Playback problems on Titan Mobile

[sincity]

Hello,

I bought my Titan Mobile approximately 2 weeks ago. During this period I have run 4 shows. Generally it works perfectly and I´m pretty excited. But since the first show there are some weird freezing problems with the playback faders. It used to happen when I haven´t change the fader position during 10 to 15 minutes. When I´m going to move the fader (or cut it to the 0 position) after that period the fixtures on the stage that have to make the change freeze for a second (or 2) and then cut to the position where the fader is in that moment. The same freezing problem appears also when I´m going to move up the fader from 0 position.
It is pretty disturbing when I´m running quite static concert or theatre show.
I´m going to have a pretty important live on wendsday.

Please, help!


My laptop is:
msiFX600
CPU: Intel Core i5-450M
VGA: NVIDIA Geforce GT 325M/ 1GB DDR3
RAM: DDRIII 4GB
HDD: 500GB
Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit

[icke_siegen]

Any background processes which come to life after a time of inactivity?
- background virus scan
- windows indexing
...

Or: any hardware which might be disabled by windows after a while? Try to set power consumption profile to 'maximum performance', disable screen saver...

[adamabcd]

Hi,
It sounds as though your USB ports could be entering Sleep mode.
Under PC Device Manager,USB controllers you will see a number of USB Root Hubs. For each one, right click, select properties then the Power Management tab. De-select the box that allows the power saving.
This is for XP but you should find something similar for Win7.

Adam

[sincity]

Thank you for the answer.
I formatted and reinstalled the Windows before installing Titan V5. It´s the only program on the computer. I disabled the network cards, USB power management, system startup items. My current powerplan is "high performance" and the "Turn Off Hard Disk After" is set to "Never". The ClearType Font Smoothing is disabled and processor scheduling is set to "Background Services". My virus protection program is Microsoft Security Essentials. I try to uninstall it and disable the windows indexing.

[liteworks]

Sounds similar to a problem I had. I had random freezing every so often (froze for half, to a second then everything done would catchup super-fast on screen and the DMX would freeze then catchup) on one laptop, which I had specifically to run just Titan Mobile on annoyingly.., couldn't reliably get it to fault at the same point, but seemed to be when the system hadn't been touched for a few minutes a lot of the time.

Avo support were useless with the problem.. After having pulled my hair out and then having the same issue with MagicQ on the same system I did some more digging, installed windows x32 on a new HDD (so I didn't have to wipe the original x64 setup), swapped the HDD's over and by luck discovered it was the Hard Disk Drive that was causing the problem!

Might not be the issue your having but worth a look if your still pulling your hair out (system was an Acer touch screen laptop, i3 CPU, Western Digital 320Gb HDD).

Cheers

Matt

[sincity]

Thank you for the advice, Matt! I´m still pretty frustrated with the problem.
Are you sure that the HDD is the troublemaker? Maybe there is a kind of a conflict with x64 systems. What is weird that since the first installation of the Titan software (and reinstalling it several times afterwards + making the format C one time) the system has not asked me about the security key of the dongle.
What I´m planning to do is to buy one more laptop computer (Dell Inspiron N5040, Intel Pentium Dual-Core P6200 2.13GHz,RAM: 3GB DDR3, HDD: 320GB 5400RPM, VGA: Intel GMA 5700MHD) with x32 Windows7 Home Premium and trying to run the console software on it. Maybe there is a conflict with msi laptops.(?) If it does not help then I´m out of ideas.

Thanks, Matt and Merry Christmas!

[liteworks]

My first though was a x64 incampatability, hence my trying an x32 install. Since discovering it was likley the HDD casusing issue I've gone back to x64 Windows 7 (in fact I think I ghosted the install from the hdd causing issues to be sure it wasn't anything else on there) to be able to use all the ram in the system, which is working fine since.

HDD might not be your issue (and i've no idea at all why a hdd would cause issue, didn't seem to be deffective according the the WD diagnostic software) but deffinatly worth investigating and ruling out if your pulling your hair out and haven't come up with any other solutions.

-matt

[SLS]

Hi, I have found the same problem with XP and W7, I tracked it down to power saving in both systems.
HD have to be set HD to 'always on' as well as all other stuff like monitors.
Even with power saving system de selected the disc will still spin down if left unused used for 5-10 mins. Then you get the problem.

[liteworks]

Hi, I have found the same problem with XP and W7, I tracked it down to power saving in both systems.
HD have to be set HD to 'always on' as well as all other stuff like monitors.
Even with power saving system de selected the disc will still spin down if left unused used for 5-10 mins. Then you get the problem.

What brand and model HDD have you found that with? May be the HDD's have got their own power saving written in to the firmware, from memory the one I had issues with as branded as a "green" disk so entirely possible.

-matt

[niclights]

Certainly the WD 'Caviar Green' drives have their own power saving technology. I do wonder if this, or similar systems on other manufacturers drives is the reason behind these problems. Unfortunately if that's the case then there I suspect there is no way to circumvent this other than replacing the drive. And of course laptops are more likely to make use of these 'eco' drives.

If replacing a drive I might consider a small SSD. 40GB is enough.

[SLS]

Yes they were 'green' types but if you select 'always on' in power options in the control panel an 'never' in disc, monitor and system standby this seems to override the disc shutting down.