Helpful Replyquestion about weakness of my pc's hardware

Author
Post
Essentials Only Full Version
SevadaX6
Max Output Level: -90 dBFS
  • Total Posts : 22
  • Joined: 2015/05/14 08:32:19
  • Status: offline
2016/02/13 06:53:20 (permalink)

question about weakness of my pc's hardware

Hi friends
when I work on projects in any DAW (usually Sonar Platinum) and the size of vst's increase,  problems and noises and even sometimes tempo reduction occurs. Also sometimes I encounter to the error : Audio stopped .
Many times when I unplug my sound card my windows freezes and I have to reset.
Which part of hardware (or software) must I change? These are my PC info:
Motherboard: Asus H97-Pro
CPU: intel(R) Core i5-4440 - 3.10 GHz
Ram: 4 * 4 (16) GB DDR3 1600
GPU: Nvidia Gforce GT730
HDD: WD 1TB + 3 TB
Power: Green GP530
Sound Card: Line 6 UX2 [Buffer size: extra small 256 - 16 bit]
DAW: Sonar Platinum
#1
List Solutions Only

26 Replies Related Threads
    Adq
    Max Output Level: -82 dBFS
    • Total Posts : 426
    • Joined: 2015/01/21 20:05:25
    • Status: offline
    Re: question about weakness of my pc's hardware 2016/02/13 08:10:34 (permalink)
    Hi!
    It's hard to say, in theory it must work fine.
    Do you use freeze? It is hard to make big projects without it, even on powerful CPUs.
    Anyway I strongly recommend you never use 16 bit, if you are not making final mp3.
    #2
    dwardzala
    Max Output Level: -61 dBFS
    • Total Posts : 1470
    • Joined: 2008/05/26 19:18:33
    • Status: offline
    Re: question about weakness of my pc's hardware 2016/02/13 09:52:32 (permalink)
    I'd look at the settings on your interface and/or freezing your midi tracks.  Are your samples stored on the same drive as your projects?

    Dave
    Main Studio- Core i5 @2.67GHz, 16Gb Ram, (2) 500Gb HDs, (1) 360 Gb HD
    MotU Ultralite AVB, Axiom 49 Midi Controller, Akai MPD18 Midi Controller
    Win10 x64 Home
    Sonar 2017.06 Platinum (and X3e, X2c, X1d)
     
    Mobile Studio - Sager NP8677 (i7-6700HQ @2.67MHz, 16G Ram, 250G SSD, 1T HD)
    M-Box Mini v. 2
    Win 10 x64 Home
    Sonar 2016.10 Platinum
     
    Check out my original music:
    https://soundcloud.com/d-wardzala/sets/d-wardzala-original-music
     
     
    #3
    SevadaX6
    Max Output Level: -90 dBFS
    • Total Posts : 22
    • Joined: 2015/05/14 08:32:19
    • Status: offline
    Re: question about weakness of my pc's hardware 2016/02/13 09:59:36 (permalink)
    dwardzala
    Are your samples stored on the same drive as your projects?



    No. My projects are in drive E (first HDD) and VSTs are in drive H (second HDD)
    #4
    JonD
    Max Output Level: -39 dBFS
    • Total Posts : 3617
    • Joined: 2003/12/09 11:09:10
    • Location: East of Santa Monica
    • Status: offline
    Re: question about weakness of my pc's hardware 2016/02/13 10:00:29 (permalink)
    Edit:  Disregard my comment about your ram.  I misread your specs.  Doh!
     
    Are either of your hard drives "green" drives?  These are not good for DAW use because of the power-saving features.

    SonarPlat/CWbBL, Win 10 Pro, i7 2600K, Asus P8Z68 Deluxe, 16GB DDR3, Radeon HD5450, TC Electronic Impact Twin, Kawai MP11 Piano, Event ALP Monitors, Beyerdynamic DT770 Pro, Too Many Plugins, My lucky hat.
    #5
    SevadaX6
    Max Output Level: -90 dBFS
    • Total Posts : 22
    • Joined: 2015/05/14 08:32:19
    • Status: offline
    Re: question about weakness of my pc's hardware 2016/02/13 10:10:52 (permalink)
    JonD
    Are either of your hard drives "green" drives?  These are not good for DAW use because of the power-saving features.



