like a system problem of some sort. Give more details about when is started happening and under what conditions it happens....

teamdresch

Sounds like overheating.

Get a can of compressed air, open yer PC up and clean out every bit of dust you can find, especially from heatsink fans.

cornbb

Sounds like the problem could be caused by shítty RAM or some other hardware problem.

Assuming you have more than one stick of RAM in the machine, try removing one and running the machine for a few days without it. If that doesn't help, replace it and remove another one, and so on. If your problems stop, then the RAM you have removed is the culprit. Thats only one theory though.

Using lots of plugins (especially reverbs) would drain your CPU pretty rapidly alright. Consider putting them on an Effects track/bus as send effects rather than as using multiple instances as Insert effects on individual tracks in order to economise.

If you don't get a lot of replies here I'll move the thread to one of the Comp/Tech forums as its not really audio specific. Good luck with getting it fixed.

Niall - Dahlia

sei046 wrote:

Hey guys,
My main problem with this machine is it can restart itself randomly. I could be copying from a Usb stick, in the middle of recording a take or mixing down a song and it will just restart. It also seems to be getting more frequent. Dying Hard Drive?

Are you clean of spyware/trojans? Are you using a legitimate OS? How long ago was it that you installed the OS? Little bugs and gremlins always build up over time, a fresh OS install and HD wipe on your OS drive can help alot, if that's an option.

teamdresch wrote:

Get a can of compressed air, open yer PC up and clean out every bit of dust you can find, especially from heatsink fans.

+1 to that for the CPU problem. Last PC I owned I had to clean out the dust from fans and grills every couple of months. Performance would slowly worsen until the thing practically grinded to a halt within an hour.

sei046

thanks guys. Now i would never be using 15 tracks of autotune lol and i have maybe 2 or three verbs on the buses. The inserts would be some compressers etc. But to be fair i might be using like 5 Vstis. Anyone any eperience in system linking? The ram isnt a big worry. Is there a diagnostic tool i can run to check it?

I had hella trouble getting the hard drives to work on the raid ides but i knew sweet fec* all about raids. I never installed any drives for the hard drives but the samsung 160g(which i just remembered is not 250) just kinda worked. that possible a big problem?

sei046

legitmate Os yes. Will run a sypware trojan check but its not connected to net. The studio has a good few albums constantly on the go so a wipe is not on the cards. I wish it was

teamdresch

Illegal/cracked software can also cause a whole raft of problems.

I'd bet a fiver it's overheating caused by clogged fans or misaligned heatsink.

When you open the PC up, give all the cards a gentle push to make sure everything is seated right.

Some software isn't happy running under a RAID array.
Pro Tools particularly.
You might be better off just running straight SATA.

For me, the most important thing about the computer you're basing your studio around is that it's bulletproof-stable.
My PC has a minimal XP install with only the software I need to run PT and plugins installed.
Network card and onboard audio disabled.
No internet.
Registered memory, the whole deal.

I don't get crashes, everyone stays happy.

sei046

ok so using what i have whats the best option for hard drives?

Neurojazz

MY restarts were either crappy cheap non paired RAM or a CPU that needed the right sort of heatsink!... all the heat compound had burned away.... intel = aluminium amd = copper / don't ask me why!

Raid = lethal if your motherboard dies and you cant get same controller chip.... Sata is probably safer.

I've got half a hundred weight of SCSI still (and the adaptec controllers) - they are over 5 years old and still faster than anything like sata/raid etc... just don't need that sort of power with modern IDE... its fast enough for huge arrangments.

artvandulet

You've got a lot of good suggestions there, Ill just throw in 2 more.

On the plugins - can you process some of these rather then inserting them? Save a version of the project dry so you can always revert.

Restarting - Does your PC fan ever seem to be louder than normal? One reason for restarts can be a faulty thermometer - its a very small, directly underneath the processor and fan. It may just need to be given a nudge if its been moved slightly - could be giving false reading causing the pc to think its overheating.