[ddots-l] Re: Locking up with Sonar 6.2
- From: Tomorrow's Solutions Today <tomorrowssolutionstoday@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: ddots-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 3 May 2008 06:14:28 -0700 (PDT)
Hi Jim,
I thought I would share this with you for some other options other than the
ones we spoke about.
I will try to summarize much of what I know and have experienced about why
PCs lock-up, and attempts to give you some ideas for solving your PC's lock-up
problems.
A lock-up occurs when the PC appears to "freeze," and both the keyboard and
mouse are
unresponsive. If you move the mouse, the mouse pointer on the screen stays
still. If you press the Control-Alt-Delete key combination, nothing happens.
The only way to get out of a lock-up is to switch off the PC, wait a few
seconds, then turn it back on again.
In my experience, all of the things listed below can cause a PC to lock-up:
Hard drive errors
Incorrect or corrupt mouse driver
Loose or reversed mouse and keyboard connections
Running out of RAM memory
Resource leaks
Software conflicts
Computer viruses
Bad RAM memory
IRQ conflicts
Hard Drive Errors
Your PC's hard drive is sort of like a small sealed record player, with
spinning metal records
and several magnetic "needles," that move in and out, reading and writing
information onto the records. Because a hard drive is both mechanical and
electronic, it is more prone to wear and to errors than purely electronic
devices, like your PC's RAM memory chips. Because hard drives have moving
parts, it is normal for every hard drive to develop small bad areas that are
incapable of reliably storing and retrieving data. That's why you should run
the Windows ScanDisk program (found in Start/Programs/Accessories/System
Tools/ScanDisk), every few weeks. ScanDisk looks for data errors on your PC's
hard drive and tries to fix them. It also electronically finds and marks the
bad areas of your PC's hard drive, so that they won't be used any more, sort of
like putting orange plastic construction cones around them. If there is any
data in those bad areas, ScanDisk moves that data to another area of the hard
drive. The problem is, if you don't run ScanDisk every few weeks, or if an
area of the hard drive has gotten so bad that ScanDisk is unable to correctly
read some data that it is trying to move out of that area, you could end up
with corrupt data or programs, and that could cause your PC to lock-up. If
ScanDisk is unable to move
some data from a bad area of the hard drive, you may have to manually save
your important data onto floppy disks or some other form of storage, format
your PC's hard drive, reinstall Windows (which runs ScanDisk first, to mark the
bad areas), and then reinstall all of your software and restore your important
data.
Incorrect Or Corrupt Mouse Driver
Non-standard mice that come with new computers have their own special mouse
driver software, which have to be installed on the PC in order for mice to work
correctly. If you used the standard mouse driver software that is included with
Windows 98, the PC's mouse would work for awhile and then cause the PC the
lock-up. At the mouse manufacturer's Web site, download the newest mouse driver
software for those non-standard mice, then install it on the new PC, and the
lock-up problem should immediately go away.
Loose Or Reversed Mouse And Keyboard Connections
If either your mouse or keyboard connector is partially unplugged from your PC,
it could be
intermittently disconnecting, causing your PC to lock-up. Make sure that both
the mouse and keyboard connectors are securely plugged in all the way. Also,
make sure that your PC's mouse and keyboard aren't plugged into each other's
ports on your PC. Because the connectors themselves look exactly the same, most
PCs have some sort of icons or label, indicating which is the mouse port and
which is the keyboard port. Unfortunately, because those ports are usually on
the back of the PC, where it is hard to see them, it is easy to accidentally
reverse them, which can cause your PC to randomly lock-up.
Running Out Of RAM Memory
Along with a hard drive, which provides long-term storage of software and data
when your PC is turned off, every PC has a some RAM (short-term electronic chip
memory) installed in it, to hold the software and data that you are using at
any particular time. When you start a software program, it loads from the hard
drive into the RAM memory, where the PC's CPU (main brain) can access it.
