Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Powerbook G4 Sudden motion sensor

A

ash taylor

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 9, 2014
13
0
Hi,

Is anyone familiar with the Powerbook G4 motion sensor? I have gone into the terminal and typed in the required entries but the SMS isn't in the list.

I'm using the laptop for my band and its only crashing in a live environment. The vibrations from the drum kit and bass guitar are causing Pro Tools DAE errors.
The error message is:

"DAE cant get audio from the drive(s) fast enough. Your drive may be too slow or fragmented or a FireWire device could be having trouble due to the extra FireWire bandwith or CPU load. (-9073)"

Is there any way of turning off the motion sensor or does it simply not include one?
 
Intell

Intell

macrumors P6
Jan 24, 2010
18,955
509
Inside
Going off of the one line you posted, your Powerbook doesn't seem to be fast enough. Either the hard drive can't keep up or the CPU is too loaded to process everything fast enough.
 
A

ash taylor

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 9, 2014
13
0
Its 2nd hand so I'm not sure about the HDD.

just to reiterate, the performance is fine at home and never crashes. It is only when we bring into a loud band practice that we have problems.
 
Intell

Intell

macrumors P6
Jan 24, 2010
18,955
509
Inside
It could be that the vibrations are causing the hard drive to miss its track and having to seek for it again causing the slow downs that the program cannot work with. If you have money to spend on this machine, you could try an SSD.
 
A

ash taylor

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 9, 2014
13
0
Intell said:
It could be that the vibrations are causing the hard drive to miss its track and having to seek for it again causing the slow downs that the program cannot work with. If you have money to spend on this machine, you could try an SSD.
Click to expand...

Nice, I would have thought the motherboard wouldn't support a SSD? If it does then I might look into it.
 
Intell

Intell

macrumors P6
Jan 24, 2010
18,955
509
Inside
You have two options if you want a SSD. You can get a PATA/IDE SSD or get a mSATA SSD with a PATA adapter. Both have very similar results and similar price points. If drive space is important to you, PATA SSDs don't have as much storage space as mSATA SSDs with an adapter.
 
A

ash taylor

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 9, 2014
13
0
Intell said:
You have two options if you want a SSD. You can get a PATA/IDE SSD or get a mSATA SSD with a PATA adapter. Both have very similar results and similar price points. If drive space is important to you, PATA SSDs don't have as much storage space as mSATA SSDs with an adapter.
Click to expand...

storage isn't a huge issues. There is very little on the laptop, just the pro tools sessions. We try to keep as little on the laptop as possible.

Any brands you recommend foe the PATA/IDE SSD and any links? Also what sort of storage and price range are we looking at?
 
Intell

Intell

macrumors P6
Jan 24, 2010
18,955
509
Inside
Some brands include OWC, Kingspec, Kingspan, and Transcend. They range from about $50 to $200 for size and rated speed. I suggest not buying one until other forums members input their suggestions for a SSD.
 
A

ash taylor

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 9, 2014
13
0
Ok thanks so much for your Intel though. I'm visiting the Apple genius bar on Friday as well.
 
A

ash taylor

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 9, 2014
13
0
I think we are going to go down the route of an external USB 3.0 SSD powered by a powered USB hub.

All the sessions files will be on the solid state drive so I'm hoping this will work.

From experience, does running a program thats on the internal HDD, accessing files on an external SSD, require to read info from the internal HDD? I don't want to purchase the external SSD and discover the Powerbook is still crashing because the internal is being disrupted still.
 
Intell

Intell

macrumors P6
Jan 24, 2010
18,955
509
Inside
In most cases, the program will read and write to the startup drive or the drive where the user's home folder is located. It reads and writes things like caches, settings, data from the program itself, and temporary files.
 
A

ash taylor

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 9, 2014
13
0
Intell said:
In most cases, the program will read and write to the startup drive or the drive where the user's home folder is located. It reads and writes things like caches, settings, data from the program itself, and temporary files.
Click to expand...

I can get Pro Tools to specifically read the audio files from the SSD no problem. But are you saying even if I could do that, it'd still be reading SOME information from the interal HDD and those vibrations may still cause the program to give error messages?
 
Intell

Intell

macrumors P6
Jan 24, 2010
18,955
509
Inside
It's very possible that it will still be accessing the internal hard drive. I do not know if what it accesses on the internal will still cause problems or not.
 
A

ash taylor

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 9, 2014
13
0
Intell said:
It's very possible that it will still be accessing the internal hard drive. I do not know if what it accesses on the internal will still cause problems or not.
Click to expand...

That's what everyone I've spoken to has said. That being said I see no option but to upgrade to an internal SSD and clone the original HDD with something like Carbon Copy Cloner?
 
2

2984839

Cancelled
Apr 19, 2014
2,114
2,239
ash taylor said:
storage isn't a huge issues. There is very little on the laptop, just the pro tools sessions. We try to keep as little on the laptop as possible.

Any brands you recommend foe the PATA/IDE SSD and any links? Also what sort of storage and price range are we looking at?
Click to expand...

I use a Transcend 32 GB PATA in my PowerBook. Cost with shipping was around $45 and it is pretty good. Speeds are noticeably faster than the HDD, battery life is slightly improved, and it runs slightly cooler. None of this is a dramatic improvement, but all of it is noticeable.

One reason to consider a SATA drive with an adapter is if you want to eventually use the drive again in a more modern computer.
 
A

ash taylor

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 9, 2014
13
0
556fmjoe said:
I use a Transcend 32 GB PATA in my PowerBook. Cost with shipping was around $45 and it is pretty good. Speeds are noticeably faster than the HDD, battery life is slightly improved, and it runs slightly cooler. None of this is a dramatic improvement, but all of it is noticeable.

One reason to consider a SATA drive with an adapter is if you want to eventually use the drive again in a more modern computer.
Click to expand...

I'm interesting in looking into that but will that work with a powerbook? How will there be space for the adaptor?
 
Intell

Intell

macrumors P6
Jan 24, 2010
18,955
509
Inside
ash taylor said:
I'm interesting in looking into that but will that work with a powerbook? How will there be space for the adaptor?
Click to expand...

You can easily fit in a SATA drive with the mSATA route. In the future, all you would need is a very inexpensive mSATA to SATA adapter.
 
jrsx

jrsx

macrumors 65816
Nov 2, 2013
1,057
18
Tacoma, Washington
I just installed a 32 GB KingSpec IDE drive into my iBook, it's been amazingly fast and cool, as well as the noticeable silence which replaced the humming and clicking of the old 40 GB 4200 RPM HDD.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom