 |
Cet utilisateur n'a pas encore édité sa description. |
Fri 26 May 06 @ 11:38 am
These tips and tricks have been tested out and have proved successful in many occasions. If you follow this document to the "T" you will have your system in true optimum performance. They are listed in descending importance.
By the way, there is a list of acronyms used in this guide at the bottom of the guide.
1) It is recommended for all Windows XP machines to change your pro audio card's buffer size to approximately 128 in its control panel. Typical defaults are 512 and 1024. Check your manual for where this setting is. There is a very desirable side effect of this as well - it drastically lowers latency in the audio system. If you are using Cakewalk Sonar, you'll want to re-run the Wave Profiler after this step.
* Pro Tools may require a buffer size of 256 or 512.
2) Make sure you don't have ANY IRQ conflicts of any sort with your audio/MIDI card. (Windows will not always tell you if you do.)
Right-Click MY COMPUTER, select PROPERTIES.
Select the HARDWARE tab, and DEVICE MANAGER.
Go to VIEW, select RESOURCES BY CONNECTION, expand INTERRUPT REQUEST.
This will show you a complete list of all the IRQs in use. If you see more than 2 devices on the same number, you might have an IRQ conflict.
Any device can, without problem, share with IRQ holder for PCI steering, or ACPI IRQ holder for PCI IRQ steering. Some other devices that will not usually cause problems are System Management Bus or SMBus, and SCI IRQ used by ACPI Bus.
Devices to watch out for (especially when they're sharing the sound card's IRQ) are:
Other sound cards, SCSI controllers, USB controllers, Network cards, Video cards, and many others.
If you have a conflict and you want to fix it, the best way to move the IRQs around is to move the card in question to another PCI slot. This may mean trying 2,3, or even 4 different slots. You may need to move another card to a different slot to allow the audio card to use that PCI slot. All unused PCI cards should be PHYSICALLY REMOVED (or built-in devices should be disabled from BIOS), not just disabled in Windows, as this does not always truly free up the resource. Remember to power down your system before changing hardware; you should NEVER install or remove hardware while the computer is powered ON, except for USB and Firewire devices (or PCMCIA Cardbus devices on laptops).
Some BIOS manufacturers may allow you to assign a specific IRQ to a PCI slot (from within the BIOS under PCI configuration - see below), but you should try to avoid IRQ 9 because it is cascaded to IRQ 2. It will allow you to assign PCI slot 2, for example, to IRQ 5.
Some more tricks for freeing up IRQs are to disable one or more COM (serial) ports, printer ports and USB (if you're not using them), or on-board audio (Sometimes called AC97 or Legacy Audio) from within the BIOS (see below). You must check with your motherboard/computer manufacturer to find the correct way to do this. Disabling devices within the BIOS will remove them from the system, and possibly allow a device or two to jump to a free IRQ, reducing the amount of troubleshooting you must do.
To get into your computer's BIOS, you'll need to reboot (or turn on) the machine. Immediately when you see the bootup logo or memory/hard drive check, press the appropriate key (which varies from computer to computer - check your computer's documentation if you're unsure) until it enters the setup. This will be before Windows boots, and typically it only waits for 1-2 seconds for you to press the key. The most likely keys are DEL , F1, and F2, but could also be any of the F-keys (you can usually press multiple keys at the same time if you're unsure.) Within the BIOS, you should select Integrated Perhiperals. If you don't see this option, try Advanced, and within this menu, look for I/O Configuration, Perhiperal Configuration, or something of the like- it varies from system to system. This is where you'll see the options to enable/disable hardware. This is also where you'll change the parallel port mode if you are using a parallel port midi interface. Then follow on-screen instructions on how to exit and save changes.
Another option within the BIOS, which may be under almost any menu, again depending on the computer, is PLUG AND PLAY BIOS or INSTALLED OS. This will have two choices, one being Windows, and one being non-Windows (the wording may be different.) This setting determines whether the BIOS or Windows will control resources. You may want to try switching the option to the other choice. If it doesn't work as well, it can always be changed back.
* If you're using a USB device (either audio or midi interface), you'll want to have the USB on its own IRQ. Most new computers actually have 2 or 3 USB devices: One pair on the back and one which is either connected to the front or not connected at all. Resolving IRQ sharing with USB is more difficult because there is no way to control which IRQ it uses, so usually you must move devices off of the USB IRQ by moving or removing the PCI card in conflict. Also, if you can avoid it, don't use any other USB device on that pair of USB ports. This will decrease the bandwidth for your audio/midi device and possibly create conflicts. Especially avoid hubs and high-bandwidth items like modems, ethernet controllers, hard drives or cd-rom drives, printers, and scanners.
