Performance DROPS with 2nd HD

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NashBackslash

NashBackslash

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Hello. I have a very big problem here, and I hope someone here might be able to help me solve it.

All this while, my DAW setup is a single, 120GB hard drive, partitioned into 2 drives; one for system, the other for audio data. It's a Seagate hard drive.

After doing a lot of reading on the internet, most people recommend a second physical hard drive.

I shopped around to find an inexpensive hard drive that I'd add as a system disk. I went for a 40GB Western Digital hard drive.

I put the Western Digital hard drive into the primary IDE, and the Seagate hard drive as slave. Since the Western Digital HD is empty, I did a NTFS quick format on it, and a fresh install of WinXP on it. Everything went fine.

And then usual things to do upon a fresh installation: install latest video drivers, audio interface drivers, install DAW, install plugs, etc. No problem there. In fact, the whole process took about an hour and half, and in that time, I managed to setup an exact duplicate of my DAW setup which was installed on the Seagate.

So what did I really want to do? I wanted the new 40GB to house the system files. I wanted the 120GB to be the new audio only disk. Since there were 2 partitions on the 120GB, I planned to make it back into 1.

To cut a long story short, I backed up all my audio data, deleted the partitions, and formatted the 120GB using quick format NTFS. I then transferred back the audio files back into the 120GB.

I thought my work was done. So I went away for a while to rest because I was pretty tired doing all that setup job. Then the horror happened.

I came back, ready to mix. I opened a particular song which used up about 10 tracks. Very minimum usage of plugs. So I clicked play just to listen to it.

I notice that the Sonar meters are moving very, VERY slowly. Every now and then it would pause, like as if it was choking. TEH HORROR!!1 I opened all my other projects to see if it was a problem with that particular song. No good - ALL of them slowed down like HELL. There was even this one song which used up about 20 tracks with LOTS of plugs, and it used to not show even one bit of slowing down, now the meters look like they're moving at like 0.0005 FPS! It doesn't drop out, but I'm sure it will if I left it long enough!

It's weird because I have NEVER experienced pauses and slow downs before. Back then, the audio and system were actually sharing one physical HD (on two partitions, though).

I did have problems with the previous installation though:

A) MOTU drivers would randomly not load on Windows startup.
B) Tends to restart the PC ALL THE TIME. During tracking, mixing - it can happen any time. This is the most annoying problem ever. It does NOT slow down or pause though! Even with heavy usage of plug-ins.And almost never drops out. It just restarts itself.
C) The previous WinXP installation is somewhat buggy because back then I installed Windows using a dodgy CD-ROM drive. Has long been replaced.

These were some of the reasons I wanted to install a 2nd HD. But ironically, it just made things worse. A LOT worse. I can't finish my projects like this. I am so desperate, I need my system fixed ASAP because my clients aren't going to be happy if they hear me say "there's something wrong with my PC, so your mix isn't done yet". Please help... anyone... I feel like breaking down right now...

EDIT:

Oops, forgot my system specs.

Pentium 4 2.4 GHz
1024 MB RAM
VIA chipset motherboard
VIA chipset PCI firewire card
Eagle 3D 64MB video card (it's a copy of the GeForce cards)
Seagate 120GB hard drive
Western Digital 40 GB hard drive
MOTU 828 MKII audio interface
Cakewalk Sonar 3.1.1

1) I know VIA chipset suck, but I've had these in my PC since like, even way before I even did any recording. I didn't bother building a new PC rig back then so I just used whatever I have. I will probably change the firewire card soon though.
2) The video card sucks, but I don't use the PC for any graphics job. Like I said earlier, the meter display was fast and had no problems before I installed my 2nd HD. The video card certainly didn't have anything to do with it.

EDIT 2:

Both setups were on fresh installs of WinXP SP2 and no hotfixes (don't have internet at studio).

- Nash
 
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I think the point is to have the hard disks on SEPERATE controllers.

I fail to see any performance advantage to having two disks if the are both on thesame controller.
 
As fraserhutch pointed out, you need to put the drives on separate busses. I'd recommend you put the primary system drive and the CD drive on one bus (slave the CD drive), and put the 120GB drive on the second bus.

The system restarts that you mention can be due to two possible things:
1. Your power supply may be either underpowered or on it's way out.
2. Your system (processor) maybe overheating.
 
noisewreck said:
As fraserhutch pointed out, you need to put the drives on separate busses. I'd recommend you put the primary system drive and the CD drive on one bus (slave the CD drive), and put the 120GB drive on the second bus.

