**Sometimes certain machines stream audio better when the Hardware Acceleration slider is backed down or even pulled all the way to the left. Especially true when using certain softsynths, VSTs and DXis that can get interrupts at the worst time from the Accelerator. Experiment with different settings of that slider to see if it helps, and of course how far down to turn it. Sometimes necessary to remember that setting if you are a gamer and turn it down to record music and back up for gaming, sometimes seems to make no difference when turned all the way off all the time, go figure.**

Pay attention to what rharv has said as well, IRQ share with video card and sound device is a no-no audio interruption waiting to happen.

How much RAM ya got? Disk swap instead of physical RAM isn't a pretty thing when multitracked streaming of audio in and out while running softsynths and effects is the goal. It is also important to understand how Double Density RAM works and the proper configuration of sticks on your motherboard in order for its Bios to be able to switch and stay in Double Density mode. Odd amounts of RAM, not matched in the proper slots for DDR, may seem like more ramcount but actually can be much less because they force the BIOS to boot up in Single Density mode. Increasing the RAMcount to somewhere around the 2gig mark for the older XP machines is a very good thing when doing DAW work. And the RAM for them is rather cheap now.

But even if you don't have quite enough physical RAM in there, for DAW work under XP it pays to manually set the Disk Swap cache to twice your physical ramsize rather than accepting the default, "Let Windows handle...".

Speakin of XP, if you aren't using SP3, you should. The upgrade is available from microsoft site. No worries here, it is not only well proven and stable mature stuff now, there is also the Restore Point in XP which allows you to revert if need be. If you have it turned on, and everybody should.

Normally I recommend using the second hard drive for the streaming storage of audio Temp files ONLY. This is typically set in the Prefs of the host recording program, the place to select for Temp file storage. And I also recommend using that second drive's first partition only for the purpose, okay to put one folder there, but leave it empty and let it be only for the program's Temp audio streaming files. If you are low on physical RAMcount, I recommend leaving the disk swap selection on the same hard drive where the System lives. That way it cannot interrupt your streaming audio if it needs to access for ram use.

Finally, it often pays to visit the website of the mfr of your mobo (and the mafr's website ONLY - avoid mirror sites and other places that have merely used bots to download who-knows-what) and see if there is a newer BIOS released for it. If so, read up on their method for downloading and installing the newer BIOS to the old girl, and be sure to follow their instructions -- to. the. letter. *Many* problems get corrected after the fact with mobo BIOS and upgrading to the latest patch is often a path to a machine that works as advertised. Be careful on this one, those who don't follow exact instructions, or allow power to be interrupted during the install (or actually turn it off because they got antsy and couldn't wait until the task finished itself...) -- have BRICKED their computers. That's not pretty. Don't be afraid, but do be careful when doing a BIOS flash. If you have a UPS, by all means use it.


--Mac

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