Hey- I've got a Beige G3 233 in the studio right now, and I'm having a hell of a time getting it to not lock up. It's got OS 9.1 (which I understand may be the problem...), a 40g IBM on a Sonnet ATA100 card (partitioned as 4 10G's), 288M RAM, Digital Performer, and a 2408. It has no modem, and the only other programs installed are Audiodesk and Retrospect (for a VXA1 tape drive). I've got the extensions pared down to what I believe is an absolute minimum.
Problem is, the entire computer locks up completely, mostly when I am recording audio. It doesn't seem to be related to how full the partition is, how many tracks I am recording or playing back (it's happened on track 23, and it's happened on track 3), or what the processor usage and read/write buffers in DP are doing. It does seem to happen maybe 40% of the time when I hit 'stop' in DP, and probably 30% just after. Otherwise, it's just during recording. Force quit and restart don't work- the front panel off switch is the only thing that does it.
I would appreciate any ideas!
Comments
Well, you may be being redundant :), but I need to do some of t
Well, you may be being redundant :), but I need to do some of those things- haven't trashed preferences, and a copy of Norton's is winging it's way here as we speak (coming from the PC world, I realized late that I didn't get any disk management in the OS...) We'll see what happens, and I will definitely keep you posted.
Originally posted by Opus2000:
Hmmm...interesting. Have you run Norton's on your main disk? What about zapping Pram and Rebuilding desktop. Trashed Preferences? Energy saver turned to never? Just going over basics so if I'm being redundant excuse me!!! what other hardware is attached? have you tried playing the tracks with soundmanager to see if it's the 2408? Ya never know. What MIDI gear do you have attached? You say the Extensions are trimmed..have you shut off the sprockets for video games? internet sharing? Let me know
Opus
Well, here's an update- got Norton Utilites, and Disk Doctor fou
Well, here's an update- got Norton Utilites, and Disk Doctor found one major and several minor problems on my boot disk, and fixed them. Checked the other disk's four audio partitions, fixed a couple of minor things, optimized everything, zapped the PRAM, rebuilt the desktop, and doubled the read/write buffers again.
I also allocated more RAM for DP, which brought up a question. In Mac OS, will a program flat not use more ram than it's allocated? Is there a ceiling on how much ram should be allocated for a particular program? The reason I ask is because MOTU recommends at least 24Meg allocated to DP, but that leaves a lot of ram sitting (seemingly) idle in my computer. I've bumped it up to 40, just to see what happens. Is there any reason _not_ to allocate a larger chunk for DP? I've got 288, and most is unallocated...
I figured as much that Norton's would take care of the issues..u
I figured as much that Norton's would take care of the issues..usually does. The most you really want to dedicate to DP is no more than 50MB...that's sufficient enough to give you enough headroom with DP. I'm not sure if the program actually uses more RAM than what is allocated..you cant use Virtual Memory with any software program on a Mac so that's out of the question. I think DP really rides on the OS's allocation more than the software program itself...so if you have enough memory for the OS your good and golden.
Opus
A couple of caveats on Norton Utilities: don't run the Filesaver
A couple of caveats on Norton Utilities: don't run the Filesaver extension or the DiskLight extension. DiskLight is especially nasty.
Also make sure Appletalk is switched off [in the Chooser]
Some apps dynamically assign Memory and should only have memory requirements increased if you are running third-party plugins [Logic Audio for example] and some require sufficient memory to be directly assigned to the program [cubase for example]
Find out whether DP uses dynamic memory assignment or not, it is critical, because, if it does, assigning too much memory can actually be counter-productive as it reduces the amount of free memory available to it.
Jon, In case you haven't yet fixed your problem I have a couple
Jon,
In case you haven't yet fixed your problem I have a couple things to keep in mind. Remember to check on the Rom version your Sonet card has. Often SCSI, Ata cards need updates blown into them where OS and other compatibility issues are concerned. Also the multi partitioning of that ATA drive is simply not a good idea. Digital audio read/writes don't like partitions and most ata drives are already a bit slower than their scsi counterparts. Consider a separate drive. There are at least 2 bays open on a stock 233 mac. For updates on software use Versiontracker.com a great source for software update links. You probably have enough ram, make sure you have a minimum extension set for music as well.
PS: I'm an ASPN Apple Solutions Provider during the day
Hmmm...interesting. Have you run Norton's on your main disk? Wha
Hmmm...interesting. Have you run Norton's on your main disk? What about zapping Pram and Rebuilding desktop. Trashed Preferences? Energy saver turned to never? Just going over basics so if I'm being redundant excuse me!!! what other hardware is attached? have you tried playing the tracks with soundmanager to see if it's the 2408? Ya never know. What MIDI gear do you have attached? You say the Extensions are trimmed..have you shut off the sprockets for video games? internet sharing? Let me know
Opus