Scope freezing again

[guppy]

Hello
I always have a big problem since months with my scope setup I told you here before.
Always the same behavior: If I leave the computer some hours and come back after, scope interface stops to work when I try to launch a device, but I can stop it and relaunch it just after without bsod. It happens with or without samplitude launch.
Scope is always taking one full core of the I7 when the bug appears, with approximatively the same amount of memory used:


Yesterday, I tried to find new information into the forum, and I found people with the same bug:
http://forums.planetz.com/viewtopic.php ... ng#p179768

http://forums.planetz.com/viewtopic.php ... r+affinity

http://forums.planetz.com/viewtopic.php ... pe+freezes

In all those topics, there's no real solution. I've tried yesterday affinity processor, but no result...
This morning Scope reacts well during 10mn, but no way, after loading a device, it stops again...
It can't be a scope corrupt file as I have the same behavior with XP and 7 with a total reinstal of windows and scope.

I can't solve it, after long weeks of research about it.
I have tried everything I could, but each time I leave the computer for a few hours, I have a bug that scope freezes when I load a new device.
I thought it could be the memory remap fature in the bios, but it appears not to be
I can use the computer, quit scope and relaunch it without pain, but I must close all the music software which are linked to because asio interruption.
When I restart Scope, everything works fine, which leads me to think about a graphic bug (try several ati drivers), but thats not a graphic bug as one core is totally taken by scope.

As it is my last real bug, it's very annoying for me, and months ago I didn't have this bug, I could let the computer run for days without any bug with the same cards setup...
But now I have a biggest project at launch, and I wasn't using scope as now, and maybe that's why this bug appears.


I don't know what to think about it... I installed win7 instead of XP to see if it could be a windows xp problem, but no result, win7 reacts the same.
As I must wait hours without touching the computer to see this bug, I can't make more than one test day by day, and it's very difficult to understand what's really happening.

I've tried all the optimisations I could find, no irq sharing, midi filter, windows power setting off, core parking, even processor affinity but no way...
Sometimes it can happens when working a long time, but I can be sure that after some hours without touching it, the problem occurs.
I think it happens more when I try to load a big module, I can ear the hard disk starting to read the device file, but it stops and scope freezes.
I can relaunch Scope without stopping the computer and without BSOD.

This is my actual setup. Is there an error or something ? Must I put a midi filter to the sequencer midi dest too ?


I even read a message from Astroman who said that he got this bug since long time and manage to work with it
As I have 3 cards (1x scope and 2x pulsar2), I tried to work with only 2 to see if one of them was faulty, but same result. As The scope card is the 5.0 card, i can't put it out the computer to run the computer without it. I really hope that the scope card is not the source of the bug !!

Do you think I can have a hope to solve it soon ?
I'm now thinking about changing the motherboard (p7p55d), but I don't want to , as it's the only thing that doesn't work well with this computer (with XP, because win7 gives me random crackles with wave device even with scope optimization). As I see i'm not alone, maybe there's a workaround or a solution?

Thanks for helping me !

Edit: I'm now thinking about the network card...must try everything
Just if I could understand what happens could be great

[next to nothing]

Not a direct answer, but i suggest u install this: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysi ... 96645.aspx
this will give a more detailed picture of what i going on, and can create a log file to help identify where the shit hits the fan.

[guppy]

Ok, thanks !
I've just installed it.
Now I'm waiting for the bug ...

[guppy]

It's exactly the same behavior this morning with xp

I tried to have a prodissey device open in my project to allocate dsp if needed to load new deviceas it was said in the other topic, but this morning I have the problem again.
I leave the computer for 5 hours only , for sleeping.
I think the next step could be to try the scope card into another computer. I'm very confuse that it could be a faulty scope card...

[dante]

Yes cards in another PC is definitely the next test. You need to (hopefully) eliminate either the PC or the card(s).