Because it has to be running all the time, Windows loads first, and always
takes up a certain amount of your PC's RAM memory whenever your PC is turned
on. As the Windows Desktop (icons and background) appears, some other software
applications (anti-virus software, scanner software, and others) may start
automatically, with each one using some RAM memory. You can usually see tiny
icons for those applications in the System Tray, next to the Windows clock in
the bottom-right corner of the screen. Some PCs have only a few of these
StartUp applications, while others have 10-20 running all the
time, with each one using your PC's valuable RAM memory. In addition, each
software application that you run (word processor, email, etc.) takes up even
more RAM memory. If your PC has only a small amount of RAM memory, and you try
to open a large sound file, a digitized image, or anything else that takes up a
lot of memory, it is possible to run out of memory, and when Windows runs out
of memory, it locks-up. How can you tell if your
lock-ups are caused by running out of memory or not? If your Windows PC has
24MB or less of RAM memory, then Windows is using most of your PCs memory
before you even start running your word processor or other application, so
pretty much anything that you run could take up enough additional RAM memory to
make your PC lock-up. If you sometimes run 2 or 3 things at the same time, or
if you have many tiny icons in the System Tray next to the Windows clock, your
PC should probably have at least 64MB or more of RAM memory. If you sometimes
run more than 3 things at the same time, or if you're running memory intensive
applications like image editing software, your PC should probably have 96 MB or
more of RAM memory. If you run an Internet browser, email software,
Web-creation software (like FrontPage) and graphics software, all at the same
time, then your PC probably needs at least 128 MB of memory. How do I know
that? Because my PC had 96MB of memory, and it sometimes locks up
when I run all of those things at the same time. What can you do to trim your
PC's need for RAM? If you know what you're doing, you can delete the icons of
unnecessary programs from the Start/Programs/StartUp folder in order to prevent
them from automatically starting up each time you turn on your PC. Because
you're only deleting each program's shortcut icon, the programs themselves will
still be on your PC's hard drive, and they should still show up in the
Start/Programs, so you'll still be able to start them manually if you ever need
them. If you don't really know what you're doing, you'll be better off leaving
all of the icons in the StartUp folder, rather than taking a chance of deleting
something important.
Resource Leaks
As described in the section above, Windows 95/98 and each application that you
run takes up RAM memory and other resources. As you close each application, it
is supposed to free up the resources that it had been using, to allow other
applications to use them. Unfortunately, this doesn't always happen. A complex
application may use hundreds, or even thousands of resources, and unless it was
extremely well written by its programmers, it may forget to give back many of
those resources, or it may even intentionally keep some of those resources in
anticipation of them being reused. This is known as a "resource leak." As you
run and then quit several different applications, your PC may have less and
less resources available for use by other applications, due to resource leaks.
What is the solution? The simplest one is to restart your PC after you run many
different applications. That will clear all of your PC's resources for use by
other applications.
Software Conflicts
While most commercial software is written in such a way that it gets along with
other software, some poorly-written software "doesn't play well with others."
Software conflict problems sometimes occur randomly, and are extremely
difficult to diagnose, unless the lock-up problem appears right after you
install a new piece of software, and it disappears as soon as you uninstall
that piece of software. To give yourself a fighting chance to figure out
software conflicts, never install more than one piece of software at a time on
your properly-functioning PC. Each time you install a piece of software, use
the PC for several days afterward, without installing anything else, to make
sure that the new software doesn't cause any problems. That way, if a problem
starts a few days after you install something, you can uninstall it and see if
the problem goes away. If your PC has hundreds of little programs that you
downloaded for free from all over the Internet, and you have no idea
which one might be causing your PC to lock-up, try keeping a record of what
you were doing each time your PC locks up. If you can't see any pattern to the
lock-ups, you may have to manually save your important data onto floppy disks
or some other form of storage, format your PC's hard drive, then reinstall
Windows 95/98 and only a few of your most important software applications. Use
the PC for a few days, and if there are no problems, start adding other
software applications, one at at time, using the PC for a few days before
adding each new application, until the problem reappears. Then, uninstall the
last thing that you installed and see if the problem goes away.
