MOTU UPDATE YOUR FIRMWARE & WINDOWS XP DRIVER

[arth]

James Steele doesn't represent MOTU. He's an individual who runs this forum pro bono. He was merely pointing out that anyone else can do the same, if they feel like it, with whatever slant they want to put on their forum. This one is his, and neither MOTU's nor yours.
That he did create a Windows forum after all was nice. (And I'm sure it's a relief for the Mac crowd to not have to see all the Windows problems too.) But don't think for one second that he was in any way obligated to do so. Again, it's his forum, and not MOTU's.
MOTU has a link to it because they don't have one themselves, and it's the biggest open user forum for MOTU products on the web. A link from MOTU to an outside resource doesn't make it official in any way.

[Mark S]

James Steele doesn't represent MOTU. He's an individual who runs this forum pro bono. He was merely pointing out that anyone else can do the same, if they feel like it, with whatever slant they want to put on their forum. This one is his, and neither MOTU's nor yours.
That he did create a Windows forum after all was nice. (And I'm sure it's a relief for the Mac crowd to not have to see all the Windows problems too.) But don't think for one second that he was in any way obligated to do so. Again, it's his forum, and not MOTU's.
MOTU has a link to it because they don't have one themselves, and it's the biggest open user forum for MOTU products on the web. A link from MOTU to an outside resource doesn't make it official in any way.

And I appreciate that James did this for windows. That he HAD to do it at all is once again a sign of poor customer support by MOTU. And another reason why my next interfacae will be an RME. BTW, regarding this quote" (And I'm sure it's a relief for the Mac crowd to not have to see all the Windows problems too.)" :explains why there are so many more post about the MAC OS, not.

[RJH_MUSIC]

Lelo -

Same problem. Had 2 MTPAV Par. linked and never ran correctly. Finally bit the bullet and bought 1 MTPAV USB and networked it to the other Par. one. THe first USB driver that MOTU had a year or two ago did not work either. To my surpsire, the only thing I have working consistently in VISTA 64 is the MTPAV USB VISTA 64 driver. Rock solid MIDI, but I have spent a week trying to figure out audio.

RJ

[James Steele]

James, have you considered having a separate area for PC users? It seems like this site could be a great resource for all MOTU users. It's certainly the best resource I've found for MOTU troubleshooting. Maybe if you gave the PC folks a dedicated place to post, we'd quit irritating the Mac users.

I don't think it something I want to take on. Anybody who thinks this is useful is free to create a site for that however. It's relatively easy and inexpensive to do.

there you go,.. Mac is a 6% market and this is the response from MOTU that PC users with decent sytems get.

Another reason why my next system is an RME

Pay attention... I don't work for MOTU. They have nothing to do with this board... I started it, and I'm a Mac user... that's all. It was intended for Mac users originally. Oh... and I did create a Windows/PC user area... you're posting in it.

[James Steele]

And I appreciate that James did this for windows. That he HAD to do it at all is once again a sign of poor customer support by MOTU.

Maybe it was just a sign of me being a nice guy, Mark. I'm not obligated to pick up slack for MOTU's customer support, nor was I trying to.

[calaveras]

First, hats off to Mr.Steele fsor the windows hardware section!
I know it must be frustrating to hear all of us Windows guys whining about our hardware when you mac guys have nary a problem.

On to my personal experiences.
I have had an 828MKII pretty much since they came out. I actually have an open RMA authorization on it because it is part of the first batch that went out with the faulty LCDs.
It works great 90% of the time now. But every so often it will just scream on every channel, and keep doing so. I'll restart Sonar, reboot the PC, Powercycle the whole studio. No Avail.

In the past I had tried using a micro-express parallel for MIDI. But it would come up as 2 pc MIDI flyers! Then of course I went thru every permutation of ecp, epp, ecp+epp for the parallel port. I finally got it running well. Then I threw the 828 into the mix. after about 15 minute BSOD. I culd use either the 828 or the micro express. But both at the same time... murder.
Sold it on ebay and got an Egosys E4U 4x4 MIDI box. Its class compliant, even under windows 2000 sp4, the driver are loaded automatically by windows as soon as you connect it. Strange. Because the MOTU box is in every music catalogue, the Egosys stuff is rare as hell.
Works great now.

