Sign In:     

Forum: Old versions

Topic: Hard Drive Upgrade Gone Bad?????? - Page: 1

This part of topic is old and might contain outdated or incorrect information

I'll apologize in advance as I am pretty aggravated right now but need to get this issue resolved soon.

Here's my gear list:
2x Denon DN-S3700's
1x Denon DN-X500
1x Dell Inspiron 1505 running XP Pro with 2 GB of DDR2 RAM and a Core 2 Duo 1.83gHz processor.

I just upgraded the HDD to a 320GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache drive with a fresh install of XP and VDJ (Cue) and ASIO for 3700's and now the damned things won't cooperate!

My old HDD was a 7200RPM 80GB drive and had tons of programs loaded on it and would run perfectly with VDJ running, Martin LJ running, iTunes open and MS Excel open. All music was stored on an external USB drive.

Now that I have a larger HDD, same speeds, I am getting a lot of sloppy response to start and stop and audio glitches galore. My CPU runs at 58% or so when 2 songs are playing and NOTHING else happening.

I've been all over the board in config settings through both areas, ASIO driver and performance tab in VDJ and nothing makes it good.

When I hit start on a deck there is such a noticable delay it's silly and on occasion I can hear it speed up and down all by it's self. When I play 2 songs, Lord have mercy, it almost locks up my pc.

So, can a larger HDD make this happen? I don't even have the music on the drive yet as I said above it's the OP system, VDJ, drivers etc... on it's own partition and an empty partition waiting to hold my music, what is happening?

PLEASE HELP!!!!!!
 
Posted Mon 10 May 10 @ 9:17 pm
a larger hard drive shouldnt make a difference.. (and you've already stated both drives are 7200 RPM)

logically, something get messed up when you re-installed the OS and drivers.

first check on how you re-installed the OS and drivers

http://www.virtualdj.com/homepage/hippydog/blogs/3995/Having_a_computer_issue_you_just_CAN_T_fix___Wipe_your_computer_and_rebuild.html

also you can use
DPC Latency Checker to check for latency issues on your computer
http://www.thesycon.de/eng/free_download.shtml

and windows EVENT VIEWER to try and find out whats actually slowing down your computer.

as a last resort you can try
Gamebooster software.. gets rid of all the extra windows services not need when DJing (still allows internet access)
basically it helps free up some memory and chances of windows taking away needed CPU cycles
http://www.iobit.com/gamebooster.html?Str=download

Only use the Gamebooster as a last resort..
A clean re-install of the OS and drivers should give you a FASTER computer, and not a SLOWER one..
 
Ok thanks Hippydog, after some playing around I ahve determined a BIG issue is with connecting the 3700's to my laptop. I used the Latency Checker nad have disabled the networking, modem, bluetooth etc... Even before then with the 3700's NOT connected, the machine is fast and runs good with virtually no CPU usage. Even running Cue with a mouse and not the 3700's all is good.

When I connect the 3700's the latency checker spikes to over 1000 and higher, so something is going nuts there, maybe a driver for the USB ports???? I don't know enough abuot that to diagnose or disable what "I don't need".

Here's the weirder issue, when I try to start a song with the play button, on the 3700, there is a very, very, very noticable delay. If I start it with the cue button, still on the player, it starts immediately????? Add that to seeing the same exact song, literally the same song loaded on each player, they will not stay sync'd up manually or even if I hit sync????

So I am really thinking my 3700's are having issues OR the drivers for the USB's have issues. I ahve 4 USB ports on my laptop but when I open the device manager I see a TON of USB stuff listed under the USB device tab, what's that all about?

After this fresh install of the new HDD and XP, I had Dell log into my laptop and install the drivers and updates for me. I did explain it want it to run lean and fast without un-necessary system procedures as this is a DJ only machine. This laptop used to work better when all was factory installed and tons of crap on the HDD :(

I'm goint to post this also on the hardware issue forum as well to see if I can't get this fixed before this weekend.

Any info you ahve I'd appreciate, thanks.
 
maybe you can contact Dell and tell them whats happening.. That your USB connected equipment is not working anymore..
I've never used a "Dell service" so I don't know how that works with driver installs..
 
It maybe a driver issue. Now we always tend to install the very latest drivers that we can download from the net and I am assuming this is what you did. In which case, try the drivers that came with the 3700's this older version maybe give you less hassle.

The latest drivers may try to by multi OS compliant (XP, Vista, 7) and maybe causing you issues.

If you are installing from the provided CD, then obviously try the reverse.

Also, make sure you completely uninstall the existing drivers first, and at best remove the hardware completely before starting over...

And make use of Restore Points so you can revert back to a pre-defined point before trying different configurations. I always craete a restore point prior to installing hardware drivers and VDJ. This ensures a failed install allows me to revert back to a "clean" system.

Cheers,

Roy
 
Thanks Roy, when you mention driver are you referring to the Denon driver or a windows hardware driver?

I understand drivers and such but finding better and more suitable srivers is foreign to me.
 
I'm refering initially to the Denon drivers. Which did you install the ones that came with the 3700's or the latest from their web site?

Then we can start on the Windows drivers. Windows Update includes driver updates, but while "later" does not mean "better" as far as low latency audio is concerned - hardware manufacturers don't necessarily devlop drivers with this in mind.

