sonar 1.3.1 crashing (protected memory exception)

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erichenryus

erichenryus

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Anyone else hitting this problem? It seems to be pretty random, but frequent. Can't really work for more than about 15 minutes before it just shuts down and reboots my computer. The dr. watson log says a protected memory exception occured and gives me a stack dump (like I'm gonna know what that means!)

Cakewalk support says it's an IRQ problem but I've got my machine as Standard PC and there are no shared IRQ's. I fear that I'm gonna have to replace parts piece by piece until it stops! I guess I'll start with the memory.

My rig:
ASUS A7M266(sound disabled, running at 133FSB), Athalon XP1900+, 512M Crucial DDR ram, 3-60 gig Deskstars, Matrox G450, Echo Mona (in slot 3), Linksys Ethernet in slot 5 (disabled until needed), Midiman USB Midi 1X1
 
When this happens to me at work it is usually the result of an application trying to access memory that it shouldn't, that is, one program is trying to write data in an area reserved for another program. It can also be a symptom of audio and video drivers being trashed (over written or corrupted by some other program). This sort of thing often happens after down loading applications from the internet.

The offending program could be some background task, could be your sequencer software...could be anything.

What often helps is to restore your system to a safe state by removing all the hardware and software you've added to it, then start re-installing things until the problem re-occurs. This may give you a clue what is causing the problem. Don't forget to reload drivers as well.
 
I have the same mobo as you. I would say you have the right approach it is almost certainly a hardware issue.

1) If it crashes at samish amount of minutes evry time from cold (and I mean not on for 1 hr) then suspect a heat related problem. Usually processor fan.

2) Computer power supplies are often unreliable try swapping this out first.

3) Early DDR memory was unreliable, swap that out.

4) Upgrade A7M266 Bios to 1007 (latest)

5) If all this fails remove all boards except video and see if this fixes it. Then swap out video card.

6) Check small support chip fan on motherboard (this tends to fail eventually)

7) Pray
 
Thanks for the reply. Last night I reinstalled everything from the os up. Win2k, DirectX, Linksys Driver, Echo Driver, Midiman Drivers, then Sonar. Nothing else. Same problem. I'll try reverting back a couple rev's on the Echo drivers and maybe going back to Direct X 8.0.
 
Was this a "clean" re-install. You must re-format etc...
I used to have severe probs with this Asus board in Win 98 until I upgraded to Win XP and new bios. So perhaps it is a software/driver problem after all! Now all works great.
 
John Hoe. Thanks for the advice. Yes, it was clean. Reformatted the os drive. I'm gonna run the system monitor and watch the heat levels. I'll update the BIOS as well.

Been entertaining the thought of replacing the PS CPU fan anyway(CPU is LOUD). Someone else mentioned the chipset fan also so I'll check that.

Thanks.
 
Another thought....

You are using 3 hard discs. These can draw a lot of current. Can you try the system with just 1 drive to see if it's more stable?

What rating PS are u using? It should be as high rating (say 450W) and expensive as u can afford. Make sure it has a proper mounted heatsink inside the PS unit as rating is not the only criteria for buying a PS! Make sure the hard discs are mounted with plenty of air flowing between them ie not squashed together. (I get in trouble on this forum when I say this!!)
 
you know i was just thinking about removing one of the disks. i don't use it that much anyway. Two of the hard drives are encased in 'removable cooling units'. PS is 350W.

Last night I took a close look at the board and noticed that the VIO and VIO1 voltage settings were cranked all the way up (I had this custom built, and they did some strange things), so I dropped them to default levels. I also disabled all of the input drivers that I'm not using (the mona has 12 total) + disabled the mona midi capabilities in the driver (wierd, there are no midi capabilities really) and it was suspiciously more stable. Watched the heat levels the whole time and the CPU never went above 50C. I think that's ok.

From what I'm reading, I'm hearing a lot of people echoing comments that swapping their PSU with an Enermax is always a good idea. I think I'll do that, along with buying some quiter fans!

Johnhoe, Thanks a lot for your input. I feel confident that I can get back to recording now and stop worrying about the necessary evil of computer hardware for a while.
 
Sounds like hardware. I don't think IRQ causes protection errors - just lockups and mangled sound playback.
Trust you have latest drivers?
If the USB system is VIA - that may cause trouble. Disable onboard USB and get a USB2 card - they are cheap. Nobody recommends VIA USB chips for midi/audio interfaces because they are not to the right spec.
Suspicious of those three drives - you need at least 250watt psu - 300watt better. The 60gig IBM deskstars were the subject of a "class action" against IBM for unreliability. 3 of them in there would scare the hell out of me!
 
Jim Y....is that the Jim Y of VSplanet fame? It's about time you found this place! Just last month?! Well, welcome to Homerecording.com. I love this site. I get alot of help just from reading the posts here.

Cya
 
This thread alone was more helpful than anything I've gotten back from both Echo and Cakewalk support combined. Cakewalk said "It's ACPI, wait no it's the mona card" and they may well be right so I can't slam them but Echo.....they have yet to respond!

Thanks guys.
 
Also...Jim Y, on that IBM issue....I have a 40GB Deskstar in my system as my audio drive, and am beginning to wonder about it. It passes all scandisks, and seems to defrag fine, but from time to time, it hangs, especially if left on for a long time, and it's always that particular drive that comes up doing a scandisk and finding crosslink errors during Windows XP Pro boot up. What exactly are they saying about these drives, and does that include the 40GB...or where can I find more info about it...?...any idea?!
 
Yes Tom. It is I, Jim Y.
Sorry to be scary about the IBM drives.
All I can remember is that a 60gig IDE model (60GXP range?) in particular gave trouble - I think it was the bearings because this drive used 4 15gig platters. IBM caused a stink by stating in the "small print" that the drives were not suitable for 24/7 operation after getting returns from people who had installed the drives in servers. IBM have now removed this rider and the current 120GXP range should be OK.
I have a 15gig IBM as my system disc and so far (nearly 2 years) it's been fine - I guess it only has one platter and must be a 60GXP. My Audio drive is newer (40 gig IBM). I have yet to see any trouble I could attribute to my drives. Being paranoid- I disable Windows "Write behind caching" and this forces an immediate write to disc rather than it being deferred to RAM. Hopefully, any drive problem should show up immediately.

It's a good point about seperating the drives to keep cool. Continous seeking raises the temperature a lot. As the drives head carriers and discs expand, the drive may need to "recalibrate" itself which you certainly don't want to happen during a take!
If you have IBM drives and are interested in seeing how hot they get - you can download a DOS utility (It makes a bootable floppy so will work on an XP pc) from IBM that will display the drives internal temperature sensor and give it a good random seek workout.

I'm considering getting an Aluminium (Sorry, Aluminum!), case - Lian Li or Coolermaster. It's expensive but looks cool (pun intended) and does a better job of conducting the heat away from the drives than the usual steel which just collects the heat and hangs on to it.
 
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