MBox: will an external hard drive help?

[digichick]

I just acquired an older Mbox that works great. Unfortunately, I can only record 2 guitar vocal songs before I get the "system interrupts" message. Any suggestions on how to fix this? Will an external firewire drive do the trick?

[DAS]

It could help depending upon the rest of your system configuration.

[digichick]

My system is the main problem because I am sort of stuck running LE on a Celeron processor. However, I have 512MB of RAM and a 40GB hard drive. It seems like a storage issue.

[michaelhoddy]

That sounds much more like a system processing overhead issue than any kind of storage issue. Celeron, especially an older one, is always a tough bet for audio, and your RAM is pretty minimal.

Although it's never really recommended to stream audio tracks from the system drive, I've gotten a full 24 tracks from the system drive on a PC using LE before. I really don't think that's your issue.

Try checking your sample buffer settings. If it's a low number (64, 128, 256), try raising it to 512 or 1024.

Also, make sure you're not running a bunch of apps or hidden utilities in the background. Things like antivirus software, AOL in any form, software firewalls, tray apps, IM apps, adware, spyware, and so on will dramatically gum up your system. It's useful to set up a separate user account that has only minimal processes running, and use that one for audio.

[EC_Beast]

Michael is correct. If it were a storage issue, more than likely it'd lock up your entire PC and someone would have to slave the drive to remove the data before it'd work again. A Celeron has no level 2 cache so when it goes to perform various tasks that Pro Tools needs, it's like going to the trunk of your car to get a map, instead of the glove box. Try creating a new account profile on your computer for a test; basically some programs that may run under your account may not start up in another. It wont solve the problem by any means, but I gurantee it'll help...even if it's just a little bit. Every little bit of power helps ya know...