Sample rate Randomly Flipping. Win10 (and other WIN vers)

[NoFi Audio]

Hello Gang. Longtime MOTU user. 1st post.

Currently running some "Classic" MOTU Firewire hardware (a pair each of 828MKII and 2408 MKI) under Win10.

One frustration I had with this gear wasn't the gear itself, but what Win10 was doing with it. The problem is now solved so I thought I'd share what I did.

What was happening...
I'd open a DAW project and find out that recordings were stuttering, I couldn't record, or a device (one of the MOTU i/o pairs) wasn't available. Sometimes playback would sound slow, lower in pitch.

What I had to do...
Every time I fired up my PC I had to manually verify every In and Out pair to ensure it was set to the proper sample rate (48kHz). This was all well and good, and solved the issue(s) above, but what a P.I.T.A.

The fix...
This was so simple, I can't believe it wasn't mentioned anywhere. MOTU support didn't mention it either (I've discovered over the years that often users have a better understanding of the s/w they use than the company and the people who are supposed to support it). The fix: Disable ALL MOTU devices from the OLD sound control panel. This prevents Windows from using the driver. Jump into your DAW and the DAW itself will load the driver for the audio hardware you've specified.
I have not had 1 instance of the sample rate flipping from 48 to 44.1 since doing this. I've gained 10 minutes of my life back..LOL.

Now, disabling all MOTU devices in Windows "may" leave you without a default audio device - if your only device is the MOTU equipment. There's a way around that: Load up Voicemeeter Banana. All is good again...

Looking forward to scouring posts here to get the most out of this gear

- Steve