[solved] System idle hogging cpu? Sonar 8.5.3 on old underpowered XP laptop

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

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.

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!!

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

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

Thanks Mesh...

I'm doing my best to remain patient and grateful...

But it ain't easy! ;-)

I tried using a basic ipad with some audio apps, but they are frustrating to me when they're doing their best! ;-)

But what can you complain about for free?

I was gifted the ipad(s) as well as the laptop... And in my current situation that was all I could do... Now a newer machine has been offered... And if I can find a few bucks for buying the monthly Platinum <sigh> and some gas for my generator I might actually feel almost myself... For an afternoon!

Gotta go for it... broke or not!

Thanks for the help...

Keni

Thanks aoresteen...

Sadly I don't have $20 to my name right now... I've mistly abandoned working on this machine as it won't even play a simple stereo file with media player... I gave a suspicion that it's something other than the tiny memory that is at fault here... Even 20 year old machines typically manage to do this...

Last night I burnt twice my normal fuel (living on a generator) and don't have any cash for more fuel right now... So I'm hoping something changes for the better soon!

Thanks for caring and trying to help!

Keni

Cactus Music
 
 
 
This is my 2004 Toshiba laptop.  I can use Sonar 8.5 32 bit for live recording of up to 14 audio tracks. The only issue is screen re draw of wave forms takes forever after you stop the transport. 
I'm not sure if you have run the DPCLAT monitor to make sure it is optimized correctly.  
http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml
 
I use my Tascam us1641 and the older drivers. They released newer drivers for XP that were worse so I found using the originals that came on the CD best. I also get more stability using WDM mode. There's nothing wrong with WDM mode for a lot of tasks like audio recording and editing. Set you buffers way up there. This is not a machine for real time effects like Guitar rig. 
 
I mostly have only used it to record our band and a few live concerts I was asked to do. I then transfer the files to my desktop. But I also muck about with downloaded midi files because my desktop is not on the internet so I can see if they are worth keeping using TTs-1 for playback. 
I also refer to 8.5 when helping on the forum. 
 
I can load up a MIDI file and simple synths like TTS-1 and Session Drummer.  and work on stuff using just the on board Sound Max in MME mode. 
It's all about optimizing the machine and it will work. But don't expect to load up a bunch of memory hog VST's. The older synths 32 bit synths seem fine, Stay away from Dim Pro and V vocal. 
 
 

Thanks Cactus Music...

I've done this previously and that's why I thought it would work... Maybe it's an issue with the Presonus driver fir winXP? I can't play a simple file in media player... I've setup many old laptops to use for quick location recording and this is the first time I've run into an issue...

Later when my generator is on I will try the optimize link you gave. I've never used such and maybe it'll help solve the laptop's issue?

Keni

Thanks again Cactus...

For sticking with me about this as well as having good info...

I finally got it working! It was none of the things we've discussed, but something I kept questioning... A driver problem. I've had older machines running fine previously and just couldn't figure out the problem...

I went back to Presonus to make sure I had the correct driver and found that they added one more thing Oder driver... So I grabbed it and replaced the newer driver... It forced another firmware update, but still didn't work... Then I re-installed the newer driver again and it forced another firmware update...

Voila'!

Now it's working as I expected of its limited power... I'm using an external USB SSD a for audio... Below par but I expected it to work for a half dozen audio tracks or so and it does... I must keep the latency up near 60 ms, but it works! Not good enough for input monitoring, but I will use Amplitube ios to create my guitar sounds and record them as audio in Sonar... I'm working again!

Many thanks for your support!

Keni