    My second HDD is purple but I don't know about first. I must open the case if it's necessary
    #6
    SevadaX6
    Max Output Level: -90 dBFS
    • Total Posts : 22
    • Joined: 2015/05/14 08:32:19
    • Status: offline
    Re: question about weakness of my pc's hardware 2016/02/13 10:17:28 (permalink)
    Adq
    Do you use freeze? It is hard to make big projects without it, even on powerful CPUs.
    Anyway I strongly recommend you never use 16 bit, if you are not making final mp3.




    I "Archive" the vsts after my project is completed and is ready to bounce. but while working they are active. I don't think my projects are so large! 
    #7
    JonD
    Max Output Level: -39 dBFS
    • Total Posts : 3617
    • Joined: 2003/12/09 11:09:10
    • Location: East of Santa Monica
    • Status: offline
    Re: question about weakness of my pc's hardware 2016/02/13 10:27:57 (permalink)
    SevadaX6
    JonD
    Are either of your hard drives "green" drives?  These are not good for DAW use because of the power-saving features.



    My second HDD is purple but I don't know about first. I must open the case if it's necessary




    I don't mean the actual color of the drive.  By "green" I mean eco-friendly (with power-saving features), like your power supply.
     
    And you don't need to open the case.  If you go to Device Manager - Disk Drives, your HDs will be listed by model.  You can then google them to see if  they're "green" or not.

    SonarPlat/CWbBL, Win 10 Pro, i7 2600K, Asus P8Z68 Deluxe, 16GB DDR3, Radeon HD5450, TC Electronic Impact Twin, Kawai MP11 Piano, Event ALP Monitors, Beyerdynamic DT770 Pro, Too Many Plugins, My lucky hat.
    #8
    SevadaX6
    Max Output Level: -90 dBFS
    • Total Posts : 22
    • Joined: 2015/05/14 08:32:19
    • Status: offline
    Re: question about weakness of my pc's hardware 2016/02/13 10:33:37 (permalink)
    JonD
     
     
    I don't mean the actual color of the drive.  By "green" I mean eco-friendly (with power-saving features), like your power supply.
     
    And you don't need to open the case.  If you go to Device Manager - Disk Drives, your HDs will be listed by model.  You can then google them to see if  they're "green" or not.




    Thanks. So my first HDD is : WD Blue 1 TB 
    and second is : WD Purple 3 TB
    #9
    JonD
    Max Output Level: -39 dBFS
    • Total Posts : 3617
    • Joined: 2003/12/09 11:09:10
    • Location: East of Santa Monica
    • Status: offline
    Re: question about weakness of my pc's hardware 2016/02/13 10:34:32 (permalink)
    BTW, what is your operating system (Win 7, 8.1, 10)?

    SonarPlat/CWbBL, Win 10 Pro, i7 2600K, Asus P8Z68 Deluxe, 16GB DDR3, Radeon HD5450, TC Electronic Impact Twin, Kawai MP11 Piano, Event ALP Monitors, Beyerdynamic DT770 Pro, Too Many Plugins, My lucky hat.
    #10
    SevadaX6
    Max Output Level: -90 dBFS
    • Total Posts : 22
    • Joined: 2015/05/14 08:32:19
    • Status: offline
    Re: question about weakness of my pc's hardware 2016/02/13 10:43:06 (permalink)
    JonD
    BTW, what is your operating system (Win 7, 8.1, 10)?