* If you're using a Firewire audio device, you'll want to have the Firewire IEEE 1394 controller on its own IRQ just like it is your sound card. All firewire ports on a card share the same resources, so it shouldn't make a difference where they are plugged in unless there is a physical problem with the card.
2a) Also, while in Device Manager, you may want to check for multiple driver installations. Go to Start - Run, and type CMD and click OK. Type exactly:
set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1
start devmgmt.msc
(The latter command actually launches your device manager- you can use this elsewhere or make a shortcut to this file if you desire.) Go to View - Show Hidden Devices. Don't worry- you'll see alot of other devices which you didn't see before- this is normal. For instance, if you have a network card, it may now show as 5-10 devices, these are background pieces of it required for normal operation. The same goes for Sound, Video, and Game Controllers- there will be 6-12 new devices, mostly Microsoft devices. Do not remove these, they are required for Windows use. You can now see if you have 2 or 3 (or more) of the exact same device driver installed of your audio/midi interface (unused devices show as a light-grey color). If you do, right-click on the extra devices, and click Uninstall. Reboot after removing the extra devices, and go back and check again. You may need to remove all of a particular device to get the driver installed just once. This step is typically not needed, but in some cases where you have gone through driver installation several times, it is worth checking.
2b) LAPTOPS
Laptops often are a special case for troubleshooting hardware conflicts because of the inability to move hardware to different slots. If your laptop does not exhibit IRQ sharing, start with disabling hardware you don't use (like a modem if you use ethernet, firewire if you're not using it, etc.) If your laptop has all devices sharing IRQ11, you'll likely need to disable all non-critical devices and add them back one at a time. The best way to disable devices is to disconnect them from your computer, and for built-in devices to disable them in the BIOS (see above for how to get into the BIOS). However, most laptops do not have the option to disable all devices in the BIOS, so you may need to disable the devices in Windows Device Manager (see above again). If this is the only way to disable the devices on your laptop, it will usually work fine.
You will always see a Cardbus or PCMCIA controller in your device manager. This is the PC card slot(s) on the side of your computer and is not necessary unless you are using it. Although it does not take much in the way of resources, it's best to disable it if you're not using them. With most laptops today, everything is built-in and these slots are not in high demand.
4-pin vs. 6-pin Firewire - what's the difference? The 4-pin Firewire connector on your laptop is compatable with standard 6-pin devices as long as 1) you have a cable to convert between 4-pin and 6-pin 2) your Firewire device does not draw its power from the Firewire bus. The 4-pin Firewire connector does not provide power to the Firewire bus like the 6-pin does. Most Firewire devices have external power supplies and this will not cause any problems.
2c) Some other BIOS settings to try
With many new features appearing on current motherboards, you should disable these and then re-enable them one-at-a-time to find out if they are causing a problem.
Hyperthreading - Pentium 4s of 2.4gHz and higher only
SATA (serial ATA) - on many motherboards
Intel built-in ethernet - Only on Intel boards, known to sometimes cause problems
IDE or SATA RAID - on many motherboards
3) Multimedia Settings. ** Very important for SONAR & PRO TOOLS (only if you do not have DIGI ASIO drivers installed) **
Go to START MENU, SETTINGS, CONTROL PANEL, SOUNDS & AUDIO DEVICES.
Select the SOUNDS tab, select No Sounds and answer NO to "Save current scheme?"
Select HARDWARE tab, select your pro audio card wave driver & hit PROPERTIES.
Go to the PROPERTIES tab, expand the device, double-click the newly listed device and checkmark the box "DO NOT MAP THROUGH THIS DEVICE" and hit OK.
This will disallow Windows from using your audio card while you're in a recording program. If you have a Soundblaster-compatable card still installed, Windows will now use it for Windows sounds.
4) Check for Windows XP Service Pack 1 & 2.
Right-click on MY COMPUTER, select PROPERTIES.
This will display Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition and on the 2nd line, Service Pack 1 & 2 if you have it.
5) Disable Virtual Memory, Visual Effects, System Restore, Auto Updates, Remote Control, and Error Reporting.
Right-click MY COMPUTER, select PROPERTIES.
Click the ADVANCED tab, click ERROR REPORTING (at the bottom).
Checkmark DISABLE ERROR REPORTING and hit OK.
Under Performance, click SETTINGS.
