Ableton Forum

Hi,

I just got a new laptop, switched from mac to pc. Live runs uber slow on the new compy and crashes alot. Any suggestions?

Particulars:
Old Laptop:
Macbook Pro 2.2 ghz core 2 duo with 2 gigs ram 32 bit(i think)-four years old. Live worked pretty well but reached a point where I was maxing out my CPU and RAM

New Laptop:
HP i7 quad core 1.87ghz 8gigs of ram 64 bit w/ windows 7-had for two days

Side by side:
Loading of instruments about equal to slightly longer on new laptop
Certain CPU intensive instruments (reason why I looked into getting a new laptop) work GREAT on the new laptop once they load (Jazzmaster, i love you)
When I click the midi map key to maps stuff it is instantly ready on my mac and switches back instantly when i click it off, its about 4 to 5 seconds from click to activiation/deactivation on the new laptop
Tempo clock is off on new laptop-ie tapping along with it, i feel it shaking, not a professional drummer but know when somethins up with my tempo
Live crashes like no other on new laptop, hardly ever had a problem except when getting stupid on the mac

The only other difference I can think of is that I got a korg padKontrol (awesome sensitivity on the pads) that has not seen my macs inner USB goodness, but have tried with it and with out on new PC.

Help much appreciated,

didn't see any mention of sound card there. Windows on board sound is not good, Macs' is.

For windows you will need something like ASIO4all, but hopefully it will work on your new laptop, I found on a more recent HP it didn't work properly.

But try ASIO4all, but really you'll be better off with a proper sound card

http://store.apple.com

Yeah, do you have a real audio interface with 64bit Win7 drivers? You can't just use the regular onboard sound on the laptop, it's not usable for making music.
ASIO4ALL is a workaround for getting good latency on generic sound hardware but it's still better to use a decent soundcard (it'll be an external box for a laptop so it's not really a card).
Live works fine in Win7 for most people and I know it's annoying when you find out that for some reason your particular hardware has problems with the software that you want to use.

You wouldn't happen to also have all the useless bundled software HP (and others) put on the machine always running in the background. Horrible security "suites" are just useless and cause more trouble than they're worth. If you don't need any security software just un-install all of it but MS Security Essentials is pretty good at not slowing down your machine if you don't dare running without any security stuff.

Click on the START button and type Notification and choose Notification Area Icons. Make sure than "Always show all icons" is checked. This will make sure you don't have even more usless stuff running on your computer that you don't need.

I've never had to do any of these but here's a guide Sweetwater has made about Win7 optimization for audio computers. I don't agree with their recomendation of AVG but some of the other tips might help you. Remember, clean out the useless software you don't need and make sure you have all the correct up to date drivers.
http://www.sweetwater.com/sweetcare/dow ... _Guide.pdf

Hey all,

thanks for the response. I do have an external audio interface (Fast Track Ultra). It seemed the disabling all of the bloatware was my problem.

Denatku-the sweetwater guide seemed to help alot and alot of issues have been fixed. Thanks a ton for that.

The only thing now that troubles me is that when I go to midi map and click the midi button, its about 4 to 5 seconds to actually change and then another 4 to 5 to change back. This was instant on my mac. Is this just something I'll have to get used to on a PC or is there still something I'm missing?

Thanks again

Nice, that's good to hear.
Did you have any of that stupid Norton or Macafee stuff running by any chance?
And, no, I can press CTRL-M and go into MIDI map mode instantly.

By the way, are you using the newest M-Audio Fast Track Ultra drivers from 11/14/2009 named FastTrackUltra_6.0.2_5.10.0.5099.exe "
It looks weird to me that M-Audio hasn't updated their drivers since Nov. 2009.

MonkeyDelux wrote:Hey all,

thanks for the response. I do have an external audio interface (Fast Track Ultra). It seemed the disabling all of the bloatware was my problem.

Denatku-the sweetwater guide seemed to help alot and alot of issues have been fixed. Thanks a ton for that.

The only thing now that troubles me is that when I go to midi map and click the midi button, its about 4 to 5 seconds to actually change and then another 4 to 5 to change back. This was instant on my mac. Is this just something I'll have to get used to on a PC or is there still something I'm missing?

Thanks again