Please help! EMERGENCY! cpu spikes and dropouts on 7.14

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latufe
Posts: 35
Joined: Sun Oct 29, 2006 9:03 pm

Please help! EMERGENCY! cpu spikes and dropouts on 7.14

Post by latufe » Wed Jan 28, 2009 8:49 pm

hi everybody, sorry for screaming, but i got 2 gigs this weekend starting from friday... after 2 years of loyal performance and more than 200 gigs with live, i have serious dropouts and cpu spikes. i just gave my macbook to repair last week (the topcase was replaced) and it seems to work fine, but live dosnt! my usual set would play with buffersize 128, and now i cant even play it without dropouts with 1024! i tried it with my motu 828, edirol fa 66 and the internal sound card.. the only external plug-ins i use
are audiodamage dubstation and wave arts track plug, i removed them both and it didnt help... i know this is a very general description, but i really cant get anymore useful info! everything else appears to be normal and the computer working as allways.. allthough i really not downloading nothing, could it be a virus or somthig? if this wierd issue rings a bell or anyone think he could help, please say what ever, i have to get this done by tommorow!


my specs:

macbook white c2d 2.0ghz 2gb ram, motu 828 mk2, edirol fa66, live 7.14

latufe
Posts: 35
Joined: Sun Oct 29, 2006 9:03 pm

Post by latufe » Wed Jan 28, 2009 8:52 pm

and live consumes 50% while not playing!

TomSwitz
Posts: 16
Joined: Wed Apr 16, 2008 6:29 pm
Location: Zurich

Post by TomSwitz » Wed Jan 28, 2009 9:01 pm

hi

i had a similar issue.
turning off airport solved it.

hope that helps you, too..

tom
MacBook Pro 2.33 GHz, 3 GB RAM, OSX.5.8, Live 8.1.1, UAD-2 SoloLaptop

latufe
Posts: 35
Joined: Sun Oct 29, 2006 9:03 pm

Post by latufe » Wed Jan 28, 2009 9:34 pm

thanks...well, it didnt help, i know there was an issue with wifi and firewire, but actually, i never had problems with working with wifi turned on.... any other suggestions? i now realize that my combo drive is not being recoginzed... otherwise i would re-install os x.. (an old xp user habbit :)..... which adds more to the mystery and the possiblty that my computer turned faulty, allthough i cant link between crazy cpu spikes in and the lacking drive...

latufe
Posts: 35
Joined: Sun Oct 29, 2006 9:03 pm

Post by latufe » Wed Jan 28, 2009 9:36 pm

and the funny thing is that the test tone with 80%cpu is working fine under 256 buffersize.... the drive light wont light up, otherwise i would suspect that my harddrive is not ok....

TomSwitz
Posts: 16
Joined: Wed Apr 16, 2008 6:29 pm
Location: Zurich

Post by TomSwitz » Wed Jan 28, 2009 9:56 pm

which version of osx are you using?
MacBook Pro 2.33 GHz, 3 GB RAM, OSX.5.8, Live 8.1.1, UAD-2 SoloLaptop

pushtobreak
Posts: 54
Joined: Mon Jan 16, 2006 4:13 am
Location: NYC
Contact:

Post by pushtobreak » Wed Jan 28, 2009 9:58 pm

I'm not sure if this will help. I had a similar problem while using multiple potential problem causing elements that are now cleared up. I'm not really sure the following was the cause of my problem or whether it even fixed it but this could be useful to know. I discovered a ton of (I believe they were temporary but can't quite remember now) files related to crashes and problems I was somehow causing in Live. I found them using Disk Inventory X (which must be cheap or even free or I wouldn't have it). It's a simple visual of the space used on the drive. As I was looking at what was taking up space I found this giant folder. I seem to remember thinking they should have been automatically erased (thus temporary) but for some reason they weren't. Hope that helps.

steko
Posts: 3411
Joined: Thu Jan 22, 2009 8:29 pm

Post by steko » Wed Jan 28, 2009 11:19 pm

Hey latufe!


Could be many things...


OSX Version?

How much space is left on your harddisk?

Is Airport switched off?

Made any updates recently?

Newest motu/edirol drivers?

Use Disk Utility & check volume & repair permissions

Open activity monitor in applications/utilities while liveset is open & not playing, let it show active processes, sort it by %cpu. Any suspicious processes?

Quit Live & put its preference.cfg file (user/library/preferences/ableton/Live 7.0.14) to the desktop & restart live. If that works you have to set up all your preferences again, if not you can put your old preferences file from the desktop back.

Check if audio tracks are set to "No Input", where you dont need it. Makes big difference in cpu consumption.