[guppy]

As I have found other topics where people had this problem with the full occupation of a core/processor, I hope it can be software, or something dead in the motherboard
i've just tried to rebuild another project with some improvements, and delete some old devices from the scope folder...
I don't understand why this happens only after few hours, as Gary often said, it's working or not... Maybe a dsp or a condensator has something wrong.
It can't be heat by now as there's a fan dedicated to the cards, but one year ago, I had problem with heat. I really hope that it hadn't fragilized the scope card

[garyb]

not a dsp problem. not a condensor problem. not a card problem.

if it happens after a few hours, then it is either a process that only turns on after a period of time, a power management setting(sleep/hibernate/reset board if idle, etc), HEAT, power supply...

i can leave my computer for a week without any issues, but i would NEVER do that. i also wouldn't leave it unattended for five hours. there's just no reason not to shut down. any one of a million things could go wrong with unsaved projects including brown-outs or the cat walking across the keyboard.

[guppy]

It could be a process, but it happens with XP and win7
That's true I could shut the computer off, it's an old habbit
Maybe I should have a look to the power supply, as it's running since 3 years. It's a Corsair HX520w that looks great, but who knows...
Tonight I've replaced the intel inf motherboard driver by the old one that ASUS distribute with the p7p55d.
Maybe there's something in the newest one that doesn't cohabite well with scope...

[guppy]

So maybe it's going better
Yesterday, I did 4 things (so as usual, if it works, i won't know what really make it works )
- rebuild my main project. I've seen that I got some bad I/O in my setup because the computer has inverted the order of my 2 pulsar card. Stangely, the sound was playing good, so I didn't see it...
I rebuilt the external device modules I have and try to optimize some parts of the project by making a new one from blank.
- changing the intel inf driver for the asus ones. It could be important as I can remember I have used them a long time before running with the latest intel official ones when I reinstalled XP long time ago.
- turning off acpi into xp in the registry as descripted here: http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=93994
Now I don't have anymore the icon for standby when I shut off the computer


- at least, i've reactivated some pci root port I had turned off long time ago to have free irq for the cards. As I remembered that Gary said that they're not important as graphic card or usb irq could be, I've reactivated them. Maybe the hard disk need to access to one of them at this moment...

It seems that it's working... As usual, I must wait some more hours to see if the problem occurs again, but I must admit that some of those changing could be important (asus driver and irq for pcie root ports). The defective parts of my project couldn't really be the solution for this, because I've rebuilt it several time since I try to make the system work.
It's not that I want to let the computer run during hours for free, but the problem occured when I was working on it during hours, and you know it occurs always at the worst moment: while you are rewriting for the 100th time a midi or audio line with 8 channels that are not yet classified....when the workflow s broken at 4 o'clock, it's very hard to go again into

I got another question for my general knowledge : Do you think it's better to put the XTC pulsar 2 card on the irq shared with the graphic card, instead having a card with IO on this irq ?
Or is it not important ? I mean does the IO of the card impact on the irq sharing ?

[garyb]

shared with a graphic card in XP means a crash sooner or later.

why disable ACPI? what does this do? we used to disable ACPI to manually assign IRQs, but in later versions of XP and in Vista/win7/win8, this only cripples the OS.

[guppy]

As I could ear the hard disk stop during loading a device, i wanted to be sure that it wasn't from acpi harware standby.
But it's not disable in the bios, and the computer continue to be multiprocessor acpi in the xp hardware window.
Just the power s1 and s3 state are completly off now.
Since this freezing problem could be solved, It seems that the irq shared with graphic card and the xtc pulsar2 is ok , I managed to work with that configuration during months
It looks like this p7p55d is open to share graphic irq with a pulsar2 xtc (for my usage at least )
But when I had the scope card instead on this irq, I had crackles.