The system restarts that you mention can be due to two possible things:
1. Your power supply may be either underpowered or on it's way out.
2. Your system (processor) maybe overheating.
Click to expand...
I'd tend to agree here.

The issues you talk of should not be the result of the hard disks per se, but it is possible that your power supply is not capable of handling the extra demands being placed on it. What is the capacity of your power supply?

If your motherboard is of relatively recent vintage, it should be able to provide you with alerts for either overheating or low voltage. Certainly your bios should have a page that displays the current state of both.

I do recall that Sonar 3 had a bug that would cause restarts from time to time. I do not recall that the cause was or whether they had a solution for it, btu I believe it was solved in Sonar 4. You might want to check out the tech notes section for information on that problem.
 
So do I just change the cables that connect the hard disk?

At the start up, when the computer is doing the RAM test, it says something along the lines of:

Primary master: (western digital HD)
Primary slave: (seagate hd)
Secondary master: none
Secondary slave: none

So do I put the Seagate HD as the secondary slave?

Also, any recommended CMOS tweaks?
 
You want the Seagate to be the Secondary Master.

Also: Did you try defragmenting the Seagate after you did the 'quick' format. I'm not totally sure on this, but I think the quick format still leaves the junk that was on the drive before, but you don't have access anymore, then it writes over it as you go along. This could cause some major performance issues if it is now very fragmented. Try defragmenting and moving the Seagate to Secondary Master, and I bet that will cure your ills.
 
cawhite12:

Yes, both hard disks were defag, er I mean, defragged. Still was slow as hell.

Anyway I had a lot of trouble trying to reconnect the hard disks, because the way my casing is setup, makes it hard to re-arrange disk positions (IDE cable too short etc), but I finally managed to make the Seagate the Secondary Slave; the CD-ROM is the Secondary Master. Shouldn't cause problems, right?

However, problem was still there. Still slow. I even bought a new Firewire PCI card. This is really getting on my nerves!

So, *AGAIN*, I formatted the system disk and re-installed everything. Still slow! Then I had an idea.

It turned out that Sonar 3.1.1 was the culprit, or so it seems. Downgrading to Sonar 3.0 solved the problems.

Weird, huh!?
 
Yeah, that is bizarre. So putting in Sonar 3.0 fixed everything? Weird! Well, glad that works for you now, hopefully you won't have a need for 3.1.1, or maybe you will upgrade to 5 sometime. It seems to have some really cool new features, but I'm gonna stick with my SHS4 for now. I use other plugs anyways, so the extra plugs for me isn't worth the upgrade. Good luck, it sounds like you got it working though (knock on wood)
 
Thanks man. :)

Yeah, there's nothing I really need in Sonar 3.1.1. I'm saving up though so I can upgrade to Sonar 5, with a 64bit machine to go with it. :)

BTW what's SHS4?

Anyway - this is just ONE problem down. I still have to find out whether my system would still randomly restart itself like it used to on my old installation...
 
This is driving me nuts. My problems aren't going away.

I'm trying to record 24 bit with Sonar 3.0. I'm using a Motu 828 MK2, with latest drivers.

I have also installed the latest VIA 4in1 Hyperion drivers.

When recording, the "disk activity" meter would show some disturbing readings, and will eventually drop out after 3-5 minutes of recording. The "CPU activity" meter is basically zero though, so I'm guessing that I have my OS setup right, and no strain is put on the CPU.

I tried installing the "enhanced IDE driver" by VIA which is supposed to improve the IDE transfer rate or something. Getting somewhere; disk activity during recording is very low, BUT the old horror returns; it will just go POOF and restart itself whenever it feels like it.

I really think I need more hardcore tweaking. I don't mind tweaking my CMOS settings, if only I knew what to tweak. Help, please. Anyone! I never thought setting up a proper DAW is such a pain in the butt!
 
I've heard that MOTU and VIA don't get along at all, but if it's worked fine before, not sure there. SHS4 is Sonar Home Studio version 4. It was new in July, it's like the Cubase LE of Sonar, but it has way more functionality than most LE versions of software. Same audio engine as Sonar 4 as well. Pretty nice, and I got it for like $75 with academic discount.
 
I am sorely tempted to say that what you are describing does not sound like a disk issue at all. I think you're following a red herring. However, if your disk activity meters show intense activity while recording and you aren't monitoring a lot of tracks, then something is horribly wrong.

Have you used the task manager to really see what's going on?

As for the MOTU, generally, when MOTU and the via shipset don't get along, the MOTU doesn't work at all. I think the fact that the MOTU is actually working rules that out as a possibility.

Also, have you checked your event logs for warnings and errors? I am wondering if something else is going on under the hood.