    Win 7 64 bit
    #11
    JonD
    Max Output Level: -39 dBFS
    • Total Posts : 3617
    • Joined: 2003/12/09 11:09:10
    • Location: East of Santa Monica
    • Status: offline
    Re: question about weakness of my pc's hardware 2016/02/13 10:43:21 (permalink)
    Have you done any of the basic PC "tweaks" for DAW use (Like disabling power-saving in the BIOS and O.S., start-up apps, etc.)?
     
    Also, run the free DPC Latency Checker to see if any processes are causing problems.
    post edited by JonD - 2016/02/13 10:50:04

    SonarPlat/CWbBL, Win 10 Pro, i7 2600K, Asus P8Z68 Deluxe, 16GB DDR3, Radeon HD5450, TC Electronic Impact Twin, Kawai MP11 Piano, Event ALP Monitors, Beyerdynamic DT770 Pro, Too Many Plugins, My lucky hat.
    #12
    SevadaX6
    Max Output Level: -90 dBFS
    • Total Posts : 22
    • Joined: 2015/05/14 08:32:19
    • Status: offline
    Re: question about weakness of my pc's hardware 2016/02/13 11:01:26 (permalink)
    No!
    I usually end processes while working. But I haven't changed any settings from BIOS or else where
    #13
    JonD
    Max Output Level: -39 dBFS
    • Total Posts : 3617
    • Joined: 2003/12/09 11:09:10
    • Location: East of Santa Monica
    • Status: offline
    Re: question about weakness of my pc's hardware 2016/02/13 11:10:18 (permalink)
    OK, but before we go down that road, I suggest you run the DPC Latency checker just to see if it flags anything obvious.

    SonarPlat/CWbBL, Win 10 Pro, i7 2600K, Asus P8Z68 Deluxe, 16GB DDR3, Radeon HD5450, TC Electronic Impact Twin, Kawai MP11 Piano, Event ALP Monitors, Beyerdynamic DT770 Pro, Too Many Plugins, My lucky hat.
    #14
    SevadaX6
    Max Output Level: -90 dBFS
    • Total Posts : 22
    • Joined: 2015/05/14 08:32:19
    • Status: offline
    Re: question about weakness of my pc's hardware 2016/02/13 11:27:40 (permalink)
    Ok this is the result: 
    This machine should be able to handle real-time streaming of audio and/or video data without drop-outs
    #15
    kitekrazy1
    Max Output Level: -40 dBFS
    • Total Posts : 3524
    • Joined: 2014/08/02 17:52:51
    • Status: offline
    Re: question about weakness of my pc's hardware 2016/02/13 12:43:26 (permalink)
    Upgrade to a SSD and use your other drives for storage.   You will have 4TB of storage.

    Sonar Platinum, W7 Pro 32GB Ram, Intel i7 4790, AsRock Z97 Pro 4,  NVidia 750ti, AP2496
     
    Sonar Platinum, W7 Pro, 16GB Ram, AMD FX 6300, Gigabyte GA 970 -UD3 P, nVidia 9800GT, Guitar Port, Terratec EWX 2496
    #16
    JonD
    Max Output Level: -39 dBFS
    • Total Posts : 3617
    • Joined: 2003/12/09 11:09:10
    • Location: East of Santa Monica
    • Status: offline
    Re: question about weakness of my pc's hardware 2016/02/13 14:54:15 (permalink)
    I just noticed that your buffer size is 256.  Basically the lower you set this, the better the latency, but it puts more demands on your system.  Try 512 and see what happens.

    SonarPlat/CWbBL, Win 10 Pro, i7 2600K, Asus P8Z68 Deluxe, 16GB DDR3, Radeon HD5450, TC Electronic Impact Twin, Kawai MP11 Piano, Event ALP Monitors, Beyerdynamic DT770 Pro, Too Many Plugins, My lucky hat.
    #17
    SevadaX6
    Max Output Level: -90 dBFS
    • Total Posts : 22
    • Joined: 2015/05/14 08:32:19
    • Status: offline
    Re: question about weakness of my pc's hardware 2016/02/14 04:48:55 (permalink)
    kitekrazy1
    Upgrade to a SSD and use your other drives for storage.   You will have 4TB of storage.