I didn't have the freeze this morning, so I hope one of the last changes was the good one

[guppy]

Ok it happened again while loading the prodissey. It's my favorite synth, deep and fat But it seems to happen less frequently.
I wanted to add that I tried days ago to work without the xtc card which shares its irq with the graphic card, but the bug persisted.
As I can't do anything more that I can understand (apart changing the motherboard...), let's go to work !
I like tweaking Windows and understand what happens in it, but it's the first time I don't understand anything to a bug that nobody has as me
I will only shut the computer between sessions...not a big deal I must admit
As Gary told me that it can't be a card problem, I'll sleep well
I'll never thank you all enough for the time you take for me,and my silly questions !

[TOM.DJ]

Could it be a solution to install windows 7 (32-bit) ?

I have the same problems and tried everything, but my 3 Scope Cards, share IRQ's with devices I can't turn of.

Regards,
Tom

[guppy]

I think win7 won't solve the problem. I've tried it, and the same freeze occurs.
It can happen by loading even a small device, always if idle during minimum 4 hours.
I had this problem while working before, but now it's only after 4 hours idle, since i've began the tests and reinstall Windows.
You can try this: http://forums.planetz.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=25301
but it didn't work for me.
I've tried to run with only 2 cards, to avoid to have a card which share irq with my ATI graphic card. The 2 other cards were alone on their own irq, but it didn't change anything too.
I've tried to run hdd with AHCI to see if hdd drivers could be faulty, but there's no link at all. Idem for PAE/DEP disabled.
It's not link to additional modules or devices, because it's freezing even with a fresh and clean scope 5 install.

I think this problem has been so often related here and is link to APIC/ACPI management from Windows (XP, 7 and , and some kind of faulty motherboard/ram
I've tried to install windows with Multiprocessor HAL with acpi but without APIC (bios + f5 when you install Windows), but it looks that my p7p55 and most of the new motherboard can't run correctly then (not enough irq for all the motherboard devices, I can't run internal pci-express ports).
I can install pc standard HAL, but no multiprocessor then...

Some people who run scope 4.5 or 4.0 have solved freeze by installing 3.1b drivers, but we can't do that with scope 5.0 and 5.1.
You can try to install your system as describe here: http://forums.planetz.com/viewtopic.php ... pi#p243761

You can find a lot of discussion about that problem by searching "apic", "acpi", "gui freeze".

I don't know exactly what is the problem, but the fact is some ppl changed their motherboards many times and always had the same problem occured.

My p7p55d is nearly 3 years old, maybe some components are dead. I'd like to change my motherboard, but it's a shame that's it looks as a robust motherboard, that I can run with free irq for scope cards.
I don't want to buy another mb (even a supermicro one or some of the best for Scope), and have the same freeze even with a new motherboard.
I really hope there's a link with the gui, that scope 6.0 gui rebuild will stop this freeze.

I admit that scope is a so nice platform to say that this problem is "important" and can't be integrated to the workflow...
But I know that a lot of people had been crazy with this thing

[TOM.DJ]

Thanks a lot for all the information, after reading all of this, I think it is best for now, to see if I can fix my old p5p motherboard again, as it was running great, but died last week.
The P8P runs like hell, but freezes all the time and I get unexpected DSP overloads a lot when loading/changing a device. As it has only 3 pci slots it is impossible to get my 3 scope cards each on it's own IRQ. I tried to turn off everything, but my IRQs will always be shared with e.g. the GPU.

I will downgrade to my old MB and see if I get it to work again.
As this seems to be the only option.

Thanks,
Regards Tom

[garyb]

the newer motherboards(socket 775 and newer)really need to be run in ACPI mode, especially with vista/win7/win8.
socket 1155 boards won't work, but there's evidence that 1150 will.
you will NEVER get a Scope card on it's own IRQ on one of these motherboards, but don't dispair, it's mostly USB that makes trouble and a single USB controller is easily disabled in the device manager. most motherboards have at least 4 or 5 USB controllers and you only need a couple for a whole ton of USB devices. GPUs sharing an IRQ with a Scope card is probably a problem, but not always.
all of the IRQs are virtual in ACPI mode, so shared IRQs aren't quite as devestating as they were in windows 98. even my XP machine has some IRQs shared with system devices(PCIE root ports, etc) with no issues in ACPI mode.

