Hi Gang...

Forgive me, but I'm somewhat new to this forum... I still often forget this topic separated from Sonar... ;-)

I'm struggling with getting 8.5.3 running on an old laptop

The machine is only XP and a single processor... Using a Presonus 22vsl interface...

I've got it running with an external USB audio drive. Cpu shows 10-15% range when streaming a half dozen frozen stereo tracks and drive is also near 10-15%...

Using WDM driver I get pops, crackles, and dropouts no matter how high I raise the latency...

It will not run the ASIO driver which Presonus usually does well. No matter how I change the sample rate, as soon as Sonar tries to play, it switches it to 96k... I have the Presonus ASIO set to 44.1 normally and I've tried raising it to 512 or 1024 but no matter what I do nor the sequence I do it, I keep getting the not compatible settings dialog... I also tried setting Sonar to 96k as it reports such available in WDM but I didn't think the Presonus stuff supported (some of their Studiolive AI now does)

So I've got the system as lean as I can see, but in task manager, the performance meter shows near 90% fluctuations constant for the system idle resource... That doesn't seem normal to me and I can't find anything running that shouldn't be... Even virus protection is off other than Windiws firewall...

Any ideas that I might try would be greatly appreciated!

I've posted about this in the Sonar forum and realized it's probably more correctly posted here...

Much Thanks!
Keni

Hi Keni,
Are your Presonus drivers up to date? Sonar shouldn't be switching the sample rate like you describe (which lead me to think the drivers might not be up to date). I always use ASIO and keep it at 48k (in standalone software as well as in Sonar). How much RAM do you have? (XP maxes out at 4GB and generally uses about 1 GB to run XP/software). 
 
Hopefully someone else might chime in on other solutions for you......(especially that 90% meter issue).

Do not have an XP machine anymore to test. Never had much luck using the Presonus WDM driver in Win7. The latest drivers do not support XP. According to the Presonus website only v1.1 and v1.2 drivers support XP. The v1.1 manual indicates the installers do not properly install the software on XP and provide a workaround. I would still try using the v1.1 driver anyway and see if it worked any better.

Thanks Guys...

Yes, I'm using the latest driver that Presonus claims XP support (1.2)

Very little memory? Maybe that's the issue? I've not run into that before and I ran 8.5.3 on win2000 with just as little for years... I never liked XP...

I usually run at 48 but I thiught I'd first get it running at 44.1 then change... I thought it might be easier. I too usually use ASIO with Presonus ever since they originally stopped supporting more than stereo I/o for WDM...

Here's hoping I get a newer machine soon! I think this one is killing me! ;-)

Keni

Keni

Here's hoping I get a newer machine soon! I think this one is killing me! ;-)

Keni

More like the other way around........it looks like this one is dying out on you.
 
Yeah, a newer machine will breathe new life into your creativity (hopefully give you a peace of mind) and concentrate on the important things.......making music!! 
 
Best of luck!!

I think you have misunderstood the system idle thread concept. Idle processes are only called when there are no higher priority processes requesting CPU time. When idle processes are taking up a large amount of CPU activity it actually means that there is a large amount of CPU capacity available for other processes (Sonar.exe for example). 
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_Idle_Process

slartabartfast
I think you have misunderstood the system idle thread concept. Idle processes are only called when there are no higher priority processes requesting CPU time. When idle processes are taking up a large amount of CPU activity it actually means that there is a large amount of CPU capacity available for other processes (Sonar.exe for example). 
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_Idle_Process

Thanks Slartibartfast...

I get that... Ok... But I just can't find why the audio (media player as well as 8.5.3) constantly cause a click and interruption in Audi playback...

This is the only driver I saw on their site that supports XP, so I don't know what else to try... As mentioned in the earlier messages in this thread, I can't seem to get ASIO to work at all...

Keni

Make sure the laptop's wi-fi adapter is disabled.

bitflipper
Make sure the laptop's wi-fi adapter is disabled.

Thanks bitflipper...

I've tried that and it didn't change anything... Now I'm thinking its a lack of memory? I just realized this old beast only has 1/2 gig! I was a bit shocked to see that thinking it had 2G...

I think I'm dead in the water with this thing... I'll continue using it as a charging station for my iKrap until I get a more respectable machine... I'm hoping to see it a week from tomorrow... Hard to comfortably wait when drowning, but that's what there is...

Now for my bigger dilemma of $150 upgrade disappearing soon! I gotta find a way to buy this even with my mortgage nearing 5 months in arrears! ;-)

Keni

Yeah Keni, that 1/2 a GB of memory isn't really going to cut it with all the demands of a DAW and will probably keep giving you more headaches down the road. Glad to hear you're getting newer machine and that should (hopefully) last you a good while.
Best of luck!!