    SSD for windows or VSTs or projects? But my friends don't use SSD and don't have problems
    #18
    SevadaX6
    Max Output Level: -90 dBFS
    • Total Posts : 22
    • Joined: 2015/05/14 08:32:19
    • Status: offline
    Re: question about weakness of my pc's hardware 2016/02/14 04:51:29 (permalink)
    JonD
    I just noticed that your buffer size is 256.  Basically the lower you set this, the better the latency, but it puts more demands on your system.  Try 512 and see what happens.




    Now question is that why windows freezes when I unplug sound card ? Even if Sonar or other DAW is not open?
    #19
    JonD
    Max Output Level: -39 dBFS
    • Total Posts : 3617
    • Joined: 2003/12/09 11:09:10
    • Location: East of Santa Monica
    • Status: offline
    Re: question about weakness of my pc's hardware 2016/02/14 09:54:02 (permalink)
    I suspect there's a process running tied to the interface -- likely the driver software.  If so, you can probably just kill the process before unplugging the interface, so it won't bring down Windows.  (Go to Task manager for that). 

    SonarPlat/CWbBL, Win 10 Pro, i7 2600K, Asus P8Z68 Deluxe, 16GB DDR3, Radeon HD5450, TC Electronic Impact Twin, Kawai MP11 Piano, Event ALP Monitors, Beyerdynamic DT770 Pro, Too Many Plugins, My lucky hat.
    #20
    patm300e
    Max Output Level: -74 dBFS
    • Total Posts : 845
    • Joined: 2007/09/28 09:14:18
    • Location: USA - Maryland
    • Status: offline
    Re: question about weakness of my pc's hardware 2016/02/18 07:51:15 (permalink)
    You have more power than I do and I am having no issues even with the Cakewalk Tutorials without freezing, etc.
    Do you have network connection via wireless? this has been known to cause issues.
    I am assuming you have the latest drivers for your interface?
     

    SPLAT on a Home built i3 16 GB RAM 64-bit Windows 10 Home Premium 120GB SSD (OS) 2TB Data Drive.  Behringer XR-18 USB 2.0 Interface. FaderPort control.
    #21
    SevadaX6
    Max Output Level: -90 dBFS
    • Total Posts : 22
    • Joined: 2015/05/14 08:32:19
    • Status: offline
    Re: question about weakness of my pc's hardware 2016/02/20 03:40:55 (permalink)
    patm300e
    You have more power than I do and I am having no issues even with the Cakewalk Tutorials without freezing, etc.
    Do you have network connection via wireless? this has been known to cause issues.
    I am assuming you have the latest drivers for your interface?
     


    No I use internet via LAN cable. 
    Yes I have latest updates of sound interface.
    Must I change my sound interface? I think about changing interface but I want to be sure if the problem is from that
    #22
    Cactus Music
    Max Output Level: 0 dBFS
    • Total Posts : 8424
    • Joined: 2004/02/09 21:34:04
    • Status: offline
    Re: question about weakness of my pc's hardware 2016/02/21 12:19:59 (permalink) ☄ Helpfulby SevadaX6 2016/02/22 01:03:39
    The audio interface drivers are the heart of a stable DAW, not so much how powerful a computer you have. That was 10 years ago. You have almost the same computer specs as me and I'm stable as a rock. So for sure I would think your audio interface drivers are not the best. 
    You'll still be able to use your line 6 for recording guitar in WDM mode. 
    But if you add a good interface with "known" stable drivers then you'll most likely be good to go. 
    On this forum we have interfaces like Tascam, RME and Focusrite that are very popular and proof tested. There are others too but those are the ones I notice the most talked about.