Good luck


steko
Rahad Jackson wrote:My Awesome Mix Tape #6

latufe
Posts: 35
Joined: Sun Oct 29, 2006 9:03 pm

Post by latufe » Thu Jan 29, 2009 1:07 am

hi steko and everybody, thanks for helpin...

im on 10.4.11

i didnt made any updates, airport is off, premissions are repaired, edirol dont need dirvers, motu latest drivers, and as i said, the problem accrues also with the built in soundcard... my setup is pretty much static in the last year...ill try the .cfg thing...

the thing is, that my setup is so static, and im playing with it live every weekend, and in the week days im working with it in the studio... never had problems before.. i didnt saw any suspicious services going on, or atleast nothing that consumes cpu...

latufe
Posts: 35
Joined: Sun Oct 29, 2006 9:03 pm

Post by latufe » Thu Jan 29, 2009 1:14 am

and also for the record, my cpu temp is 69-74, and the fan speed is getting to 6500rpm (way faster then my hard drive :) when i play my (crunchy) set... im starting to thing its a hardware problem.. unfortunately i cant say cause everything else seems to be normal (except the faulty combo drive) [/list]

latufe
Posts: 35
Joined: Sun Oct 29, 2006 9:03 pm

Post by latufe » Thu Jan 29, 2009 1:58 am

ok, this is the wierdest thing ever! if i play my set, and ran firefox in the background, leving it playing a video (wich consumes cpu) live will play it ok with less cpu consumption, and in the minute i close firefox, crazy cpu spikes will appear, as if live is "eating" every possible resource! how could this be??

posssu
Posts: 1117
Joined: Mon Dec 04, 2006 12:58 am

Post by posssu » Thu Jan 29, 2009 2:32 am

Did you try INACTIVATING Airport, not just turn it off? I don't remember where it is in Tiger, I'm on Leopard, but it's there somewhere. Select Airport and inactivate/disable it, not just "turn off". I assume this turns off the actual card. Then restart Live and try if they appear.

I'm having the same problem, it just started happening and I don't know why. I'm with Apogee Duet and I've been using it with no problems for ages and now 1 week ago this started happening. Set plays well until I get a CPU-spike and then the crackling starts.

And Live's CPU-consumption is way more than the CPU-meter shows.

Are you possibly using Airport Extreme in your house? The only change I made there within a short time is changing it to 5kHz transmission, which I will test next, if the problem persist. But try inactivating the Airport card in your laptop, then you'll really know if it's airport or not.

I'll report my findings too.
Juhana Lehtiniemi - Film composer with Ableton Live

latufe
Posts: 35
Joined: Sun Oct 29, 2006 9:03 pm

Post by latufe » Thu Jan 29, 2009 9:24 am

i dont use airport extreme... and i could not find out how to disable it, so i cant test it...

latufe
Posts: 35
Joined: Sun Oct 29, 2006 9:03 pm

Post by latufe » Thu Jan 29, 2009 12:21 pm

ok, today i booted from another disk, opened my set, and it worked fine - that makes it clear, somthing in my OS went wrong, just like that, out of the blue... anyways, i took it to the apple store to an express repairment, where they sould try to repair my combo drve, and if not, they will re install leopard on it(the dude in the store told me that tiger is indvidual, that means they cant install it if its not the original tat came with the mabook..).


sience i dont know leopard, i wanted to ask if the 7.014 and the newst vrsion of leopard are working fine together... im just trying to save time (which is running out!) so if anybody has bad expiriences with it, please tell me, or if anybody knows what is the best combination of those two... thanks everybody for your time!

steko
Posts: 3411
Joined: Thu Jan 22, 2009 8:29 pm

Post by steko » Thu Jan 29, 2009 4:59 pm

Hey latufe!


Try the Tiger 10.4.11 combo update. This is all updates since 10.4 in one, so if something is damaged this may help & won`t harm.

Reboot & do disk utility routines before & after update. Quit all other processes before upgrade.

Could also be some corrupt cache files (Onyx is a free programm, that can clear caches (clearing caches is not a maintenance routine - just for troubleshooting!!!).


Do the preferences.cfg thing first & if that does not help do the combo update.


http://support.apple.com/downloads/Mac_ ... te__Intel_


Check activity monitor for what is maxing out your cpu. (I checked a macbook pro of a friend last week and an unfinished printjob maxed out his cpu in the background...)


You could also do a hardware test with your system dvd.


OSX 10.5.6 & Live 7.0.14 = fine


Good luck


steko
Last edited by steko on Thu Jan 29, 2009 6:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Rahad Jackson wrote:My Awesome Mix Tape #6

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