My audio crashes repeatedly as of yesterday. Little help please.

[KeyserSoze]

I use itunes for mp3's and Cubase LE for recording. The inevitable itunes update came two days ago and I cancelled out of it. After that itunes will play songs (random amounts of them) unless I open the EQ, skip tracks or pause. The audio dies but the pause button is still visable (like it is when it's playing) but the timer stops and no visaulizer either. I can "select" different tracks but no buttons work including close. Ctrl+alt+del out of it but no audio in anything after that. Tonight youtube was also crashing it but earlier today I recorded 6 tracks for 2 hours with no problems (I didn't open anything but Cubase on that restart). I open itunes or firefox, audio crashes until a restart.

Please help. I've reinstalled itunes twice now. I hope I don't have to delete itunes all together b/c I've fixed a lot of album titles for easier navigation. Could it be a bad update? I d/loaded it two different times for the "fixes". Sucks cause I have had ZERO problems out of this computer for 7 or 8 months until now. I run avg, defender and spy-bot if that matters.

Thanks in advance for any help.

[richiebee]

Do a system restore... get back to a few days ago before the problems started. If I ever have problems, that's what I do. Never fails.

[kyle barton]

along these same lines,
Richie, do you or Brandon have any advice on things that should be turned off when running a DAW (in my case Cubase).

i saw some terrific advice on that a year or so ago somewhere. can't find it anymore. it was all about registry entries and stuff like that. just hoping you would have that at your fingertips.

[KeyserSoze]

Originally Posted by richiebee

Do a system restore... get back to a few days ago before the problems started. If I ever have problems, that's what I do. Never fails.

Word. I've never done that before. Will it delete the files I've recorded since then?

Thanks again Richie.

[richiebee]

Whenever you do anything like this, it doesn't hurt to backup your files, but system restore only affects programs so you shouldn't need to.

The only suggestion I have is keep your system clean and don't run real time anti-virus protection. I use the Windows Classic interface rather than the crappy XP one which might give a tiny bit of overhead back to me, and I also avoid screensavers and QuickLaunch items. I try and keep as much out of the system tray as possible. That's it. No other tweaks needed. I think TweakXP.com - Windows XP Tweaks, Tips, Hacks, Visual Styles, Support, and Software might help you a little if things aren't going the way they should, but if you get the performance you need, don't mess with it.

[KeyserSoze]

That might be my problem. Real time anti-virus protection. I run AVG and Windows Defender all the time. I'llo try disabling them while I work and just running them before shut downs or after restarts.

I also didn't know that quick launch items slowed things down. I use those all the time. I'll check out tweakxp. Thanks a lot.

[richiebee]

AVG isn't too bad actually, but your machine is certainly going to run better without it when it needs to write and read so much data in a very short space of time.

[KeyserSoze]

when it needs to write and read so much data in a very short space of time.

Playing mp3's from the hard drive?

Multitracking is working fine. Simple audio playback seems to be crashing it. I'm going to attempt this alleged "system restore" tomorrow. Maybe that will clear it up.