On a 2nd note
anyone here that is using the 828mkII happily and has gotten the Black Lion Audio mod? I am just curious about whether the clocking improvements have any impact on the 828MKII losing sync.
(I have experienced that more than once and have sometimes cured it by just jiggling the cable )

[Gerry G]

For one I am really grateful for this Windows section and glad you created it.

I think it was from here that I found my way to the RME site and solved the firewire problem. The Windows fix did not solve it. I had to do the RME advised rollback of drivers to SP1 level.

That done both my computers were working fine with my Traveler. I think they both still are but the laptop is so superior that that is what I use for music now as others use the desktop.

Again thank you for this section. It has proven invaluable for me and, I am sure, for others too.

[rynol]

To people using Motu and XP without problems, please put your DAW specs (don't forget the motherboard) in this thread so other users can see what thay could upgrade to: http://www.motunation.com/forum/viewtop ... 080#199080

[attic]

I have been dealing with blue screens of death, and it really is down to crap drivers. Yeah I have my express xt and 2408mk3 running, but the 2408mk3 bluescreens my machine when running acid every 40 minutes, and the express xt locks my machine randomly.

[calaveras]

dude, jettison the express xt. I have been rock solid since I killed off my micro express.

[mabu]

My advice is, if MOTU doesn't get things together, beyond this forum, you all should post your experiences in the form of product reviews on amazon.com, musiciansfriend.com, sweetwater.com and other sites. That will hit them where they live. On Amazon.com there are hardly any negative reviews and it seems unrepresentative of what I've seen in the tech forums.

[wmorris]

Its is actually very easy to get Motu audio devices to work on your PC.

Buy good componates for your PC, like using
Asus motherboard (not one with all the extra usless crap)
Kingston Ram
Actual Nvidia or ATI produced graphics cards(not the cheap rip offs)
Don't use the motherboard firewire slot
Texas Instrument Chipped Firewire PCI card the ADS PYRO PCI 64
is a good one.
Seagate Barracudda HD's
And if you want to chain more than two interfaces together buy a good digital clock (Lucid GENx192 is great)
Make sure the graphic card and firewire pci card don't share the IRQ very important.

AND GET RID OF ALL YOUR CRACKED SOFTWARE APART FROM BEING UNSTABLE AND THE MOST LIKELY CAUSE FOR A CRASH ON YOUR COMPUTER. IT'S FINACIALLY CRIPPLING FOR MAY OF OUR FAVOURATE PROGRAM MAKES.

This is whats in my PC and it works great with my 828MKII and 896HD

Asus P5K motherboard
Intel Core 2 Quad 2.40 Ghz Processor
4 GB 667MHz DDR2 RAM Kingston Ram
ATI Radeon 256Mb Dual-Head Graphics Card
1 x 160GB 2 x 500GB Seagate SATA HD
ADS PYRO PCI 64 Firewire 400 card With TI chipset
Seasonic S12 II PSU

And software (which I paid for)
Cubase SX 3 (because I hear Cubase 4 is still a little unstable and I don't like the instrument tracks)
Komplete 4
Waves Diamond Bundle
Korg Digital edition
All the PSP plugins (Vintage warmer and the reset)

Don't always get the latest upgrade, wait till someone else has found the bugs.

I also use a Lucid GENx192 to sync the two 828mkII and 896HD and a DBX DDP together.

I have never had any problems with either this setup.

Never buy Dell or HP get it custom made with the part I just specified or build it yourself if you know how. Just make sure you use good brands not the cheapest think you can find.

And yes Dell and HP use crap parts.

[calaveras]

HP and dell make great servers, and their corporate desktops are ok. Their consumer desktops are junk.
Plenty of motherboards have perfectly fine onboard firewire. Gigabyte uses almost exclusively TI chips for theirs.
The Asus MVP I have been using also is TI equipped.
I have had nothing but bad luck using ATI/Nvidia cards. I think this has more to do with all the extra silly stuff they want to install with the driver than any flaw in the cards themselves.
I use Matrox cards with stable results, but lousy 3d if I ever tried to play a game!
I think MOTU had much worse drivers a couple years ago. they seem to have turned a corner with the more recent releases espcially.
Also, be sure you have the firewire fix in place. XP has some problems with letting you get more than FW100 speed unless you do the fix.

[wmorris]

Oh and I forgot install the firewire fix for XP that you can download from Mircosoft web site or follow this link http://support.microsoft.com/kb/885222

You need to do this manually as it will not be updated automatically with the other sercurity updates.