[guppy]

As the problem often seems to be isolated when installing 3.1b driver when you run 4.0 or 4.5 software (I don't try it myself because I love using lc-reverbs), it's a shame that Sonic Core can't provide a patch or a workaround for the ppl who got this problem with 5.0 or 5.1 and can't try to go to 3.1b.
Maybe they can't because it's a out of control bug from acpi repartition between the mb and microsoft, or maybe they don't want to spend more time on discontinued hardware...But I've seen that it has been known since 2002.

Maybe it's just about pagination error during the time we don't use it, that scope can't load device correctly because after some hours, other softwares take the memory that Scope has targeted to load devices...
Just speculating
I've seen that I can sometimes avoid the freeze buy cutting programs that created a lot of pagination error (Firefox first). It could explain why acpi apic is the origin of the problem, and since there's many way to provide acpi to a mb, some won't be useful for us...

I'd love to try to run a complete set-up with scope effects and routing for live prog-rock I try to make , and use exactly the same effects and synths that I use during recording.
But with this bug, I can't even try (I can't imagine to let the set during 3 hours after check, and have this freeze after 30mn playing).

I'll directly buy scope 6 if I knew that freeze are gone with a driver workaround, more than any features
I'm wondering if the problem occurs too with Xite and 5.1 ?
Or if the freeze disapeared with pci external box such magma and others which load pci cards on their own irq ?

[garyb]

drivers can't work for some people and not others. there's nothing to patch.
since i'm not there, i can't properly troubleshoot the system, but those with problems either have faulty hardware or a setup issue.

my computer is often up for many hours, and it NEVER has this problem, NEVER. none of my clients have ever had this problem.
my internet, multimedia center computer that i'm typing on has a Luna card and is often up for 18-20 hours at a time, an sometimes it's up for 48hours or more without issue.

if it is only stable for a few hours, then the problem is heat, a power setting, another program's action, or a random issue caused by faulty hardware or a shared IRQ.

[guppy]

The fact is that appeared when I reinstalled winXP long time ago, and I've never seen that before with this motherboard which was reacting well with Scope.
Everything worked well during days before formating (I reinstalled because crackles, but it was only a bios configuration problem )
Maybe irq repartition when installing have changed, but I tried to reinstall several times.
Or maybe hardware have just mysteriously been faulty then.

I've just tweak xp again a little (hardware management and services) and start Scope in high priority, and things look better...but as usual I must wait more time to be sure.
So it could be tried too...

[guppy]

Hello
Just to say that I've ust tried to install Scope with win8 and it seems that drivers are much better, with the same p7p55d motherboard !
The graphic pci express card doesn't share irq anymore with scope And I don't have those crackles I had with win7 and wave driver
I can load 11/12 masterverbs now with sound ! (instead of a low 6 with xp and 7), with only a message on the 6th one, and Scope reacts much much better !
I can't believe it. Even when scope must resync, it takes 1.5s (instead of 5/10s) only and everything load better...


I got a "no dsp placement found message" sometimes when I load my main project, but I think it can be solve by rebuilding a new project
--> Edit: ok , the dsp placement error was due to a bad choice of pulsar2 card into the external device modules, so some outputs couldn't be load correctly on the XTC pulsar2 which doesn't have IO.

I don't know yet if there's a link wiith the freeze problem, but it's very cool
The bad news is I have sometime some strange BSOD when I try to severely load more than 11 masterverb during the mv test...not very disturbing if it happens only there but it's really a sign of bad hardware somewhere then
I'll try other ram soon...before I really think that the mb is the source of all the problems
Next report tomorrow !