Meno


Mesh...

I know you are trying to get the USB working but I'm kinda stuck on your RAM issue. Let us know if you solved the problem last night ...I had these problems when I had Vista Ultimate also and its all starting to come back. I had that exact same mouse...think I still do. I switched to G9 Laser which is wired because I was getting so much mouse lag with the wireless and when I would try to adjust level slider's in Sonar it was just terrible. So I went back to wired and love this Logitech mouse.

Just a thought...do you have on-board video adapter on this motherboard? If so do you use this or do you use a separate added PCI video card. ? In either case it if it is enabled in the BIOS this would also cause you to see less memory because the on-board video would be accessing your added RAM and using some of it. 

When you reset the CMOS this would have reverted BIOS back to factory defaults and they usually enable on-board video if it is there.

Just a thought!

Excellent point Meno.
 
The RAM variance (now 2.5GB vs. what it used to be 3.xx) isn't a whole lot of difference, but my hardware hasn't changed so I was expecting the same figures as before)
 
I do have PCI video card, but can't remember about the on-board video being enabled or disabled.....will check tonight.
 
Until this recent problem, I was using that wireless mouse without any issues.......so, I'm hoping it'll be working with the drivers I just installed.
 
Thanks so much for your help!!
 
 
Ps.
Have you used any of those Vista tweaks or any others that you can recommend?
 
 
 
 

  
Ps.
Have you used any of those Vista tweaks or any others that you can recommend?

Mesh-
When you say "those Vista Tweaks" what are you referring to? Something like TWEEKVISTA by Stardock?
http://www.stardock.com/products/tweakvista/
 
I used to get crazy with all the tweaking and not for nothing I think the only way I would have noticed much of a difference was if I was a performance test machine. Now I only tweek the BIOS and turn off unnecessary things like the parallel port because I used a wireless or a USB printer, and may be make sure the Primary video card is set to the correct type slot...PCI-E or AGP (depends on your video card type) stuff like that.
As far as OS settings I would follow the Cakewalk recommendation’s. (like adjusting the Performance Options/Adjust For Best Performance) and Virtual Memory paging size. Cakewalk had an insert they used to include when you would buy their Sonar in retail box.
 
Thing is that since I have gone to Windows 7 I don’t seem to need to touch anything. So I hope someday you can upgrade because you will find that 90% of the things you think about/ mess with in Vista have gone away. It’s been tough trying to remember all the things I used to try and do to get better performance out of Vista 32bit and memory issues.
 
On any of my systems I use the following…Microsoft Security Essentials-Free/Malware Bytes-Antimalware/Secunia PSI/CCleaner and a good defragmenter…PerfectDisk. These items keep my PC clean as a whistle and do not interfere with DAW and latency. Also note that I never seem to have to re-install Windows at all since I went to Windows 7.
When you first install the OS everything runs awesome and as you start to add things you start to notice performance drops over time. Memory is used up and the PC gets cluttered. Therefore the need for certain software like a good defragmenter to help.
 
Here is a link you may want to read up on. I scanned through these and I used to do most of the tweaks but again I can’t honestly say I noticed great performance boost. Pick and choose wisely is all I can say.
 
If you have a question about a certain Tweak I have no prob trying to help.
 
[size=3 font="times new roman"][link=http://www.acousticguitarcommunity.com/group/cakewalksonarusers/forum/topics/pc-tweaks-for-better-daw?commentId=2161554%3AComment%3A290344&groupId=2161554%3AGroup%3A270763]http://www.acousticguitar...61554%3AGroup%3A270763[/link]
 

Hi Meno.
Sorry, I haven't had much time to work on my system lately and didn't reply to this earlier.

I actually do use a lot of the software you mentioned above including the free Advanced System Care (ASC) which has kept my PC optimized/clean. I disabled the Registry Clean that came with ASC as that was the only thing that was messing with Sonar. I also do all the Cakewalk suggestions.
It's the Vista tweaks I was actually asking about (like http://www.winvistaclub.com/ultimate_windows_tweaker.html) as Vista is a resource hog.

I'll post once I read up on it more. 

 

Dang...I put the wrong link in. It was supposed to be for Vista not Windows 7. I'll try and find it and post later. 

