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hi,
i got 3 Luna cards (and 3 Luna boxes connected, 24 I/O) linked with a STDM cable on:

-ASUS P4C800-Deluxe BIOS 1019
-P4 3.2 Ghz, 1MB L2
-2GB RAM PC3200 (same vendor)
-HD Raptor 74GB SATA
-HD Western Digital 150GB SATA
-Nvidia 5700LE 256MB (video Card)
-Microsoft Windows XP SP2
-Cubase SX 3.1.1.944

I run my audio system only in XTC mode

I fresh installed XP in ACPI mode
I installed first Luna on PCI 5, second Luna on PCI 4, third Luna on PCI3 (other PCIs are free).

When I tried to change latency trhough creamware Control panel located on Cubase VST audio bay, my system crashes.

So formatted and reinstalled XP in Standard PC mode.

No crash as above but my performance on Cubase is very low (latency set at about 6/7 ms). For i.e. in a project I run 3 VST plugins (Spectrasonic Atmospehere, Trilogy and Stylus RMX) and some XTC effect and I can hear cracks and glitches (performance indicator CPU goes soon over). Also tried disabling Hypertrading with no success.

I also cannot install Intel chipset drivers in Standard PC mode (when i reboot my machine stop loading system)

I didn't test performance on ACPI mode because i didnt want a machine with a crash problem when i change latency.

Before changing system, i had HP Compaq d530 Convertible Minitower Desktop (P4 2.8Ghz, same RAM, same Lunas) and I had no such problem. for more info on this machine: http://h18007.www1.hp.com/support/files ... _5586.html

I expected more performance on my new platform (i mean i could load more VST and record more tracks simultaneously at low latency) but it decreased!

Maybe I need to change some settings on cset.ini?
Do you suggest ACPI or Standard PC on my system?

Any help is really appreciated!!
thank you in advance


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: kurtz on 2005-10-24 06:42 ]</font>

update after more testing:

stability problem (latency change crashing) solved installing XP in standard mode PC.

regarding performance...
i guess the problem is on my Prescott CPU.
I tried installing my old Northwood, 2.8Ghz, L2 512 on this MB and no underbuffer clicks using same cubase project.

So Northwood is better than Prescott even with less L2 cache and frequency clock? or maybe my Prescott is not well cooled (even if i installed fan that came with cpu package?). Infact, it happens that prescott goes in overload performance(and reveals clicks) after few seconds of play in Cubase.

I also installed latest ASUS P4C800 Deluxe bios to test it (1021 beta)

oh sh*t, if you'd only asked before...

the (expected) performance increase of a 15% higher clockrate isn't even worth opening the case.
Even more as the 'hotter' CPU is suspective to be throttled down under full load anyway - not unlikely as the cooler sets provided by Intel are complete crap (imho).

If your previous system ran flawless, I'd simply get back to it, if still available...

Larger caches are not automatically a synonym for high performance - it depends how a programm is written, what optimization it uses and most of all on which datasets it operates.

Never trust in number specs and benchmarks, unless you've done them in your own environment with your own datasets.

if you suspect a heat problem it might be worth checking a quality cooler - you'll probably need it anyway.

regrets, Tom

Do you suggest ACPI or Standard PC on my system?

.

no ACPI, no standard pc, but Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) PC (this is not 'normal' ACPI).

i have the same mobo and working for me without problem.

first do casual xp instalation (ACPI), then do update comp. driver to Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) PC.

many thanks to all!

at the moment i cannot see a second logical CPU using CPU-Z, maybe since Multi processor system kernel is not installed?

will i get a better performance system using MPS? if so, how to fresh install it?

i never done a scratch install of XP

no, i don't think that mps or hyperthreading will make major improvemants in performance.

Yes , Prescott's Cache ist bigger - but slower