I’m getting some feedback from Digidesign, but the boys in tech support basically told me to play by the rules and follow their protocols to nail-down the problem.

I understand that (scientific method and all), but before I get into the esoterics of chipsets, motherboards, and processors…I’m gonna plug in a brand-new M-Audio unit I just purchased to see if that clears up the problem.

If so, I’ll know it’s not my computer, but the M-audio unit.

I do enjoy the challenge of piecing together jigsaw puzzles…. but I can’t seem to find the picture on the top of the box.

CourVO

Time is worth more than money.  See this Blog Entry from Dec. 20, ’07.

If that’s true, then I cheated myself out of time AND money today, in Pro-Tools hell.

For the better part of 12 hours, on ‘n’ off today, I un-installed, re-installed, re-configured, edited the registry, read the manual, consulted the FAQ’s, set and unset restore points, started and restarted, rebooted, un-installed and reinstalled some more, played with device drivers, punted…  You get the idea.  Yeah, 12 hours.

I think I know a little bit more about WinXP, but that’s about all.  And please, no Mac references.

This whole episode started when my computer crashed in the first place earlier this week as I was trying to install some new drivers for my Pro-Tools 7.4 hardware:  The M-Audio FireWire Solo.  The whole computer just crashed, and when I brought it up again, all sorts of weird things started happening with Windows XP Pro.

My computer guy got it running again, but it was costly.  Wiping out my HD and reformatting.  I didn’t lose data, but I had to re-install everything, including Pro-Tools.

Right from the start, PT began crashing the system again.  Liking hitting a reset button on the front of your computer case.

A friend finally told me the new M-Audio drivers were not compatible with WinXP and that’s why it was crashing.  Just getting the old M-Audio drivers re-installed took the better part of 2 hours.  And the tough part was…. it didn’t help.

Midnight came, and PT was still crashing my system.  I’ve really tried everything, so if you’re reading this as a visitor from the VO-BB… maybe you’ve got some ideas.  I’m out of ‘em.

Then I sat down to write this blog, and even my laptop messed-up and erased it after I’d written it.  (OK, maybe a little operator error!).  So this is actually a re-write.

I really obsess about this stuff too much.  We’ve talked about that before too… who needs computer games?  The computer IS the game.

More later,

CourVO