I has to be my hard drive...right??

E

estring

New member
Heres the problem.....
I run Cubasis.
Audiophile 2496
WinXP
3.0ghz
512 ram
800 FSB
My hard drive is a Samsung 802 7200 80gig

everything runs fine for a while then all of a sudden for no reason, all my playback drags and screeches..... not really pops and clicks but annoying "digital" type screeching.
So I reload XP. Again everything starts out fine. then a few days and a few recordings later it happens again.
I have demo/trials of Ableton, Sonar and SX and it happens within those as well.
The only thing I can think of is that is has to be this crappy Samsung hard drive.

Thanks for your thoughts!
 
Last edited:
I would think it would be more in the soundcard category. Are there any other malfunctions with any other type of programs? or Audio recording specifically?
 
it would help to know what kind of glue chipset and processor, do you have all the service packs for xp installed. I am kind of thinking this is not your hard drive.

when you do a clean install of xp it usually check your harddrive. when you have a read or write error, you usually have an 'error' and a code appear, no screeching and whatnot.

usually a hard drive works, then does'nt. sometimes it fails over time but you get errors and failures to boot.
 
Thanks for the responses!!!!

I had the emu 0404, I thought the problem was related to poor audio drivers of the Emu. So I put in a 2496 and it still happens.

As far as chipset and processor, all I know is that its an Intel P4.
The HD has not given any errors or failures. (blue screens...etc) but I cant think of anything else right now other than there might be a reoccurring disk error that pops up when I begin to access a certain part of the HD.

Its strange, if I reinstall XP, everything will be fine for about two weeks, then it all goes to shit again...
 
estring said:
Its strange, if I reinstall XP, everything will be fine for about two weeks, then it all goes to shit again...
Click to expand...

How much porn are you downloading in those 2 weeks?

It sounds to me your system is getting bogged down by stuff running in the background.
 
ez_willis said:
How much porn are you downloading in those 2 weeks?

It sounds to me your system is getting bogged down by stuff running in the background.
Click to expand...


Funny...useless, but funny...

its a DAW set up for audio recording only. By that I mean everything that should be off is, off..
 
estring said:
Funny...useless, but funny...

its a DAW set up for audio recording only. By that I mean everything that should be off is, off..
Click to expand...

Wasn't trying to be funny, but I'll take a compliment any way I can get one.

If you would have said that in the first post I wouldn't have mentioned it.

I think I know what the problem is though.
 
Sounds like the RAM to me. Where are your system resources setting when this happens (i.e. when you alt+ctrl+del)? Using several plugins?
 
yeh i was thinking ram too. how much ram do you have? and how fast is your processor? i only have 256 mb ram and 2.6 gigs processor ...and when im up around 20 tracks or so the same thing you described happens to me...sometimes less depending on how many processes are running. just mix tracks down when you have too many during playback, run less processes at a time, or get some more memory.
 
riznich said:
yeh i was thinking ram too. how much ram do you have? and how fast is your processor? i only have 256 mb ram and 2.6 gigs processor ...and when im up around 20 tracks or so the same thing you described happens to me...sometimes less depending on how many processes are running. just mix tracks down when you have too many during playback, run less processes at a time, or get some more memory.
Click to expand...

See his first post for specs.

It's not the ram or processor speed.
 
estring said:
Its strange, if I reinstall XP, everything will be fine for about two weeks, then it all goes to shit again...
Click to expand...

Are you reformating your drive or just installing XP on top of XP?


When is the last time you reformatted?
 
sorry didnt see that.......i was just asking though, his ram and processor arent that much better than mine...it COULD be the problem, thats why i asked. maybe he has alot of processes running or alot of tracks playing back at the same time. maybe when he re-installs xp everything clears up, then over 2 weeks of time more junk starts running in the background. just asking because what he describes happens to me for that reason.
 
based on what I've read, my processor and RAM should be plenty.
I have done a complete reinstall of XP..I think. Some of my old files still inger after that, but then they play fine.

About the processes thing. When I Ctrl alt delete. I hit the process tab, there are a lot of things running. What should I close out????

Thanks
 
How many is a lot? Here's my list of tasks, not counting "firefox.exe":

svchost.exe
spoolsv.exe
lsass.exe
services.exe
winlogon.exe
csrss.exe
smss.exe
explorer.exe
aardvark.exe (sound-card driver)
System
System Idle Process

Of course, you'll also show "taskmgr.exe", and "svchost.exe" will likely show several instances.

If you're concerned that you have some malware, go to helponthenet.com and post a "Hijack This" log.

I'm in agreement that the problem is probably not the hard drive. More likely to be the sound-card driver or settings related to it.
 
it could be your ram if you have too many processes running in the background. you deffinitely have enough ram for recording, so is only 256....but if you have a bunch of other processes using that memory, then its not all going to your recording. thats what happens to me sometimes, and during playback it will "overload" so to say , and just lag like crazy and make weird screeching noises. then i restart my computer, close everything, mix tracks down, etc, and it works fine again until i get a little crazy trying to play too many tracks or multitask too much again.

i could be completely wrong, but im just mentioning this because it sounds very similar to what happens to me , and mine is caused by my ram limitations , too many tracks, and too many processes in the background.
 
estring said:
Funny...useless, but funny...
its a DAW set up for audio recording only. By that I mean everything that should be off is, off..
Click to expand...
Okay, now we're making progress. Everything that should be off is off.

estring said:
I have done a complete reinstall of XP..I think. Some of my old files still linger after that, but then they play fine.
About the processes thing. When I Ctrl alt delete. I hit the process tab, there are a lot of things running. What should I close out????
Click to expand...

???? :confused: :confused:

riznich said:
i could be completely wrong, but im just mentioning this because it sounds very similar to what happens to me , and mine is caused by my ram limitations , too many tracks, and too many processes in the background.
Click to expand...

Dude, the answer isn't to get more ram, it's to limit the amount of processes running.
 
Screeching?

Not dropouts or BSODs or error messages... right?

Sounds like a driver issue.

Check for IRQ conflicts and reload your drivers.
 
no shit, i thought i made that clear haha. but if you have more processes running than ram can handle then amount of ram comes into play. i never told him to "get more ram" , i said "the amount of ram you have is deffinitely enough for recording" if you would read my post.
 
Supercreep said:
Screeching?

Not dropouts or BSODs or error messages... right?

Sounds like a driver issue.

Check for IRQ conflicts and reload your drivers.
Click to expand...

Done it, too mny times..

Thanks though!!!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top