Hey all,
We have been discussing my question in the audio/video forum but I felt that it was time to ask around here. (being the computer forum!)
I recently bought a Dell Inspiron 5150 laptop. It has a P4 3.06Ghz processor, 1Gig 333DDR Ram, 72000rpm/60gig hardrive and a 533Mhz FSB. (It's not slow!) I use an Mbox with Pro Tools 5.3.3LE thus have the Digi drivers designed for that Pro Tools release. Digi provides both an ASIO and Wave driver but stipulates that you should not have both installed on your computer simultaneously.
My problem is this. .
When composing is Cubase VST (and Acid for that matter), my computer seems to stutter about every 30 seconds for aprox. 1/2 second intervals. I say it stutters because it actually pauses then starts again from the point in the track that it paused however it kicks out for that half second. When this occurs, I also get a crackling sound emitted from the Mbox. (sounds like a blast of pink noise or digital distortion) I'm confident it is not buffer setting related as I've tried a number of different combinations. Previously, in my now retired AMD tower, I did not have this problem using the same software/hardware setup.
Does anyone have any ideas? I read that technically, the ASIO driver for 5.3.3 supports SX and SL but does not mention VST. (figures) Which might mean it's time to upgrade to SL.
I have had no response from anyone at Digi or at Cubase.net
Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Best regards,
mIchAEl
P.S. Pro Tools works perfectly..(of course...)
Comments
michael, good points, I honestly have no idea, I was just th
michael,
good points, I honestly have no idea, I was just throwing out suggestions,
When you got the pc, did you do a clean reinstall? Because some garbage SW somewhere on your system is about all I can think of.
Have you checked to see what processes are running? you may be able to tie that interrupt every 30 seconds to an increase in CPU by some process.
If all else fails, and it sounds like it has, I'd try a clean reinstall and installing only VST and the soundcard driver.
Here's a wild guess, you may have multiple USB2 connections on y
Here's a wild guess, you may have multiple USB2 connections on your laptop, but probably only one USB bus.
When you plug in your USB1 Mbox the bus throttles down to the slower bus speed.
That would mean your drive is operating at USB1 speeds.
It's probably sitting there saying feed me data.
If your drive is a combination USB2/firewire drive, use firewire it takes up less cpu.
:cool:
Hey G, You're telling me that plugging a USB1 devise into a USB
Hey G,
You're telling me that plugging a USB1 devise into a USB2 port that may share a bus with another USB2 port may in fact reduce the shared bus band width to USB1 or 12Mb/s? Interesting. I was thinking of buying a plug and play USB2/F.W. card to have more ports so maybe that will be the key. You mentioned that F.W. is less processor intesive?? Is there such a thing as a USB2-F.W.1 adaptor? And could one then take something like an Mbox, use an adaptor like the above and thus plug an Mbox into a F.W. port? This is what it sounded like you were suggesting..
Anyways, good Ideas. Thank you!
mIchAEl :D
Yes, if they are on the same bus, the bus WILL operate at USB1 s
Yes, if they are on the same bus, the bus WILL operate at USB1 speed.
You will have to check the spec of your laptop to verify.
USB was designed for computer peripherals, and requires a cpu to operate.
Firewire is a smart network designed to compete with ethernet, and doesn't require a computer to work.
I don't know of an adapter, but the last couple of external drives I've purchased have firewire and USB2 onboard.
This is my favorite, Pro Tools certified and can easily do 60 24bit tracks on my ancient G4/400. Just below the mikes.
http://www.pacificproaudio.com/
:cool:
I guess if it doesn't explicitly say VST support, the it doesn't
I guess if it doesn't explicitly say VST support, the it doesn't support VST.
But it would seem to also make sense that the ASIO driver wouldn't care which piece of SW sends signals its way, though. I thought that was the way ASIO worked? The card is transparent to the SW and vise versa?
Do you have nay other hardware to try?
Maybe try downloading the ASIO driver again. also check the infamous IRQ assignments, USB may be sharing. Also, what chipset is the mobo based on? Dell makes good typewriters, IMO.
mitz