Drop out

[Drewdt3]

I am getting a lot of drop out problems on my laptop after only 13 audio tracks. I have a 4200rpm hard drive in it which i think is the problem. it is a decent processor with 512mb ram. Do you think that a 7200rpm 8mb cache drive would make a big difference?

 

[studiomaster]

Yup...theres a big difference..and thats the read and write speed of the drive. at minimum for audio, 7200rpm is preferred. even though there are SCSI drives that run at 10,000rpm+, but they generate too much noise. but that wouldnt be a problem if ur DAW is located somewhere outside the recording area.

just curious, what processor do u have? make sure its not overheating.

 

[Drewdt3]

Cpu

Thanks for the reply, I have a 1.73 pentium m processor, which is only reading about 19-25% after 13 tracks of audio, wheras the hard drive is bouncing between 35% and 100%.

 

[TamaSabian]

Thanks for the reply, I have a 1.73 pentium m processor, which is only reading about 19-25% after 13 tracks of audio, wheras the hard drive is bouncing between 35% and 100%.

When was your last HD defrag???. I recommend Perfectdisk, it works better than windows defrag.

 

[Bulls Hit]

I have a Pentium M 1.6 & I get the same thing after around 16-18 tracks.

I think an external usb 7200rpm drive would improve things considerably

 

[TamaSabian]

My 2.6 ghz PIV with a 7,200 rpm 60gb HD was dropping out. The drive was bouncing around 50-90% I just defrag it and the problem was solved. It happens that after a while working with wavs, recording, deleting, etc that files moves and all the tracks that belongs to the same project don´t stay together, I mean one next to the other, that gets HD busy, that´s why it drops.

 

[Drewdt3]

Dropout

I have discovered today that if I lift the i/o buffer (options-audio-advanced)it stops the dropouts altogether. I can save my pennies for a bit, and perhaps just buy some more ram for now.