Motu Traveler SPDIF problems

[estharyon]

First of all I want to say hello, I'm new here on motunation.
I got a motu traveler mk1 from a friend 2 months ago, everything went smooth, no problems at all, everything working (considering it's an old soundcard). I was abroad for the past 2 weeks and when I plugged it in (both AC adaptor and firewire bus power) everything was ok, except the SPDIF meters flashing continuously (like some sort of signal was going on, when the only cables I have are phones, firewire and AC adapter), growing to remain at the peak level all of the time (for 5 minutes or so). I restored it to factory settings, plugged off the fireware cable - leaving it only on AC adapter and vice-versa, same thing. What is curious is the fact that if I changed the clock source to SPDIF or AES/EBU, the flashing was gone. The same happened if I switch the freq to 192khz. I turned it on and off a few times, and now all of a sudden, the flashing is gone and everything is normal again. I specify that I have used it with a mac PPC dual with osx 1.5.8 and with a windows 7 c2duo computer. The card's firmware is 1.0.4, I know it's old but I can't find the update for 1.0.7 .
My biggest problem is that I don't know what was the problem or if the SPDIF led's will start to flash again out of a sudden. If anyone has any advice or any idea of what is going on, I thank you kindly in advance.
All the best,
Dan Avram

[4stripes]

It doesn't sound like you're using the SPDIF at all, so is it really a problem? It could be that your SPDIF input is broken. Otherwise, try actually using it and see if it works. What else is there to do?

[waltwagner]

That SPDIF problem is notorious with the first Traveler -- I had the problem when I bought mine brand new. The dealer replaced it with another, and same thing. Finally, after finding no solutions online, I thought of MOTU tech support. Duh! Ben said, yeah, that was a problem with those, and since I'm not using the SPDIF in/out, told me just to loop a cable between the two. Not an elegant solution, but it works. He assured me it wouldn't hurt anything.

[stephentayler]

The v1.07 firmware update is on this page - you have to dig around!! It's down at the bottom....

http://www.motu.com/download/download_m ... duct_id=14

Cheers

Stephen

[estharyon]

Thank you for all the info. It seems it's a common problem with the first gen travelers, but for me it's not actually a problem, because I don't use SPDIF. I was only afraid of the situation in which that SPDIF parasite signal had possibilities to affect the analog ins/outs. The VU-meters seem to come back to normal after 1-2 minutes, so I just got used to it. Thank you again!
Best regards,
Dan Avram

[lollo]

Hi all,
I have a similar problem with my Motu Traveler, maybe some of you experienced something similar in the past?
I use the Traveler in standalone mode, as an SPDIF front end with another PCI soundcard. So basically I route the SPDIF IN to the MAIN OUT.

The biggest problem is that 90% of the times, after startup, I get no sound out of the main out. The routing is correct and the output LED is blinking but no sound whatsoever on the main out (headphones out is OK though).
As a workaround I just turn the Traveler off and on again and it starts to work, magically.

Does anybody have any idea?
I also have the "normal" SPDIF issues described earlier in this post, but that's much less annoying.