Select ADJUST FOR BEST PERFORMANCE.
Click the ADVANCED tab, under Processor Scheduling, select Background Services.
Under Virtual Memory, click CHANGE.
Select each drive letter shown, and select NO PAGING FILE and press SET.
Hit OK twice.
Click the SYSTEM RESTORE tab, and checkmark the DISABLE SYSTEM RESTORE.
Click the AUTOMATIC UPDATES tab, and uncheck Keep My Computer Up to date.
Click the REMOTE tab, and uncheck both boxes that say Allow (this may already be done).
Hit OK and reboot.
6) Make sure no extra programs are started up when you launch Windows.
Go to your START MENU, RUN, type MSCONFIG and hit OK.
Select STARTUP tab, and deselect everything.
If there is a question about an item, disable it. You can always re-enable it simply by checking the box in the future and rebooting.
7) Check your sound hardware/software manufacturers' websites for updates. Many times an updated driver is the simple solution for an error. If possible, you should keep your old driver just in case, and be aware of beta (not fully tested) drivers and updates.
8) Motherboard chipsets - VIA and INTEL
The chipset on your motherboard can be as important as the actual processor because all the data to and from the processor goes through this chipset.
If you're unsure which chipset your motherboard has, you can go into Device Manager and open System Devices, and look for your CPU-to-AGP or CPU-to-PCI bridge. The brand name of this device (Intel, AMD, VIA, SIS, ALI, or nVIDEA) will tell you what type of motherboard you have.
If you have a VIA chipset on your motherboard (VIA makes chipsets for both Athalon and Intel PIII/P4/Celeron systems), you should download the 4-in-1 drivers which include updates for Windows at http://www.viatech.com/.
If you have an INTEL chipset, you may want to update the chipset drivers for Windows. Go to Intel.com, Support & Downloads, Chipsets, Chipset software, and download and install the Intel Application Accelerator and Intel Chipset Software Installation Utility. Select your version of Windows and download these to a new folder (recommended). The updates will only install if needed and if they are compatible with your motherboard. This will update the Windows access to the features of the motherboard.
9) Parallel port midi interfaces - * no need to follow these if you don't have a midi device on your printer port. These are several extra steps which must be done to get them working properly.
First, Right-Click MY COMPUTER, select PROPERTIES.
Select the HARDWARE tab, and DEVICE MANAGER and go to Ports (COM & LPT).
Double-click on Printer Port (LPT1), go to Port Settings, select Use any interrupt assigned to this port and Enable legacy plug and play detection, hit OK.
If the Parallel Port says ECP Parallel Port , the mode must be set in your computer's BIOS to EPP (default is ECP.) See step #1 for steps to get into the BIOS.
* If you do not have EPP mode, there are several things to try. Check to see what the I/O address of the printer port is (in BIOS), it should be 378. If not, EPP mode may be unavailable. Also, performing a BIOS update (from your motherboard manufacturer's website) can yield extra features and settings. Some computers simply do not have this mode. In this case, you may need to try several settings, but Bi-Directional is the second-best option.
Legacy SoundBlaster emulation:
It is known that many Soundblaster cards will share the parallel port IRQ without telling you.
Right-Click MY COMPUTER, select PROPERTIES.
Select the HARDWARE tab, and DEVICE MANAGER and look for Creative Misc. Devices.
If found, double-click anything that says Legacy Emulation, and checkmark the Disable. Hit OK.
If not found, check in your Sound, Video, and Game controllers for anything that says Legacy Emulation or Legacy Audio and disable that.
10) Disable CD Auto Play.
Go to Start Menu - Run, type GPEDIT.MSC and hit Return.
Under Computer Configuration - Administrative Templates - System, double-click Turn Off Autoplay.
Select Enabled (enabling turning this feature off) and select Turn off Autoplay on: All Drives.
Click OK and close the window.
11) Hard drive DMA.
Direct Memory Addressing, or DMA, allows a device to access your RAM directly without taking CPU recources. For hard drives, this will greatly increase disk throughput and reduce CPU load, and usually causes a very noticable increase in overall system speed.
Most Windows XP systems will have this enabled and working by default, but it is worth checking to achieve maximum performance.
Right-Click MY COMPUTER, select PROPERTIES.
