Topic: MacBook Air (Intel) crashing, advice on replacement?

Hi all,

I am running Pianoteq stage on a non very powerful MacBook Air with an intel chip.  Sounds great, I love it, except the computer crashes pretty regularly -- black screen reboot.

I have attached an Anker USB power delivery hub, so I can get midi from a Roland RD 88, and use the same RD 88 as an audio interface to speakers etc.  (The hub doesn't seem to do power delivery, but that's another issue).  For the RD88 I use the stock USB cable, which has an older (USB 2?) end for the computer, and a device end (USB A?) for the keyboard.

My question:  Is there a way to diagnose if PianoTeq is crashing the machine? Or my USB setup?  I like to run it with full polyphony etc (hehe), but maybe it's not even PianoTeq at all?

Follow up:  I might upgrade to a new MacBook, probably a 14" because of the hardware ports, does anyone have any thoughts on all that?  If I bother, I would probably get all the fancy chips and lots of memory, and hopefully not have to do that again for a few years.

EDIT:  I just looked Activity Monitor, and the CPU and memory usage are very low, even when I am playing pedaled arpeggios as fast as I can ...

Thanks!  And thanks to PianotTeq for a lovely instrument!

Last edited by wws (23-04-2023 22:28)

Re: MacBook Air (Intel) crashing, advice on replacement?

wws wrote:

Hi all,

I am running Pianoteq stage on a non very powerful MacBook Air with an intel chip.  Sounds great, I love it, except the computer crashes pretty regularly -- black screen reboot.

I have attached an Anker USB power delivery hub, so I can get midi from a Roland RD 88, and use the same RD 88 as an audio interface to speakers etc.  (The hub doesn't seem to do power delivery, but that's another issue).  For the RD88 I use the stock USB cable, which has an older (USB 2?) end for the computer, and a device end (USB A?) for the keyboard.

My question:  Is there a way to diagnose if PianoTeq is crashing the machine? Or my USB setup?  I like to run it with full polyphony etc (hehe), but maybe it's not even PianoTeq at all?

Follow up:  I might upgrade to a new MacBook, probably a 14" because of the hardware ports, does anyone have any thoughts on all that?  If I bother, I would probably get all the fancy chips and lots of memory, and hopefully not have to do that again for a few years.

EDIT:  I just looked Activity Monitor, and the CPU and memory usage are very low, even when I am playing pedaled arpeggios as fast as I can ...

Thanks!  And thanks to PianotTeq for a lovely instrument!

You might consider running a Linux live distro on the machine, if only to check the hardware out. If there are no crashes, then you probably need to fix/reinstall your OS. A Linux live distro can be "installed" on a usb stick and run entirely from memory. Your hard disk will not be touched unless you write to it. Try something like Lbuntu, install pianoteq trial to be safe to test it. I am not so familiar with the MacBook, but there are websites that can further explain and walk you through the process.
Good luck!