Small problem

Barry · Post by **Barry** » Wed Apr 06, 2005 11:32 am

Hi

Intel D865perl
2GB Geil Ram
Prescott P4 3.2Ghz
Radeon X800 pro
Cubase SX 2
ULLI 7ms

Almost there, have built PC but........

I am experiencing CPU spikes in Cubase around 3 or 4 times per 5 minute song with an accompanying audio glitch, more severe when recording in Soundforge (internet and Antivirus disabled)

Also (and this is worrying) Cubase randomly freezes my whole PC, mouse won't move, PC starts beeping and I have to reboot. I have checked temperatures in PC and they seem fine.

I'm curious about what could be causing this. During normal PC operation and gaming I never experience crashes, and in normal audio (i.e. MP3/CD) playback through onboard soundcard there are no glitches. Same with running general audio through Pulsar, no spikes/glitches.

I'm wandering if it is software related and I have something set up wrong in Cubase, or do I need to change something in the BIOS, I have not touched this yet, apart from to update it.

Can anyone advise?

Barry · Post by **Barry** » Wed Apr 06, 2005 11:35 am

I have implemented all these by the way:

http://www.musicxp.net/

Post by **garyb** » Wed Apr 06, 2005 6:42 pm

us there a midi controller connected that is outputting midi clock or active sensing? is there a midi feedback loop? how many channels and plugins before audio glitches begin? are all plugins legitimate or are there cracks?

Post by **garyb** » Wed Apr 06, 2005 6:42 pm

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: garyb on 2005-04-07 12:10 ]</font>

Barry · Post by **Barry** » Thu Apr 07, 2005 4:54 am

I have no midi controller, this happens with a song using 8 tracks of audio, no VST's and just four or five of the stock cubase plugins. It seems to be worse when recording to soundforge.

Barry · Post by **Barry** » Thu Apr 07, 2005 6:08 am

Update: I did a clean install of Cubase and Scope and the crashing seems to have stopped.

I still get the odd CPU spike though, it's not bothering me on playback, but on recording to wav it's a pain as there is an audible click now and again. For the above project CPU rests on about 20-25% performance and the spikes go up very quickly and drop away immediately, causing a glitch. I've no idea whether that CPU load is normal for system spec or whether it should be lower as plugins and VST are at minimum and I'm not running too many audio tracks.

Any ideas what's going on?

Barry · Post by **Barry** » Thu Apr 07, 2005 8:09 am

Crashing back

Post by **garyb** » Thu Apr 07, 2005 11:10 am

something definitely wrong(but you knew that...), look in sytem information under hardware/resoource sharing and tell me what is sharing an irq with your scope card....

you may be able to fix it right off by disabling anything you don't absolutely need in the bios(onboard sound, serial ports etc.) or you may need to change slots.

Barry · Post by **Barry** » Thu Apr 07, 2005 12:29 pm

Well, after reading about here I turned off hyperthreading and reinstalled windows, didn't seem to work so I re-enabled hyperthreading (do i need to reintstall windows again?) The spikes are still there anyway

I moved the card to another slot and no joy although now it seems to be sharing with perhaps things it shouldn't be sharing with??

Here are the IRQ details. It is sharing with two things on IRQ 18:

Intel (R) 8201EB Ultra ATA storage controllers
Intel (R) 8201EB USB universal host controller 24D7

I need at least two USB slots for mouse and MP3 transfer to a player, but don't know if disabling these will affect that.

Other info that might help is that I have a Fostex VC8 ADAT/analogue convertor.

It is set up on the front panel as internal Clock and in Samplerate I have Pulsar Set as Slave. In Synchronisation Setup in Cubase I have timecode set at none and no ports connected. This as far as I know could be totally wrong and if this could be the problem please let me know what to do about it!!!! Seems to have been fine up till now though.

It really does still seem to be the CPU almost 'straining' just before a new track comes in that causes the skip. Like there's a bottleneck or something.

It's a nightmare because I was hoping by upgrading I'd iron out all these kinds of problems and be able to get on with making some music for a change. Oh well...the joys of computer based music..

Post by **garyb** » Fri Apr 08, 2005 1:33 am

as mentioned in another thread, you did install the intel inf chipset drivers didn't you?

