Sudden Digital Noise

[jmistler]

I have been using this same system for over a year without any problems. However, every day for the last week the same problem has been occurring (no updates/upgrades or changes to the system have been made since 2009). After monitoring MIDI playback for 4+ hours, all of a sudden I start getting click/pop digital noise in increasing amounts with every MIDI note played until it is total garbage. After quitting DP and relaunching, the entire system will lock up and I have to force the Mac to power down.

Anyone else experienced this? Any ideas on where to start troubleshooting?

Mac Pro Dual Core
DP 6.02
2408 mkII
308
MTP AV
Aardsync Master Clock
External sampler connected digitally
All equipment getting word clock from Aardsync

[bdr]

Are you using EW PLAY. That can be very problematic.

I'm going to say to throw out prefs, including those for the audio cards, check for updates to the drivers. Repair permissions.Get DP 7.23. Check the physical seating of your PCI cards.

Strip back to a very basic setup-use built in audio only. Does it still happen?

Try each card individually using it's internal clock.

That's all I can think of at the moment.

[jmistler]

Not using EW PLAY.

I will try those suggestions and post my results next week.

Thanks.

[jmistler]

Performed all of the suggestions except for upgrading to DP 7.23.

Interesting twist...

When I go to Configure Hardware Driver, I get the choices:

Built-in Line Input
Built-in Digital Input
Built-in Output
Built-in Line Output
Built-in Digital Output
Logitech USB Headset (input)
Digi CoreAudio Device
PCI-424

When I try to switch the currently selected PCI-424 to Built-In Output, the system hard crashes immediately. Upon hard reboot, plus the switching off of the MOTU hardware (2408, 308) and back on again (this is necessary because if not done DP hard crashes the system on launch), I am able to select Built-in Output. However, any attempt to switch back to PCI-424 hard crashes the system, and I have to go through the reboot process again.

Any further ideas?

Thanks,

John

[Shooshie]

When I go to Configure Hardware Driver, I get the choices:

Built-in Line Input
Built-in Digital Input
Built-in Output
Built-in Line Output
Built-in Digital Output
Logitech USB Headset (input)
Digi CoreAudio Device
PCI-424

When I try to switch the currently selected PCI-424 to Built-In Output, the system hard crashes immediately. Upon hard reboot, plus the switching off of the MOTU hardware (2408, 308) and back on again (this is necessary because if not done DP hard crashes the system on launch), I am able to select Built-in Output. However, any attempt to switch back to PCI-424 hard crashes the system, and I have to go through the reboot process again.

I could not find what OS you are using, but this sounds like a driver/OS issue. Those machines do not crash OSX normally. Under normal circumstances you can safely restart them or you can safely restart OSX without restarting the interfaces. If either of those acts crashes the system, you probably need to upgrade or at least re-install those drivers.

If you are using DP6 with Leopard OS, you by all means should upgrade to Snow Leopard. It was like getting a new version of DP thrown into the deal. Leopard was not a finished OS. Snow Leopard finished what should have been there all along. (my opinion, but also echoed throughout the Mac user community)

I've no idea what's going on there in your system, but it sure sounds like you need some upgrades. There may be other ways of causing this instability, but I do not know what they are.

Shooshie

[jmistler]

My system specs:

Mac Pro Dual Core
OS 10.6.7
DP 6.02
PCI-424e (shows as pci137a,5 in System Profiler)
2408 mkII
308
MTP AV
Aardsync Master Clock
External sampler connected digitally
All equipment getting word clock from Aardsync

Sounds like I have a real headache on my hands. Thanks for the responses...