Need advice for setting up my PC for X1.

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Bub
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2011/01/11 23:31:15 (permalink)

Need advice for setting up my PC for X1.

Hi everyone,

I'm going to be putting a second HDD in my PC and I want to format and reload everything when i do this. Basically a fresh start. I've been having quite frequent crashes with X1 and some with 8.5, but extremely rare. I'm open to the idea that it could be something wrong with my system or the way I have it set up.

Is there any advice anyone could give in what I should do when I do the fresh install? For example, I assumed the C++ files would have been updated automatically by Windows Update, but I recently found out I have to do it manually. When I install Windows, is there anything else I'll have to update or adjust like C++ that isn't done automatically with Windows Update? I have already downloaded the latest drivers for my mobo, mobo bios, video card, and audio unit.

I checked, and my HDD's support NCQ so I was planning on enabling AHCI mode and activating NCQ.

Here are my system specs:

Mobo: Gigabyte GA-P55M-UD2
CPU: i5 750 2.66Ghz Quad Core
RAM: 4Gb 1333 Kingston
VIDEO: Sapphire HD5450
HDD: WD Caviar Blue 7200RPM SATA 320Gb 3.0/Gb Trans. Rate 16Mb Cache
M-Audio Fast Track Ultra USB
Windows 7 Professional 64bit
Cakewalk Sonar X1 Producer 64bit
Cakewalk Sonar 8.5 Producer 64bit
Nothing overclocked.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Bub

"I pulled the head off Elvis, filled Fred up to his pelvis, yaba daba do, the King is gone, and so are you."
#1

15 Replies Related Threads

    Katie_Katie
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    Re:Need advice for setting up my PC for X1. 2011/01/11 23:47:16 (permalink)
    Looks nice.  I'll only comment on the NCQ.  If you are running RAID, turn it off.   As to a single drive, it most likely will not help or harm.  NCQ is mainly for concurrent access (read:servers) and it has a bit of overhead.  You can find more, I am sure, on the good and bad of NCQ on server forums.
     
     
    Nice kit,
    Good Luck
     

    Katherine  

    #2
    VigilantSound
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    Re:Need advice for setting up my PC for X1. 2011/01/12 00:00:11 (permalink)

    ASUS P5BV-C, Intel Core 2 Quad 2.8 Ghz, Q9300,
    4 gigs Ram, Win7-64 bit OSX 10.6
    ADK 9000 I7, 6 gigs Ram, MacBookPro I7, 4 gigs Ram
    MOTU 828Mk3, MOTU microbookII
    SONAR PE X2A, Pro Tools 9.0.6, StudioOnePro 2.5.4
    Ableton Live 9, Waves V.9, 


    www.jesseahemmanuel.com




    #3
    Bub
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    Re:Need advice for setting up my PC for X1. 2011/01/12 00:36:36 (permalink)
    Katie_Katie


    Looks nice.  I'll only comment on the NCQ.  If you are running RAID, turn it off.   As to a single drive, it most likely will not help or harm.  NCQ is mainly for concurrent access (read:servers) and it has a bit of overhead.  You can find more, I am sure, on the good and bad of NCQ on server forums.
     
     
    Nice kit,
    Good Luck
    Thanks Katie. I've been doing some more digging around on the net about NCQ and TCQ. Some say to enable TCQ and disable NCQ and some say to disable both.

    Thanks again.

    Bub


    "I pulled the head off Elvis, filled Fred up to his pelvis, yaba daba do, the King is gone, and so are you."
    #4
    Bub
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    Re:Need advice for setting up my PC for X1. 2011/01/12 00:38:35 (permalink)
    VigilantSound


    Window 7 tweaks from Presonus

    Windows Vista tweaks Should work for 7 as well.
    Wow! That article at Sweetwater about the Vista tweaks was an eye opener. It goes directly against some things I've read here. Hmm.

    Very informative, thanks for the links!

    Bub


    "I pulled the head off Elvis, filled Fred up to his pelvis, yaba daba do, the King is gone, and so are you."
    #5
    Bub
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    Re:Need advice for setting up my PC for X1. 2011/01/12 11:49:25 (permalink)
    Bumped to see if I could get any more input.