    Johnny V  
    Cakelab  
    Focusrite 6i61st - Tascam us1641. 
    3 Desktops and 3 Laptops W7 and W10
     http://www.cactusmusic.ca/
     
     
    #23
    SevadaX6
    Max Output Level: -90 dBFS
    • Total Posts : 22
    • Joined: 2015/05/14 08:32:19
    • Status: offline
    Re: question about weakness of my pc's hardware 2016/02/22 00:50:57 (permalink)
    Cactus Music
    The audio interface drivers are the heart of a stable DAW, not so much how powerful a computer you have. That was 10 years ago. You have almost the same computer specs as me and I'm stable as a rock. So for sure I would think your audio interface drivers are not the best. 
    You'll still be able to use your line 6 for recording guitar in WDM mode. 
    But if you add a good interface with "known" stable drivers then you'll most likely be good to go. 
    On this forum we have interfaces like Tascam, RME and Focusrite that are very popular and proof tested. There are others too but those are the ones I notice the most talked about.


    So you advise me to change my Line 6 interface? I just wanted to listen that because I myself thought the problem is from interface, too.
    #24
    Cactus Music
    Max Output Level: 0 dBFS
    • Total Posts : 8424
    • Joined: 2004/02/09 21:34:04
    • Status: offline
    Re: question about weakness of my pc's hardware 2016/02/22 22:34:35 (permalink)
    Is there any other Line 6 people here who have no issues with Sonar?? ?
    Maybe a good Idea would be to either start a new thread asking for feedback from other line6 users. I myself have not noticed any comments around here so dare not say it's good or bad. I just know what is working. 
    I just don't see that it could be your computer at this point unless it's some crazy wreird thing like bad memory or a Video card causing havoc, anything is possible with computers. 

    Johnny V  
    Cakelab  
    Focusrite 6i61st - Tascam us1641. 
    3 Desktops and 3 Laptops W7 and W10
     http://www.cactusmusic.ca/
     
     
    #25
    mudgel
    Max Output Level: 0 dBFS
    • Total Posts : 12010
    • Joined: 2004/08/13 00:56:05
    • Location: Linton Victoria (Near Ballarat)
    • Status: offline
    Re: question about weakness of my pc's hardware 2016/02/23 04:48:23 (permalink)
    I'm curious as to why you have your VSTs on a seperate drive?

    Mike V. (MUDGEL)

    STUDIO: Win 10 Pro x64, SPlat & CbB x64,
    PC: ASUS Z370-A, INTEL i7 8700k, 32GIG DDR4 2400, OC 4.7Ghz.
    Storage: 7 TB SATA III, 750GiG SSD & Samsung 500 Gig 960 EVO NVMe M.2.
    Monitors: Adam A7X, JBL 10” Sub.
    Audio I/O & DSP Server: DIGIGRID IOS & IOX.
    Screen: Raven MTi + 43" HD 4K TV Monitor.
    Keyboard Controller: Native Instruments Komplete Kontrol S88.
    #26
    Kev999
    Max Output Level: -36 dBFS
    • Total Posts : 3922
    • Joined: 2007/05/01 14:22:54
    • Location: Victoria, Australia
    • Status: offline
    Re: question about weakness of my pc's hardware 2016/02/24 00:53:37 (permalink)
    Cactus Music
    Is there any other Line 6 people here who have no issues with Sonar?..

     
    I use 3 different setups with 3 different Line6 interfaces. No real issues, apart from recent glitchy playback on my laptop, although I suspect that this is not interface-related (although I could be wrong).

    SonarPlatinum∞(22.11.0.111)|Mixbus32C(4.3.19)|DigitalPerformer(9.5.1)|Reaper(5.77)
    FractalDesign:DefineR5|i7-6850k@4.1GHz|16GB@2666MHz-DDR4|MSI:GamingProCarbonX99a|Matrox:M9148(x2)|UAD2solo(6.5.2)|W7Ult-x64-SP1
    Audient:iD22+ASP800|KRK:VXT6|+various-outboard-gear|+guitars&basses, etc.
    Having fun at work lately
    #27
    Jump to:
    © 2024 APG vNext Commercial Version 5.1