Computer Viruses
Hundreds of new computer viruses are created each year. Modern computer viruses
can do all kinds of damage. They can email your AOL username and password to
someone in another country. They can destroy the operating system, the software
applications (Word, Excel, Outlook), and the data files on your PC. They can
email themselves to everyone in your email address book, making it look as
though the email message is from you. They can also corrupt your software or
your data files, causing them to lock-up your PC. The best way to protect your
PC from computer viruses is to install professional-quality antivirus software,
and to update that software at least once a month, usually by connecting to the
Internet and using the antivirus software's automatic update process. The 2
leading commercial antivirus software packages on the market today are McAfee
Antivirus from McAfee, and Norton Antivirus from Symantec. Having tried several
antivirus solutions, I use AVG Antivirus, which
is free.
Bad RAM Memory
I listed this one last, because it is a real long shot. RAM memory is extremely
stable and very rarely ever goes bad. However, it can be damaged by static
electricity, like if your house is really dry in the Winter, and you walk
across a carpet and then touch your PC's keyboard, giving it a static "zap." If
any part of your PC's RAM memory has gone bad, then every time your PC tries to
read or write data to that part of the memory, the data comes back corrupted,
and that can cause your PC to lock-up. If there is a bad section of RAM memory,
but it is way "at the end" of the RAM memory, then your PC may not even have to
use that part of RAM when you're doing your normal PC tasks that don't use much
memory. In fact, if your PC has bad memory "at the end" of its RAM, it may only
have to use that bad memory when you're running a lot of memory-intensive
things at the same time, and that situation could easily fool you into thinking
that the lock-up as caused by running out of
memory or by a software conflict.
IRQ Conflicts
It is a long shot is because it probably only applies to people whose PC
lock-up problems started only after they added one or more internal hardware
devices to their PC, like a modem, an additional COM port, a video card, or a
sound card. An IRQ (interrupt request channel) is a hardware signaling method
that allows each hardware device to send a signal to the PC's motherboard on a
unique channel whenever it has a request that needs attention, like a student
raising their hand in class to get a teacher's attention. Each hardware device
in a PC is assigned an IRQ when it is installed, sometimes by a switch or other
hardware setting on the device itself, and sometimes by the Windows operating
system. When you buy a new PC, its devices should already be set to their
correct IRQ settings by the PC's manufacturer, so it shouldn't have any IRQ
conflicts. However, if you add a new internal device to your PC, you could
experience IRQ conflicts that can cause your PC to lock up if
the new device has an IRQ setting switch that is set incorrectly or if the
"Plug and Play" feature built into Windows incorrectly assigns the new device
to the same IRQ as another device (a problem that happens often enough that
many of us refer to that feature as "Plug and Pray.") When two devices are
configured to incorrectly share the same IRQ channel, the PC intermittently
locks up because it receives an interrupt signal on the shared IRQ channel, it
can't tell which device is trying to get its attention. One way to avoid IRQ
conflicts is to read and carefully follow all of the installation instructions
whenever you install any new device inside your PC. Another way is to remove
any device that you don't need in your PC, to free up its IRQ for a different
device to use.
Conclusion
PC lock-ups can be caused by a lot of different things. If your PC is locking
up, you will have
to use some knowledge, some logic, some trial-and-error, and some detective
work to solve the problem. I hope that this has given you some clues to make
that process a little easier.
Scott
Jim Jackson <cs2007@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hello all, When having Sonar 6.2 opened and inactive, I experience
lock ups. Doesn't seem to happen whenever I'm actually using the program but
when I leave the program open and go back some time later. The project on
which I was working is shown on the screen but I can't get the machine to
respond to any keyboard or mouse actions. I'm using JFW 8.0, Ct 6.2 with
update, Sonar 6.2 with update, I have connected, midisport 4x, delta 1010 sound
card and a Mackey 1212 mixer. Any suggestions? Thanks
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