    Thanks.

    Bub

    "I pulled the head off Elvis, filled Fred up to his pelvis, yaba daba do, the King is gone, and so are you."
    #6
    StarTekh
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    Re:Need advice for setting up my PC for X1. 2011/01/12 12:03:11 (permalink)
    Bub


    Bumped to see if I could get any more input.

    Thanks.

    Bub


       Get off of Vista . Win7 64b .. i have a 4 drive system
       2 drives for xp32b 8.5.3 .. 2 drives for win7 64b X-1

       the chipset drivers/inf drivers and video and audio
     were updated then X-1  installd. it works fine over here
      and I do not see any of the issues others are having..
     so far.. jon
    #7
    gustabo
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    Re:Need advice for setting up my PC for X1. 2011/01/12 14:03:09 (permalink)


    Cakewalk by Bandlab - Win10 Pro x64 - StudioCat Platinum Studio DAW - 32 GB Ram - MOTU UltraLite-mk3
    M-Audio Keystation 88ES - Akai MPD26 (hot-rodded) - Alesis DM10 - a few guitars, a few amps
    Novation Launch Control - Korg nanoKONTROL2 - PreSonus FaderPort - DAW Remote HD on iPad
    Adam A7X - Behritone C50A
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    https://www.facebook.com/groups/sonarusergroup/

    #8
    Peter J
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    Re:Need advice for setting up my PC for X1. 2011/01/12 20:08:29 (permalink)
    Howdy Tweakers,

    I know that some tipsters recommend turning off System Restore.  I remember reading an article by Craig Anderton where he counseled leaving Restore on for the system drive (usually C:) and turn it off for the music recording drive(s.)  I have followed  this and have no problems.  System Restore has saved my butt many times.

    I know others counsel using a drive imaging program and image the C: system drive.  To this I say, "Yes, that too."  Restore can be tamed with command line tool VSSAdmin.  

    -Phoen1x
     
    the artist formerly known as Peter J
     
    new music soon from Tightrope Fortune!
     
    The *brand new* Phoen1xDAW:
    Core i5 3.3 GHz on Asus P8B75-M
    32 GB Mushkin Blackline RAM
    (2) Seagate 1 TB HD's
    1 GB nVidia Vid
    Win 7 Pro SP1
    SONAR X3!
     
    My DAW is not cutting edge. It is middle-of-the-blade super bang for the buck! The BAM is in the RAM. ;-|
     
    #9
    VigilantSound
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    Re:Need advice for setting up my PC for X1. 2011/01/13 07:19:26 (permalink)
    gustabo


    Win 7 Tuning Tips from NI
    Win XP Tuning Tips from NI


    I likes These one's as well..

    ASUS P5BV-C, Intel Core 2 Quad 2.8 Ghz, Q9300,
    4 gigs Ram, Win7-64 bit OSX 10.6
    ADK 9000 I7, 6 gigs Ram, MacBookPro I7, 4 gigs Ram
    MOTU 828Mk3, MOTU microbookII
    SONAR PE X2A, Pro Tools 9.0.6, StudioOnePro 2.5.4
    Ableton Live 9, Waves V.9, 


    www.jesseahemmanuel.com




    #10
    chuckebaby
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    Re:Need advice for setting up my PC for X1. 2011/01/13 08:40:30 (permalink)
    not to get away from this post..but the faq isnt working..so im wondering how do i make a post asking a question?
    #11
    Freddie H
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    Re:Need advice for setting up my PC for X1. 2011/01/13 08:48:36 (permalink)
    Bub


    Hi everyone,

    I'm going to be putting a second HDD in my PC and I want to format and reload everything when i do this. Basically a fresh start. I've been having quite frequent crashes with X1 and some with 8.5, but extremely rare. I'm open to the idea that it could be something wrong with my system or the way I have it set up.