Anyway, let's break it down and start with the 3700 drivers. Which did you install?

Cheers,

Roy
 
The only "driver" I had to install for the 3700's was the ASIO sound driver and all otther drivers were for Dell and XP installed from Dell website. Does that help?
 
 
Those are the versions, everything was downloaded right from Denon's website to my machine.

I am getting the feeling it's something in the USB driver on my laptop. I've disabled the LAN, Wi Fi, Bluetooth, 10/100 network port, modem, etc... The latency checker is showing much better results BUT I still do get a mesage after a while, that some of the drivers behave bad etc... I can uswe the players without issue but can't set them for optimal precision AND the delay when I push play is horribl;e and makes it difficult to mix for sure.

Thanks for walking me through this, I hope I can get it rectified with your help.
 
I think the next step then is to raise a support ticket and get one of the Atomix engineers to walk over your system...

Cheers,

Roy
 
Did you make your install from a store bought (or otherwise) XP disc or from a Dell Disc? If it wasn't a Dell Disc have you installed the Intel Chipset drivers?
 
Andrew87 wrote :
Did you make your install from a store bought (or otherwise) XP disc or from a Dell Disc? If it wasn't a Dell Disc have you installed the Intel Chipset drivers?

It sounds like he used Dell's Online tech support where they installed all the necessary drivers.. and probably more then what was necessary.

simplicitydj wrote :
After this fresh install of the new HDD and XP, I had Dell log into my laptop and install the drivers and updates for me. .


Do you have a Dell Install DVD or CD? so you dont have to use the Online tech support?

in most cases those install discs come with everything you need to get your computer up and working.. WITH the correct drivers..
 
Roy, I didn't know that was an option, how do I go about doing that?

Andrew, the XP install was from a true XP disc, not a Dell copy. Originally my machine shipped with Vista and I used it as a dual boot system. When I added XP, Dell helped me get all the right drivers and get it running.

Hippydog, yes you are correct I did log on and have Dell support load what I needed. I told them what I wanted and how I wanted it to run and why. I don't have a Dell drivers disc which is why I had to have them downloaded from their website. When you connect to their website through the web, on their support page it will "sniff" out yuour system and locate what drivers are available and necessary.

Is there a way go grab the frivers from my old HDD and then load them onto this machine?
 
simplicitydj wrote :
Originally my machine shipped with Vista and I used it as a dual boot system.


I know this is counter to what everyone originally suggested, (including myself).
But I would take the time, and wipe the hardrive again, then install the original VISTA OS on your machine.. (You don't have an XP startup disk, but I'm pretty sure DELL would have included a Vista recovery disk..)

do the updates and all that, THEN install VDJ and try it out..

In otherwords, give Vista a second chance.. ;-)
If it still causes problems for you, THEN create a dual boot with windows XP.
 
simplicitydj wrote :
Is there a way go grab the frivers from my old HDD and then load them onto this machine?


The best way is to boot into Windows from the old harddrive and use a program like DriverMax to backup your drivers and restore them to the new system. Alternatively you can mount the disk and copy the folder "C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository" although this way copies every driver the system knows of so may be rather large, e.g. at least a gigabyte. You would then have to use device manager to manually update each device which can be a slow and troublesome process.

The following drivers may help:
INF Update Utility -​​ Primarily for Intel® 5,​ 4,​ 3,​ 900 Series Chipsets
Intel(R) Matrix Storage Manager
 
Simplicity,

If I understood correctly you have the same computer, just change your hard disk. If so, then 80GB HD is working all good, then just CLONE IT to your new hard disk.

If your new hard disk is Seagate, Maxtor, Western Digital, etc... you may find a copy tool in their sites to let you copy ALL your data from the old hard disk to the new one. You don't need to reinstall and suffer like this. Once you do this, your new hard disk would perform all Windows applications as it were in your old HD.

What is the brand of your current 320 HD?
 
@Simplicity DJ.. Its Your HD. The 320 gig is causing alot of USB drops outs. Check to see if your Dell is compatable with that model. Some dells are not with a 7200 rpm.
 
Thanks all, I spent all day online with Dell and then at Officemax/Tiger direct with no luck :( The best anybody can come up with, as of now, is an IRQ issue or a driver issue. With a busy few weeks ahead I can't leave it to be troubleshot, especially since they want my 3700's too :(

I ahve my old DMC2 I am going to try and see if I get the same response.

I am looking into copying my drivers over from my old HDD but that will have to wait until I ahve time to learn how to do it properly and ahve the time to do it, trouble shoot etc...

I believe for this weekend and next I'll simply re-install my old drive and run with it.

My new drive is a Seagate and my Dell will support 320GB and 7200 RPM. My old drive was also a 16mb cache 7200 rpm drive.

There's a new lappy in the works as we speak but I still want this one right for backup. I've maxed out it's specs and cannot upgrade any further so it's time to bring a new horse into the stable.

Keep the help coming because I'm hell bent on getting this issue figured out as I'm not sure when I'll get my new machine
 
Have you installed the Intel Chipset drivers I linked to above? The method Acw suggested is the best method overall, your computer will be running exactly how it was before (perhaps better due to no fragmentation) and you'll have the extra space addressable of course.
 
91%