Computer Running REALLY Slow

[Gregk]

Well, in Reaper I've been experiencing skipping, dropout, etc.

Now, I'm not using memory intensive plugins by any means.(TSS, Wagner sharp, and boogex). The only major plugin is Superior 2.0. It says my CPU usage is 90%, and that can't be right considering that I have 2gb ram and a 2ghz processor. I've defraged and all that jazz. I've also checked to see if I could pin point a specific plugin that was causing this, but no luck. This didn't always happen, and when it started it was pretty much random. I didn't do anything significant, it just started.

So, any help is GREATLY appreciated.

Thanks,

Greg

 

[GarethSE]

Watch less porn. Haaa

In all seriousness, run a virus scan, uninstall anything you don't need. Games you don't play, mp3's you no longer listen to, back up your pictures to an external HD or a CD or something, run your DAW with a minimal amount of background tasks running in general.

 

[Gregk]

Well, I already cleared out about 30gb to an external drive, and I have virtually nothing else running, and it still happens.

 

[Moonlight_Seeker]

Well, I am on a 350 gig vista and when it gets under 100gigs of free space it slows down too much for my taste. And apparently the original configuration of vista is set to use only 1 processor even when you have 2. How to fix this? I don't remember. But type vista or xp or mac or whatever and then "tweak" in youtube and something should happen.

 

[crazykarl]

Watch less porn.

Haha. Check for spyware. I personally use Spyware Stop and it works pretty well since I don't have any problems. Other than that change what programs come on at start up (google it, it involves changing settings in the control panel). I did it and it was unbelievable how much crap was running in the background.

Consider also using Ccleaner, it works and it's free.

If all that fails...consider not using windows anymore, which is what I'm considering a lot lately.

 

[ahjteam]

and I suggest that when you do music, cut off your internet connection temporarely, and turn off antivirus programs and firewalls to save (sometime a massive amount of) cpu power

 

[Erkan]

If all else fails you can try Format C:

 

[RaDiKaL]

You can try process explorer to see if some other process is eating up you CPU.

Also check (with process explorer) if there are any jumps in the Hardware Interrupts when the stutters occur. I had a similar problem due to bad drivers and shared IRQs... go figure...

 

[Pedro Teixeira]

In ProTools M-Powered I used to have that, and was running ALOT of tracks and alot of plugins, but it wasn't skipping, it was some random crackling noise that showed up even when I bounced... and normally the CPU was running at 25% usage (I have a Quadcore cpu...) so I went to the playback engine and selected 256samples instead of the 512 that were selected by default and voilá... lol try that I don't know... worked for me

 

[greyskull]

sounds like time to reinstall windoze

 

[SocialNumb]

I didn't say anything.

 

[John_C]

this happened to me yesterday. I realised i had accidently set my laptop to power saver, which ofc meant that although reaper wasn't using any more than normal, there was just no headroom at all. So
1. check your power settings, and turn off any automatic processor speed stepping or whatever it's called
2. Check the performance meter in reaper, that should give you an idea of where the problem is, ie whether it's in reaper or not
3. If all else fails, start reinstalling stuff until it works again!
4. The dreaded word that is............format

 

[dani]

hmm, i had some weird issues with wagner sharp (that appear to be exactly the same as yours), that was causing unusually high CPU usage, which led me to stop using it.

try bypassing that plugin and see if your performance issues go away. (on reaper you'll probably need to remove it to stop it from running the plugin)

i don't know of a fix.
thanks,

 

[Machinated]

end it all - that program changed my PC so much, that said i barely ever use pc these days....

that one seriously sped it up though

 

[John_C]

end it all's not free anymore

 

[slashvanyoung]

Have you tried reinstalling Reaper or disabling the plugins one for one to search for the culprit?

Missing hardware horse power really shouldn't be the issue... I mean, I just had Reaper running on my Netbook with a 900 mhz Celeron and 1 gb ram. 9 tracks with like 3 plugins on every track... no problems at all.

I <3 Reaper.

 

[kev]

Also a 2ghz chip isnt exactly ground breaking atm.

 

[John_C]

not groundbreaking, but as slash just said, reaper isn't demanding on the CPU at all. Efficient coding FTW