    Is there any advice anyone could give in what I should do when I do the fresh install? For example, I assumed the C++ files would have been updated automatically by Windows Update, but I recently found out I have to do it manually. When I install Windows, is there anything else I'll have to update or adjust like C++ that isn't done automatically with Windows Update? I have already downloaded the latest drivers for my mobo, mobo bios, video card, and audio unit.

    I checked, and my HDD's support NCQ so I was planning on enabling AHCI mode and activating NCQ.

    Here are my system specs:

    Mobo: Gigabyte GA-P55M-UD2
    CPU: i5 750 2.66Ghz Quad Core
    RAM: 4Gb 1333 Kingston
    VIDEO: Sapphire HD5450
    HDD: WD Caviar Blue 7200RPM SATA 320Gb 3.0/Gb Trans. Rate 16Mb Cache
    M-Audio Fast Track Ultra USB
    Windows 7 Professional 64bit
    Cakewalk Sonar X1 Producer 64bit
    Cakewalk Sonar 8.5 Producer 64bit
    Nothing overclocked.

    Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

    Thanks,

    Bub
    An Intel SSD for windows 7-------> no brainer. It will give you 20-40% in performance boost. Virtual memory set to that drive.
     
     
    Rest can be normal SATA 300-drives set to fake RAID "Raid 1" in Windows 7 x64. Samsung spinpoint F3 Tera-disk are really great . Great performance low noise..
    post edited by Freddie H - 2011/01/13 08:50:28


    -Highly developed spirits often encounter resistance from mediocre minds. -It really matters!
    #12
    Bub
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    Re:Need advice for setting up my PC for X1. 2011/01/17 03:07:29 (permalink)
    I wanted to check back in and give some results.

    I did all the Windows 7 adjustments that PreSonus recommends.

    So far I haven't had any crashes in X1 (knock on wood). The bugs are still there, but I haven't been crashing on a regular basis like I was.

    Another thing I noticed was how fast picture files load now. I have an HD camera and have approx 5,000 pictures I've taken that are 2.5 ~ 3 Mb on my external USB HDD.

    Normally when I would open a picture file it would take 1.5 ~ 2 seconds to fully load. This is an eternity in terms of computer speeds. After I did the PreSonus recommended settings I can click through my pictures as fast as I can double click and each one loads instantly.

    "I pulled the head off Elvis, filled Fred up to his pelvis, yaba daba do, the King is gone, and so are you."
    #13
    chrisharbin
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    Re:Need advice for setting up my PC for X1. 2011/01/17 03:13:43 (permalink)
    Glad to hear you are not getting the crashes (I'm knocking on wood too!) That's the thing that would drive me bonkers. I've had two. One was my favorite DP (roll) and the other was saving a "dummy" project with time sig/tempo changes. However, I'm not so sure it wasn't related to the bit bridge as that project does indeed have an AT3 sighting lol!

    i7 860/MSI mobo/8GB ram/win7x64ultimate/X2/profire 610/oxygen 61/running 48k currently.
    #14
    ...wicked
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    Re:Need advice for setting up my PC for X1. 2011/03/17 19:46:10 (permalink)
    Get a huge hard drive for images and just take a disk image at every stage. When I rebuilt I took three:
    • Full Windows install with all the basic utility apps (Foxit, Disk Defrag, RegCleaner and crap)
    • Windows with essential DAW apps installed (SONAR, Sound Forge, etc)
    • DAW with all the plugs
    I never use System Restore. Though it's probably faster for some quick roll-back when there's a problem it gives me peace of mind to just image the drive and go make some tea.

    For VSTs, I copied the whole folder over from the old machine onto the desktop and would just add a few at a time, so I could test and confirm. MOST times there wasn't a problem but occasionally one would be wonky, plus it gave me a chance to purge as this coincided with me going from "must have every free VST EVAR!" to "how few of these can I get away with?"


    ===========
    The Fog People
    ===========

    Intel i7-4790 
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    billions VSTs, some of which work    
    #15
    mikey
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    Re:Need advice for setting up my PC for X1. 2011/03/17 21:38:45 (permalink)
    Thanks Gustabo for those links...
    #16
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