Win XP help, random freezes (+ tweeking tips)

[mikeymike]

Mikey: 7200!!! you mst be joking... after spending a grand on a laptop I can't aford a super duper HD like that  Saddly mine is only 4600

Your machine as a 'dedicated music workstation' is confusing me greatly.  Computers used for audio work nowadays typically have very fast CPUs and high-performance disks.  Then you say it's a laptop and it's using a disk speed typical of the average laptop?  It must have cost a mint to get a retail P4 3GHz grafted into it, then you can't afford a decent disk for it?

[bloodline]

mikeymike wrote:

Mikey: 7200!!! you mst be joking... after spending a grand on a laptop I can't aford a super duper HD like that  Saddly mine is only 4600

Your machine as a 'dedicated music workstation' is confusing me greatly.  Computers used for audio work nowadays typically have very fast CPUs and high-performance disks.  Then you say it's a laptop and it's using a disk speed typical of the average laptop?  It must have cost a mint to get a retail P4 3GHz grafted into it, then you can't afford a decent disk for it?

Well, it's For live work. Where a Desktop machine would be impossible to use.

It runs great, but this random problem is very frustrating.
And the problem is very random, all evening it's been behaving itself, not a stutter. then about 15min ago it did one again! :-x

My synth work doesn't require much disk access so I didn't think a slow drive would be any problem. And Logics Disk monitor shows very little Disk activity.
 

I tried puttting the Drive into PIO mode, but that was terible!

Next thing to try is Safe Mode, and then Linux.

[mikeymike]

I tried puttting the Drive into PIO mode, but that was terible!

Of course it would be :-)

Next thing to try is Safe Mode, and then Linux.

I would do a clean install of 2k/XP first, see if that makes any difference.  I assume updating all drivers made no difference?

[bloodline]

mikeymike wrote:

I tried puttting the Drive into PIO mode, but that was terible!

Of course it would be :-)

Next thing to try is Safe Mode, and then Linux.

I would do a clean install of 2k/XP first, see if that makes any difference.  I assume updating all drivers made no difference?

Yup latest drivers installed did not help. Anyway, I disabled the swapfile and the problem seems to have been reduced a great deal. I'm fairly confident to say you are right about my crappy hard drive :-( I guess I'll have to start saving up for a new one.

[mepmepmep]

Yes, I think your hd is just too slow for your overall system. That would explain the lockups on hd access and so on. I think I've even read something over at M$'s site about using old hd's with modern processors. Admit! Your system is not 'off the shelf'. Suit yourself;) kidding. Good luck:)

[adz]

A lot of the early P4 notebooks used retail P4 CPU's, but I am yet to come across a P4 3.06 notebook, it would have to have some form of speedstep, otherwise, under load, you would have a mini Chernobyl on your desk. The theory of the HDD not being able to cope with requests from the system is another good theory.

[mikeymike]

an IDE disk running properly in DMA or better combined with the right IDE drivers will not cause the problems bloodline is experiencing.

[bloodline]

mikeymike wrote:
an IDE disk running properly in DMA or better combined with the right IDE drivers will not cause the problems bloodline is experiencing.

It seems to be a common problem with WinXP, from what I see on the internet.

anyway, I found this site: Tweeking XP

It seems to give good advice for getting XP to work better for Audio work.

It sugest to turn off write caching for better performance, I find this counter intuitive. Why?

[mikeymike]

anyway, I found this site: Tweeking XP

The install guide has a number of serious inaccuracies, such as the part about enabling UDMA66 on Intel chipsets (that is a pre Win2k SP2 issue, and the key is no longer read with more recent service packs).  That key is also only read when Win2k's standard IDE drivers for Intel chipsets is being used, and is ignored if you have third-party drivers installed, such as Intel's.

NtfsDisable8dot3NameCreation set value to 1

This is a horrendously bad idea.  There is no performance advantage, and it breaks quite a few app installers.

I strongly advise against using this install guide!
Infact, it's got me thinking about writing a "Windows myths explained" article on the tech reference part of my site :-)

It sugest to turn off write caching for better performance, I find this counter intuitive. Why?

It's just plain dumb.  There are two reasons why one might want to switch off write caching: To ensure an even higher level of data integrity*, or because the machine/disk exhibits compatibility issues as a result of the option being enabled.

* - and even then I've never hobbled a system in that way, because if data integrity is so important then A: you should be using decent, stable hardware and B: you should configure the system correctly so it won't crash and lose critical data!  Any system where I might possibly consider such a tweak is also usually one where performance is needed as well, so it throws that option out the window.

[bloodline]

I though some of that info sounded dodgy.

BTW Having watched Channel4 last night I have reason to believe that your avitar might not be a picture of you :-D

[mikeymike]

BTW Having watched Channel4 last night I have reason to believe that your avitar might not be a picture of you

Honestly, I look just like Johnny Depp.  I took his place in a few of the films where he's credited, I got mistaken once by a director, so Mr Depp and I came to a deal.  It's a nice holiday for the both of us from time to time.  I get to be an actor for a while with women all over me, and he gets to be a Windows sysadmin with no women in sight.  He keeps saying he's got the better side of the deal, but I don't think so.

[bloodline]

Ok everyone, remember I was having random freezing problems... where the machine would just sort of freez for about a second and then carry on...

Problem solved... I typed in the Laptop chasis number into google and went through every result it returned (something like 900 results :-() And found a CD ISO image of a BIOS update... I burned it to CD, and boot the machine with it. Hey presto... problem solved.

The Moral of the story, it you have any problems... update the BIOS :-D

-Edit- The laptop also runs faster and cooler than ever before... it's actually like owning a brand new machine :-o

-Edit2- If you have a laptop based on the N251S6 then head to http://www.notebookservice.dk/indhold/n251s6.html and download the ISO image of the latest BIOS at the bottom of the page (version 1.13).

[blobrana]

Hum,
i made a collection of tweaks that i used on my machine (some    i found don`t do anything at all.

But there are a few gems...



(BTW, page still in construction)