you may get lucky but gary isn't really feeling forums right now so don't feel bad if he doesn't respond...
as for stability and crashing,CPU spiking and resource-hogging by the OS..your system shouldn't have these problems from they specs i see..

how fast is the cpu? i usually never use xphome for a daw but i don't see that being the problem... try some basic tweaks to xp first.. if that doesn't work.. defrag with diskkeeper 8. make sure the ram is ok... that can cause an unstable computer...
also the settings on the Audiophile...
are you doing any overclocking?

What kinda tweaks did you do when you installed XP the first time, just going on the info you posted, that sounds like the culprit to me.

mitz

Have a look through the steinberg forums. Issues that may be affecting your system are:

hyper-threading - has caused problems for many Intel systems running as DAWs

de-normalising issue - some plugins create problems with system stability - do a search on the steinberg forum

Both Atmosphere and some MAudio cards have also been reported as problematic for some.

But, some more detail on exactly what the symptoms are and under what circumstances they arise would be helpful

ditto on the hyperthreading. Check in the bios to turn it off and see if it cures your problems.

[ January 07, 2004, 03:08 PM: Message edited by: JoTaylor ]

i'm not sure if moving the hd to a raid channel will help anything.. i don't use a mb with raid at the moment so i can't help you there..
as for tweaks, i just terned off all the effects, installed tweakxp and set a larger pagefile 1.5gig(nuendo 2 is a hog)

Atmosphere i've never used so i can't say about that but i would think it takes a lot of power..

the ram if your system can really only handle pc2700 and you have 3200 that sounds like a problem..setting to auto may help.. but in know i've had problems with ram being to fast in a system before

I'm running a similar system(p4pe with 2.6g cpu/333 ram). Although it is the same board as you, I don't use the raid or sata at all. Just a wd 40 os drive and a wd 120 audio drive. XP pro striped down to the origianl specs from Opus plus a few other tweaks. This system is glass smooth...no problems what so ever. I also use Atmosphere/Stylus/Trilogy/Reactor and have had no problems at all. Evrything is imaged from a fresh install and I defrag after every session. I also use the firewire on board but that's about it.

If you can get a hold of some ram to try out, I would check into this...you never know with ram.

Is this something recent and how was the system when you first installed everything? You'd think if it was related to ram, it would have been a problem from the start.

One thing to remember in the Opus tweak, it's the deal with the second hard drive. If you don't make this make this a secondary/extended partition(I origanlly fdisked it and just made it primary partion), you could be in for a suprise as what happened to me on an older system. I lost everything on the audio and the os drive only showed 8 mb's available on the hard drive! This is something XP might do when booting up, thinking that second praimary partioned drive is the os drive. Actually, get the Opus tweak and read that part at the end. You will see what I mean.

Hope it all works out....nothing worse than having down time on the work machines.

[ January 07, 2004, 03:08 PM: Message edited by: JoTaylor ]

You don't say what clock your CPU is running at but chances are you're not expecting too much from your system (I'm guessing 2.5GHz or more). 15-20 audio tracks is really no big deal and the algorithms that you mentioned shouldn't be too demanding either (unless you have reverb in every channel rather than routing it to a bus :roll: . You didn't, did you ? ). Even if this was the case, the software should complain and stop to play, but NOT crash !!!

Serious crashes under WinXP are basically ALWAYS related to hardware problems. The speed of the RAM in your machine is NOT an issue. It's like gassing your car with Premium Fuel when it really only needs Regular. No issue at all. If you bought cheap memory, however, there might be an issue. There are free Memory checker programs out there. Download one and let it run over night to really check your system for random failures. If that comes up clean you can trust that your memory is no issue at all (speed and quality).

You say you have an Enermax power supply and that is a good start. Is it overall powerful enough? The wattage alone (300W/350/450) doesn't indicate if every single voltage branch is powerful enough (3.3V / 5V/ 12V). Kinda hard to check but this could lead to problems. Hate to send you buy a 450W one if that is not really the problem but it could be.

Let us know if the reinstall and moving the hard disk solved your issues.

Hope this helps,

MisterBlue.

[ January 07, 2004, 03:09 PM: Message edited by: JoTaylor ]

HI,
20 tracks of 44.1 is not much to expect.
if your running 20 effects and trying to do VST it may be too much.
try freezing some stuff.

have you done all the XP tweaks?
check here
http://recording.org/resources/recording-computers.300/

there may be a problem with the audio drive on the raid card.

try putting your audio as slave to the OS or as secondary master.
raid cards can get funky at times.

Scott
ADK

[ January 07, 2004, 03:09 PM: Message edited by: JoTaylor ]

Have you tried to re-install the MOBO drivers? I had some of the same issues when I put my DAW together. Afterwards everthing seemed to fall in place (if you know what I mean). Does'nt hurt to check'em out.