Select the HARDWARE tab, and DEVICE MANAGER and look for IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers and double-click on Primary IDE channel, select Advanced Settings. Check your Transfer Mode, it should say DMA if available. Current Transfer Mode Setting should say DMA and then some mode number, higher numbers indicate faster transfer speed. If you see PIO mode in the Current Transfer Mode but you have DMA if available selected, you likely have a cabling problem with your hard drives. Some possible cures are (and you may have to consult your local computer guru): changing from Cable Select to Master/Slave designation, moving your hard drives to different cables, or even cable replacement. In a newer system (PIII or greater), you should have the ATA-66 cable, which has twice as many conductors as a standard ATA or IDE cable. This will ensure the fastest possible DMA speed your hard drive and hard drive controller support. Generally, the newer your system and hard drive are, the faster DMA mode it will support.
12) ACPI mode * for VERY Advanced users *
* This step is recommended to be one of the LAST RESORT options to try since it drastically changes your system's IRQ configuration. Current computers RARELY need this step done.
If you have all your device on IRQ 9, 10, or 11 and changing PCI slots doesn't change this, or if you have devices on IRQs higher than 15 in Windows XP it's because you are running in ACPI mode. This can cause problems due to sharing and IRQs the hardware doesn't know how to handle. Here's how you can switch back to the normal Win98-BIOS-controlled IRQs.
* This step is not recommended for DUAL PROCESSOR machines - disabling ACPI will disable dual-processor support.
* WARNING: YOU MUST HAVE ALL HARDWARE DRIVERS AVAILABLE AT RESTART. This will re-detect ALL your hardware, and any hardware drivers needed will be asked for. THERE IS A (slight) CHANCE THIS WILL RENDER YOUR SYSTEM UNBOOTABLE, do this at your own risk.
* If you have a USB mouse, you may need to find an old PS/2 (round connector) mouse. USB is one of the last devices detected in this process, and therefore your mouse pointer will be unusable for part of this process if it is USB.
To disable ACPI, you'll need to change the system setting from 'ACPI-PC' to 'Standard-PC'. Right-Click on My Computer -> Properties -> Hardware -> Device Manager -> Computer -> Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) PC -> Driver -> Update Driver -> Install from a list or specific location -> Don't Search.. -> Standard-PC.
Note that changing this means that all drivers of your hardware are re-installed (keep the driver disks available). Additionally, make sure that PNP OS INSTALLED in BIOS is set to NO (very important). Also note that disabling ACPI mode may cause your computer to not power off when you perform a Windows shutdown. Simply push the power button after performing a shutdown.
Reversing this step - re-enabling ACPI - can be as simple asrepeating this step and choosing ACPI-compliant PC instead of Standard. Again, this will require drivers to be reloaded.
These settings have been tried and tested, and are known to solve most problems. Some more tips are to:
* Windows XP recommends 256mb of RAM or higher to run properly, check to see if you have at least 256mb.
* Limit the programs installed on the computer to as few as possible. If at all possible, limit use of this computer to audio.
* Defrag your hard drives regularly (depending on use)
We recommend purchasing a system utility to do this such as Norton because it is faster and does a better job.
* Use a separate hard drive for audio (7200 rpm minimum)
* Make sure if you're recording FROM a digital source to your computer, you have word clock on the audio card set to external, sp/dif, ADAT, TDIF, Word clock, or whatever source from where you are recording.
* Always remember to BACKUP, even if it is only onto another hard drive in the system.
ACRONYMS USED:
CPU - Central Processor Unit - basically the brains of your computer, Pentium, Athalon, etc.
BUS - A communication line that can have one or more devices attached
PCI - Perhiperal Connection Interface - the white slots in your computer
IRQ - Interrupt request - basically a communcation line from a device to a processor
BIOS - Built-In Operating System - Allows hardware configuration, handles memory, basic hardware, drives, features, etc.
ACPI - Advanced Connection Perhiperal Interface - Power management, IRQ assignment, developed by Microsoft
SMBUS - System Management BUS - Micromanages device status and sleep mode.
SCSI - Small Computer System Inteface/Interconnect - type of hard drive interface & drive, typically associated with high transfer rates, can have up to 7 or 15 devices on one bus
IDE - Integrated Drive Electronics - 90% of consumer hard drives and the interface that connects them, only 2 per bus
DMA - Direct Memory Addressing - Many applications of this, hard drives and PCI cards can access RAM directly and quickly
USB - Universal Serial Bus - Connects one or many devices to a single communication line, conceptually similar to Firewire
COM - Communication port (serial) - 9 pin connector on the back of your computer, rarely used now
OS - Operating System - Windows 98, 2000, XP, Linux, BeOs, MacOS, VMS, Unix, and many many more, they run your computer.