For performance tweaks, here's where a lot of people start off: http://www.musicxp.net/index.php
 
Do my computer specs even qualify for a DAW setup? I'll repost it.

Pentium 4 2.4 GHz on ASUS motherboard, using VIA chipset
1024 MB RAM
PCI Firewire card using Ogere chipset
Western Digital Caviar 40 GB hard drive
Seagate Baracuda 120 GB hard drive
Eagle 3D 64 MB AGP graphics card (chinese GeForce clone)
MOTU 828 MKII audio interface

Anyway, regarding tweaks, I've tried everything; tried changing between Standard PC and ACPI (through the WinXP re-installs), adjusted performance for background services, memory usage set to system cache, turned off DEP, tried replacing the WinXP SP2 IEEE drivers to the SP1 drivers, and a boatload of other tweaks that I didn't really need (because my computer appeared to run just fine).

I am trying to analyze what the whole problem is right now. Sluggish computer performance? I don't think so - everything runs fast and clean. The only problems I have are working with multiple tracks at 24 bit - be it recording or mixing. So that means that the problem may come from:

A) IRQ conflicting - MOTU is assigned to IRQ 3; nothing else is sharing
B) PCI Firewire problems - I don't know where to start
C) Hard disk problems - Same, don't know where to start

fraserhutch, I will try your suggestion to check event logs. In my latest installation, I have pretty much every service disabled, the PC feels so weird. I will try a few more things I just picked up on the net today, and do another re-install, to see if anything improves.
 
I had a similar problem when I installed my second HDD on my 2.53GHZ Dell. Lots of stuttering, even trying to playback stereo 16-bit/44.1khz mixdowned files. Go to your device manager and bring up the properties for the appropriate IDE controller. Under Advanced Settings, and make sure the transfer mode is DMA, or Ultra DMA, or something like that. I'm not at my home PC now, but once I changed that setting, everything worked fine.

Goodluck!
 
I had serious MOTU/ VIA problems once. My first VIA chipsetted motherboard ran great with my MOTU PC!324 card. At some point I upgraded. After that, the PCI 324 was horrid. Even worse though, MOTU tech support was even worse. They wanted me to send them my whole tower for a month or so so they could figure out the problem. Not only that they wanted me to pay for it. So, I switched to RME. No problems EVER:D Then, I upgraded later on to yet another VIA chipset motherboard. RME still worked great, decidied to try the old MOTU. No problems. Since then I have had yet another VIA chipset, and now currently an NForce 4 chipset. As of yet, the RME has still worked flawlessly, but I sold the MOTU some time ago.
 
Okay, I believe I'm almost there... almost...

I re-installed WinXP SP2, choosing Advanced ACPI at the install options.

Then did the usual tweaks, including setting the DMA modes, turning off DEP, set performance for background services and other important tweaks.

I don't know where the magic came from, but here's what I THINK really made the differences:

A) I was very careful when installing the various drivers for my hardware. One-by-one, I'd install, check to see how it has affected the system, restarted, then checked again. I do this for every hardware.
B) I reformatted both disks using the full (as opposed to quick) format options.
C) The most important step: downgraded my Firewire drivers to SP1 drivers. I read somewhere that all you have to do is just click update driver, then point to the folder where you extracted the SP1 drivers. I kept doing this, but no results. I later found out that this DOES NOT WORK because WinXP will invisibly restore the original drivers if you attempt to manually update a hardware with older drivers. I found out that I had to rename sp2.cab to something else. This made ALL the difference!

I made several test records. I was able to record at 44.1KHz 24 bit, ten tracks simultaneously, with almost no problems. It was still dropping out though.

Then the other important update: installed VIA's IDE enhancement upgrade. After doing this, recording 10 tracks at 48KHz 24 bit was so smooth! I actually left the thing on for about an hour and it recorded just fine! No dropouts, and the disk usage meter is pratically at 0% all the time! I even managed to record 10 tracks at 96KHz 24 bit, and it went fine for about 4 minutes with no slow down, but then I stopped because I don't intend to record at 96KHz anyway - for one, mixing all that huge data is gonna be a pain later.

However, one thing I don't like about the VIA IDE enhancer is that it forces "write caching to disk" no matter how many times you try to untick it.

My CPU usage during mixing would increase a lot as I add more and more plugs. I guess that's where hard disks don't matter anymore and it all depends on my processor speed. I'm only on a 2.4 GHz so it's no surprise.

The old horror (PC suddenly restarting itself) still happened but only ONCE; I kept trying, purposely duplicating tracks, adding lots of plugs, but it never happened again.