Barry · Post by **Barry** » Fri Apr 08, 2005 4:16 am

I did install .inf drivers from the install disk when I built the PC but then I swapped my chip for another exactly the same ( i have a spare!) and didn't reinstall the inf driver. I don't know if that would have affected things?

In any case, I just dowloaded and installed the latest driver and.......it seems to have improved things a lot, there were still a couple of very small glitches but maybe I'm being too fussy, seems like it is a lot better though.

I'm hoping it isn't a one off! I did notice I have write behind caching enabled again after the reinstalling windows so maybe that caused those small glitches.

I'm hoping and praying it wasn't a one off!!!!!!

Is there anything else you can suggest I try that may smooth things even more?

Thnaks for the tips so far

Casper · Post by **Casper** » Fri Apr 08, 2005 4:26 am

Do you realy need USB?
I've had crashes too (a long time ago)
You could try and disable these in your bios.
Better turn off that hypertreading just for the sake of debugging your system.
Often it's possible to bring down the number of USB port's active.

There was a bug with peaking cpu's but I realy can't remember in with case or what type of cpu. Try a search on microsoft about this peaking subject.

cheers,

Casper

Casper · Post by **Casper** » Fri Apr 08, 2005 4:29 am

Oh, I don't know for sure , but I think it's logical for every cpu to have it's unique id.

Now if that inf file were to work together with this number, than switching cpu's (even the same type) will require you to do that inf file installment again. (at the moment it's meant to beinstalled!)

Post by **garyb** » Fri Apr 08, 2005 4:52 am

usb is probably ok(i use it all the time), but disable anything you aren't using(parallel, serial or usb if don't need it), to free up irqs. i wouldn't enable ht, i don't believe that it will gaurantee a performance increase and it definitely makes things less stable.

Barry · Post by **Barry** » Fri Apr 08, 2005 5:03 am

Cheers, regarding HT, can it just be turned on and off in BIOS, is that all there is too it, or do I need to reinstall windows or anything like that?

Thanks for all your help by the way, I am a happy man.

Barry · Post by **Barry** » Fri Apr 08, 2005 5:25 am

One other small thing! Looking in Device manager I now have two CPU's listed, maybe down to the inf driver mistake above. Both exactly the same details/driver. Can I safely uninstall one of these or is it best left?

Casper · Post by **Casper** » Fri Apr 08, 2005 6:00 am

I don't know what the instalation instructions say regarding that inf file.
But I think it say's you'd have to install it the first thing you do after installing the OS. Wich implies you'd have to reinstall your OS when swithing CPU's.

BUT! No guarenties that your system will work better afterwards. Cause I realy don't know what the inf file is for. Maybe it's a patch that resolves cpu spiking....

Another thing you should be aware of , is that there is something called ASPI mode.
There are alot of treads on this subject already. Maybe it has something to do with that. I know ASPI handles the configuration of IRQ's etc. You can find it under "Computer" in the device manager.
Some mobo's mention this mode in the bios also.

Cheers ,

Casper

Barry · Post by **Barry** » Fri Apr 08, 2005 6:30 am

So I need to do a clean install again

Another small problem

and that's it I think. Just trying to get everything ship shape.

I think Cubase crashing was a midi problem, I had all sorts of different ports selected.

I have moved the 'ignore port filter' file out of it's folder and have disabled all the ports I don't need using just the standard 'Cubase midi in/out' However in the Cubase Direct Music section I cannot disable the Emulated Creamware input, I can choose not to show it but I can't make it inactive, it won't let me. Is this OK as long as I don't use it.

I think that's it...

Post by **garyb** » Fri Apr 08, 2005 3:06 pm

sounds like it. also, you have 2 cpus showing because of hyperthreading. one more clean istall wouldn't be a bad idea, although it may work fine now....

Barry · Post by **Barry** » Fri Apr 15, 2005 6:08 am

Just an update on this, the problem was still there until I did a reformat of hard drive and reintall of everything. Problem gone. No clicks, nothing, perfect! I intsalled the inf. files immediately, just in case anyone is in the same situation, seems like my original intallation was corrupt. Doh!