GaryNattrass Posted May 15, 2015 Share Posted May 15, 2015 Even with a mac you can end up with an operating system that updates and then the drivers are behind and out of date, it happens all the time but if your PC is old it may be that the divers can no longer be supported by the current system updates. All my pro tools set-ups are on firewire or USB 2 on a mac pro tower but as my new macbook pro does not even have firewire anymore I can see that in time everything will be out of date. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ynot Posted May 15, 2015 Author Share Posted May 15, 2015 ......... but if your PC is old it may be that the divers can no longer be supported by the current system updates. ...............The point is that the PC isn't old - was built in December 2014 so approx 6 months.I agree that it LOOKS more like a hardware fault, but tracking it down isn't going to be easy.And investing in a new machine only 6 months down the line isn't going to go down too well with the penny-watcher... :( Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timsabre Posted May 15, 2015 Share Posted May 15, 2015 The point is that the PC isn't old - was built in December 2014 so approx 6 months.I agree that it LOOKS more like a hardware fault, but tracking it down isn't going to be easy.And investing in a new machine only 6 months down the line isn't going to go down too well with the penny-watcher... :( But by the time someone's spent 2 days trying to fix it, and you get a reputation for having unreliable kit, isn't that more expensive? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ynot Posted May 15, 2015 Author Share Posted May 15, 2015 But by the time someone's spent 2 days trying to fix it, we're a volunteer run venue, so that isn't actually a big issue unless we take it outside these walls for pro assessment and fix... ...and you get a reputation for having unreliable kit, isn't that more expensive? That however IS the crux of why I'm trying to batten it down. One way or another. But I can't justify dumping this box in favour of a new one unless we've explored ALL options to fix it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timsabre Posted May 15, 2015 Share Posted May 15, 2015 we're a volunteer run venue, so that isn't actually a big issue unless we take it outside these walls for pro assessment and fix... Right. I didn't realise that... rather than reinstalling Windows which I think would be a waste of time, I'd be trying things like swapping out the PSU unit (cost £30 or you might even have a spare), remove one of the sticks of RAM if you have more than 1, check the heatsinks are on properly and fans running as suggested by Gyro. The trouble is it sounds like such an intermittent fault you might have to wait weeks before you know whether you have found the problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianknight Posted May 15, 2015 Share Posted May 15, 2015 Tony - get someone to pop the cooler off the CPU and check that there's actually some silicone grease spread evenly over the contact area with the process, it shouldn't be a thick layer of greases either - just enough to act as a "liquid shim". When the cooler is replaced, ensure that all of the retaining clips are engaging on the motherboard and holding the cooler - from experience if the CPU overheats it knows enough to shut down but never says anything meaningful to Windows and so the machine locks up. It might of course be a memory stick internally that's slightly out of spec and now that it's run in for a few hours - it's deciding to play up. eBuyer or eBay can be a decent source of new sticks at sensible prices but it's important to try and match the specs of the ones you already have - there's usually a sticker attached that gives their spec. If you're IT guy is confident that that everything above is OK - then try another disk drive - Windows is forever trying to read/write stuff in background and gets grumpy very quickly if it can't and locks up or shows BSOD. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alistermorton Posted May 15, 2015 Share Posted May 15, 2015 I had a machine that was shutting down and rebooting for no apparent reason. I replaced so many parts, and it was still doing it. I finally became convinced it was one of the applications I was running. then a friend told me that he'd seen machines at work where they were randomly rebooting and it turned out to be the internal case wiring. So I disconnected all the front panel switches and hey Tesco! problem solved. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gyro_gearloose Posted May 15, 2015 Share Posted May 15, 2015 All my pro tools set-ups are on firewire or USB 2 on a mac pro tower but as my new macbook pro does not even have firewire anymore I can see that in time everything will be out of date. Slightly OT, but if you're worried about Apple dropping Firewire support from their machines, you can always make your own Mac out of PC components. Apple use Intel CPUs, the same as everybody else, and the rest of their hardware is just standard PC stuff wrapped in a shiny Apple case. The only caveat to this is that OSX only supports a small subset of PC components, but there are plenty of websites which can give you guidance on choosing the appropriate parts. The word you want to Google is 'Hackintosh'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richard_cooper Posted May 15, 2015 Share Posted May 15, 2015 Slightly OT, but if you're worried about Apple dropping Firewire support from their machines, you can always make your own Mac out of PC components. Apple use Intel CPUs, the same as everybody else, and the rest of their hardware is just standard PC stuff wrapped in a shiny Apple case. The only caveat to this is that OSX only supports a small subset of PC components, but there are plenty of websites which can give you guidance on choosing the appropriate parts. The word you want to Google is 'Hackintosh'. It's worth pointing out, vaguely in the context of this thread, that many companies such as Figure53 with QLab will refuse to support their software on a Hackintosh. I believe Avid are the same, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ynot Posted May 30, 2015 Author Share Posted May 30, 2015 Latest update - it would appear that the problem MAY have been one of the RAM sticks...A couple of the guys were looking at many of the above suggestions and tried swapping out the RAM - with one of the 4GB sticks in on its own the machine ran very slow and did crash a couple of times when left for a while. With the stocks swapped out and the other one running solo, all seems to have been fine - albeit only running minimal programs. The dual video out card is out of the picture at the moment, but will be replaced to try that soon.TD Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ynot Posted June 1, 2015 Author Share Posted June 1, 2015 Aaaand I spoke too soon. :( :(Apparently the show last night was trialling it and had at least one incident of the BSOD... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Albatross Posted June 2, 2015 Share Posted June 2, 2015 I don't see any mention of virus or malware checks. If people are plugging in USB memory sticks with sound files etc., then it's highly possible something nasty has gotten onto the systemViruses or malware can lockup a system, cause it to reboot or even become unbootable (rootkit viruses)Perhaps it's a good idea to run a decent virus/malware checker. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ynot Posted June 2, 2015 Author Share Posted June 2, 2015 I don't see any mention of virus or malware checks. If people are plugging in USB memory sticks with sound files etc., then it's highly possible something nasty has gotten onto the systemViruses or malware can lockup a system, cause it to reboot or even become unbootable (rootkit viruses)Perhaps it's a good idea to run a decent virus/malware checker.It did have basic Windoze Defender on it after the lads connected to t'internet a few weeks back to load a queue of updates to see if that would help the situation.The machine is NOT left connected to the web 99% of the time and only connected when absolutely needed. The plan is and was to have it as clean of background programs as possible, which includes AV software - the last thing you need when running VT content is for a window to pop up shouting about updates!That said, it would thus be impossible to ensure that the high number of memory sticks that pass through - the techs' own, those from theatre groups and dance schools etc bringing in their content, etc - are AV checked before use. So that aspect in itself is a catch 22 situation... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul TC Posted June 3, 2015 Share Posted June 3, 2015 That said, it would thus be impossible to ensure that the high number of memory sticks that pass through - the techs' own, those from theatre groups and dance schools etc bringing in their content, etc - are AV checked before use. So that aspect in itself is a catch 22 situation...In another similar situation, the use of a "checker/gatekeeper PC" loaded only with a good current AV programme used only to test portable memory before they went near any other machine in the business was enforced. Hence any machine that was not up to date, or did not run AV for any reason was protected. May be a difficult process to implement in your situation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew Edwards Posted June 3, 2015 Share Posted June 3, 2015 Have you ran memtest86 yet? This should inform of any ram issues. In my experience, BSODs or freezes not related to specific hardware drivers are usually bad RAM. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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