Hello,
 
I've had Producer X2 for about 4 months.  I use it daily.  It crashes all the time.  It seems to be easily overwhelmed.
I bought a new laptop just for X2.  Its a lenevo idea pad, i5 processor, 4GB memory, 500GB hard drive.
 
I don't know what i'm doing to make it crash ALL THE TIME.
 
Has anyone had this problem?
Thanks,
 
Richard

lahteedah
I've had Producer X2 for about 4 months.  I use it daily.  It crashes all the time.  It seems to be easily overwhelmed.
I bought a new laptop just for X2.  Its a lenevo idea pad, i5 processor, 4GB memory, 500GB hard drive.
 
I don't know what i'm doing to make it crash ALL THE TIME.

Crashing can stem from multiple sources (RAM, drivers, bridged 32Bit plugins, etc).
What are you using as an audio interface?
 
I'd take a methodical trouble-shooting approach to find the culprit.
 
Start by testing your system's RAM (using Memtest)... then I'd run a stress-test to make sure the core hardware is OK.
DDR3 is the most common hardware component to fail in a modern machine.  Don't assume that because it's new that all is well.  Test to be 100% sure.
Once you're sure the core hardware is OK, then the issue is config, driver, or software related.
 
Check to see what's running in the background.
Lenovo (by default) has 101 applets installed/running in the background.
Uninstall the "sludge" and shutdown anything that's not absolutely necessary.
 
Next, check your system's DPC latency.
To effectively work at low audio latency, you need the system's DPC latency to be low/consistent.
Any large spikes will cause dropouts/glitches.
 
If you're using the laptop's onboard audio, get a dedicated audio interface (rock-solid USB units can be had for ~$200) that offers a proper ASIO driver.
 
With 4GB of RAM, extensive projects (especially those with plugins that load large sample libraries into RAM  - like Superior 2.0), can easily consume more than 4GB of RAM.
At best, this would cause the machine to constantly hit the VM swapfile... which kills performance.
At worst, it could cause the machine to crash.
 
If you're using 32Bit plugins in the 64Bit version of Sonar, they're bridged.
Some plugins cope well with being bridged... others don't.  This is a common source of issues.
You can try jBridge (3rd party bridging application)... to see if that resolves issues with a particular problematic 32Bit plugin/s.
 
If you go step-by-step, you can solve (or work around) most issues.

Can you give more info about about your laptop aso?
The hd  (if 5400 rpm) can also be a reason for crashes  

Jim Roseberry

lahteedah
I've had Producer X2 for about 4 months.  I use it daily.  It crashes all the time.  It seems to be easily overwhelmed.
I bought a new laptop just for X2.  Its a lenevo idea pad, i5 processor, 4GB memory, 500GB hard drive.
 
I don't know what i'm doing to make it crash ALL THE TIME.

Crashing can stem from multiple sources (RAM, drivers, bridged 32Bit plugins, etc).
What are you using as an audio interface?
 
I'd take a methodical trouble-shooting approach to find the culprit.
 
Start by testing your system's RAM (using Memtest)... then I'd run a stress-test to make sure the core hardware is OK.
DDR3 is the most common hardware component to fail in a modern machine.  Don't assume that because it's new that all is well.  Test to be 100% sure.
Once you're sure the core hardware is OK, then the issue is config, driver, or software related.
 
Check to see what's running in the background.
Lenovo (by default) has 101 applets installed/running in the background.
Uninstall the "sludge" and shutdown anything that's not absolutely necessary.
 
Next, check your system's DPC latency.
To effectively work at low audio latency, you need the system's DPC latency to be low/consistent.
Any large spikes will cause dropouts/glitches.
 
If you're using the laptop's onboard audio, get a dedicated audio interface (rock-solid USB units can be had for ~$200) that offers a proper ASIO driver.
 
With 4GB of RAM, extensive projects (especially those with plugins that load large sample libraries into RAM  - like Superior 2.0), can easily consume more than 4GB of RAM.
At best, this would cause the machine to constantly hit the VM swapfile... which kills performance.
At worst, it could cause the machine to crash.
 
If you're using 32Bit plugins in the 64Bit version of Sonar, they're bridged.
Some plugins cope well with being bridged... others don't.  This is a common source of issues.
You can try jBridge (3rd party bridging application)... to see if that resolves issues with a particular problematic 32Bit plugin/s.
 
If you go step-by-step, you can solve (or work around) most issues.

I have E-MU 0404 USB soundcard (ASIO).  This is very helpful, Jim.  I'll go down list tonight.
 
Thank you!

Pragi
Can you give more info about about your laptop aso?
The hd  (if 5400 rpm) can also be a reason for crashes  

I do believe it IS 5400rpm.
 
dang it.
 
 
 

lahteedah
 
Hello,
 
I've had Producer X2 for about 4 months.  I use it daily.  It crashes all the time.  It seems to be easily overwhelmed.
I bought a new laptop just for X2.  Its a lenevo idea pad, i5 processor, 4GB memory, 500GB hard drive.
 
I don't know what i'm doing to make it crash ALL THE TIME.
 
Has anyone had this problem?
Thanks,
 
Richard

As others have stated there can be multiple root causes of the crashes. I was using my home office computer with 3.4 GHz i7-2600 with 16 GB or RAM. It was very stable unless I tried to run two or more instances of sample modeling brass/wind instruments. Crashed every time. Solution was to "freeze" the soft-synths.
I then purchased an ADK Pro computer as shown in my signature. It can take anything I can throw at it. Expensive but I can't leave it all to the kids...
 
Walt
 
 

Pragi
The hd  (if 5400 rpm) can also be a reason for crashes  

I hate this kind of uninformed misinformation. A 5400 RPM drive will merely slow loading of the operating system, slow large program load times and data access. It will not crash Microsoft Word. It will not crash Adobe Photoshop. It will not crash Sonar X2.
 
Sonar X2 is crash-prone though when compared to other DAWs on the same system.
 
KEv

lahteedah

Pragi
Can you give more info about about your laptop aso?
The hd  (if 5400 rpm) can also be a reason for crashes  

I do believe it IS 5400rpm.
 
dang it.
 
 
 

Hi,
if it´s 5400 rpm and you want to record aso, I would recommend to change it for a 7200 rpm or ssd,
because most of the 5400rpm  hd´s need more then 15 ms to read, means you are having 
tooooo loooong latencies. 

To the OP...did you previously run X1 on the same system? If so, was it stable? Curious whether this is X2 vs X1 or just Sonar crashing on your machine?

Pragi

lahteedah

Pragi
Can you give more info about about your laptop aso?
The hd  (if 5400 rpm) can also be a reason for crashes  

I do believe it IS 5400rpm.
 
dang it.
 
 
 

Hi,
if it´s 5400 rpm and you want to record aso, I would recommend to change it for a 7200 rpm or ssd,
because most of the 5400rpm  hd´s need more then 15 ms to read, means you are having 
tooooo loooong latencies. 

For hard drives the important parameter of interest is "Access Time" or the time it takes before the drive can actually transfer data. The two main components of access time are "Seek Time", which is the time it takes for the Voice Coil Actuator to move the head assembly to the specific track where the required data is stored, and "Rotational Latency" which is the delay time waiting for the rotation of the disk to bring the required disk sector under the read-write head.
 
Depending on the design of the HDD, a 5400 RPM drive might have a faster access time than a 7200 RPM drive. Need to check the specs and get the fastest/highest capacity you can afford.
 
Walt