Trying to update Sonar to anything above version 3.0 still poses problems though - the meters would be drawn very sluggishly. I'm guessing it's because the Sonar updates uses drawing routines that my hardware just can't support or something - I dunno. Then again, I'm using a chinese clone video card, so no surprise there. Oh well, I can live with Sonar 3.0 anyway.

So all in all, I think my problem is basically solved. YAY! I still have one more thing to try, that is actually putting the hard disks on separate IDE channels. I can't do that now because my IDE cables are too short, so I had to put my hard disks as primary master and slave, and my CD and DVD drive as secondary master and slave.

Lesson: DAWs are a major pain in the ass to setup. It's evil, I tell you. It takes the musician and performer out of you, your social life drops, and your face starts to look ugly from all the tension!!

Anyway, thanks for all the responses in this thread, I really appreciate it. I, for one, am very glad that my nightmares are all over!

- Nash
 
Oh, one quick question:

What's the optimum temperature that my system should stay on? It's currently averaging at around 43 degrees celcius.

I am considering what thewreck and fraserhutch said about the possibility of my power supply just not being powerful enough. I really hope that's not causing the random restarts though...
 
NashBackslash said:
Oh, one quick question:

What's the optimum temperature that my system should stay on? It's currently averaging at around 43 degrees celcius.
Click to expand...

That's very good, assuming you mean CPU temperature.
 
Sorry to bump this thread. I am still experiencing random restarts. Not during recording, but during mixing.

Recording is not a problem anymore - I can even record 10 tracks at 96KHz 24 bit really smoothly. Once the time comes to mixing them, the CPU usage meters are starting to get close to 50%... obviously it won't be as much with lower sampling rates (I usually go for 48KHz). But it would still randomly restart.

Also, sometimes listening to MP3s with Windows Media Player would just make the PC restart. I have the visualizations on. Is it merely because of my crappy video card? Would upgrading my video card fix the problem?

Also, I don't think it has anything to do with temperature. Both my system temp and CPU temp are averaging at 40 to 45 degrees celcius.

So now the big question is - is there any way at all to really trace where is the problem coming from? I really don't know where to start finding... any ideas?
 
Sorry to bump this thread again. I love to think that I with each passing day, I am lot closer to solving this problem completely and can finally start mixing with zero problems.

Here's the current situation: Recording is no longer an issue. The soundcard seems to be able to handle recording quite well, even with 16 tracks at 24/96KHz.

The computer STILL restarts randomly when I'm mixing.

Upon further investigation, I find that the computer will pretty much restart when sound is being played. That includes watching videos, listening to songs in Media Player, and of course, mixing.

I did a bit of research, and apparently VIA motherboards suck. However, there was a "PCI Latency Patch" released by a certain George Breese that was supposed to fix the whole mess.

I really don't have money to shell out on a new motherboard, so here's what I did yesterday:

A) Updated BIOS flash memory to the latest version supplied by my motherboard's manufacturer.
B) Formatted system, installed WinXP SP2 as "Advanced Configuration Power Interface (ACPI) computer"
C) Installed latest VIA 4 in 1 drivers
D) Installed VIA IDE accelerator
E) Downgraded Firewire drivers to SP1's.
F) Installed George Breese's PCI Latency Patch.
G) Did several registry tweaks recommended by a certain DAW setup article.

Performance does SEEM to be better, but the restars are STILL there.

I have come to the point where I feel like throwing the computer out the window. The restarts are happening WAY TOO OFTEN. I am losing my patience. I CANNOT WORK LIKE THIS!

And then I had an idea. I tried making the computer not restart automatically when a fatal error occurs. It was this checkbox that I unticked. Did the usual mixing, and BOOM it happened again. But this time it didn't restart... a blue screen appeared.

DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

STOP: 0x000000D1, (0x0000000C, 0x00000002, 0x00000000, 0xF7291BCE)

portcls.sys address: F7291BCE base at F728A000, datestamp 411007f13
Click to expand...

Hmmm. Now that's new. DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL?

Does this mean anything to any of you here?

Also, VIA users with the P4266AM chipset, PLEASE share your experiences. Save this dying soul! :/

EDIT:

I am using the MOTU 828 MKII audio interface, and a Creative Audgy LS soundcard to monitor metronome and basic MIDI tracks. Both are updated to their latest drivers.

For the Creative, I set it to "Do not map through this device".

In all my audio software, the Creative is never used; I only use "MOTU Main Outs" as my sound drivers. The ONLY place where the Creative is used is for MIDI output for Sonar 3.0, so I can hear the metronome.
 
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