Recent increase in dropouts

[Fab4ever]

Hello all.

Sorry to bother with such a basic question, but I"m hoping you can help a NON computer expert.

I've got a Pentium III 1-gig with 512 mg of RAM running, ahem, Win 98SE. (Hold your jeers please). I have Sonar 2.2 XL. I also have two hard drives, one for apps and the other only for audio (7200 rpm).

The question is, in recent days I"ve been getting the dreaded audio dropout - and the thing is, I drop out recording the very first audio track in a stinking song! At 24/48! Plus, songs that used to play just fine with a dozen tracks or so are getting stuck.

My system in the past has run a good dozen tracks, with multiple plug-ins, without much trouble. Obviously some setting has changed.

I'll tell you what I've done: I've elminated programs running in the background (by using control-alt-delete). I've turned off the auto-notify function of my cdr. I have cut back all plug-ins.

I should also tell you that my CPU monitor in Sonar reads as low as 2-4 percent... then suddenly it'll spike to 50 or even 75 percent, for no apparent reason.


What are some potential things I'm overlooking?

Fab

 

[Fab4ever]

Slack? Anyone?

 

[maestro_dmc]

Did you De-frag?
Hardrive set to DMA?
What do you mean by drop-outs?
Pops & Clicks?
Missing sections of audio?
Timing problems?


I have 98SE too BTW so no jeers here!( and CWPA8)

 

[Fab4ever]

I have defragged. I will double check to see that DMA is enabled, but I believe it is.

By dropout, and mean that either recording or playback STOPS and I get the message from Sonar that says I've experienced a dropout.

I have found some stuff thru the search function here about changing some deep settings in an ini file... so I'll try that and let you know.

I