For now there is a ton of info at the link below. Use at your own discretion as I am sure you are aware.



http://www.tweakheadz.com...ooting_audio_cards.htm

Meno


Dang...I put the wrong link in. It was supposed to be for Vista not Windows 7. I'll try and find it and post later. 

For now there is a ton of info at the link below. Use at your own discretion as I am sure you are aware.



http://www.tweakheadz.com/troubleshooting_audio_cards.htm

Thanks Meno for the link. I remember reading that site when I first built this DAW in 2007......lot's of great info there.
 
Last night I tried to install X1 (which was already unzipped on another internal drive), but when trying to run (as administrator), it looks like it's trying to install (the hourglass/ball thingy is turning), but nothing happens. In task mgr.,  it shows "Sonar Running", but nothing happens. (I used this same X1 install file before Zune corrupted my system, but not sure why this happening).
Of note, after every reboot, Vista keeps trying to install a driver for a multimedia controller and hasn't been able to install by it searching the internet. It then asks me to load the CD that has the driver for it.....and I don't have it (not sure what this controller is even after looking/updating through Device Mgr.).
 
The USB ports in the back of the PC work, but the one's on the side don't work. I'm wondering if I haven't flashed my BIO's correctly and these problems (unable to get my wireless Microsoft Mouse to work, USB port on the side not working, installing Sonar issue etc...) might be due to that?
 
I tried doing it from Vista through the ASUS BIO's updater, but it keeps kicking it out saying the servor is busy......I downloaded it on a flash drive (unzipped), but not sure how to do it that route (I honestly haven't given this enough reading the manual). There's also something called EZ Flash (in BIO's), but I'm not sure if I did it correctly.....
How can I check the version of BIOS's that's already there?
 
Regarding the onboard graphics card, I looked in BIOS (through all the menu options) and couldn't find any place that showed it was using that....
 
     

According to these videos the BIOS version should be available in the BIOS settings or in the right hand upper corner of the BIOS screen. 

These videos will also show you how to flash the bios using the EZ Flash setup in the Bios. Second a bit more detailed. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQKQj_aASCQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcuVdY0MimQ 


As far as the driver issue I am thinking that you may need to re-install your "MOTHERBOARD" drivers that came with your motherboard. If you don't have the CD then use the Asus LiveUpdate Utility. This is what I use on my other PC. I would do the manual install of the CD first if you have it. If the USB ports still don't work then it may be loose cabling inside PC. 

Video Adapter settings should be an option under Primary Video somewhere. Not knowing exact motherboard is making this all guesswork...so if you want to post that it will help.


Let me know what happens after you try this and we can see how install goes...if it still fails then we can check from there.

First of all Meno (John?), I'd like to sincerely thank you for all the advice, patience, and the detailed walk-through you've helped me out wiith on my system. It's certainly much appreciated and I'm very grateful for all your help.

Please disregard the info on my previous post about running as Admin/hourglass not responding etc.... as Vista was just taking a longer time to respond, but eventually (maybe a few min) a window popped up with asking me if I "Allow" or not for the app to install. Strangely, (when trying to install other software), this Admin pop up window is sometime really quick, and other times very slow.....go figure.

Anyway, I was able to install X1 Expanded and I'm in the slooow process of installing all the other software.   

Sorry, my MOBO info was a bit hidden in the OP: ASUS M2N-E SLI 

I tried the Asus LiveUpdate Utility and manually selected which server to download from which seem to work.......after it completed the DL, a window popped up (not sure if it was asking a location to install the DL or if it was looking a folder/file to complete the update) and I selected my ASUS folder (under Programs), but that didn't pan out to anything. The only choice I had was to Cancel the operation.....(I'll try to get more specifics on this (hopefully tonight when I can check the Video Adapter setting as well)).

On a seperate note, I was wondering if it's really worth my time to try & tweak Vista as I don't want to run into a mess later on. In the past, I had pretty good success running X1 inside a freeware called Gambooster (Advanced System Care).
It basicall temporarily shut down a lot of the unnecessary background windows apps so that those resources could be applied to X1 (kind of like a shell over X1). When I was done using X1 and closed it, Gamebooster would return back to it's original settings. I think the reall issue I'll always have is the RAM limitations in a 32bit environment. 

Thanks so much Meno (again) for all your help!!!