Motu Ultralite MK3 won't work with my asus laptop

[Chappo]

Hi Motunation... if anyone has the time to read this and is able to provide some help It would be much appreciated.

Okay so i know that there is probably nothing that can be done because a printer company (Ricoh) is responsible for the heap of junk firewire chipset that is in my laptop, and i have been looking into selling this laptop and buying a desktop with a mobo that has integrated TI. but this is not going to happen any time soon due to my fundage (unless you want to buy my laptop). Meanwhile i have this Ultralite sitting here that i can't use or even test to see if it works so i was hoping that you guys might have some ideas as to how i could get this thing to work with my laptop, saving me time and money.

Laptop Specs:
http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?model ... 3=316&l4=0

or

Intel Centrino Core 2 Duo T7500
200gb HDD
2GB RAM
Ricoh Firewire 4-pin port
NVidia 8600m GS

No matter what i've tried the outcome is always the same.
The Motu audio console will open after a long wait (I tried mucking around with different settings in here to solve my problem... No Luck)
If i try to open the Cuemix FX software the process could be seen in the task manager but it would never actually open.
Any software that tried to play a sound would hang until i switched the Ultralite off.
I could see the Motu selected as the sound and MIDI playback device in Sound and Audio devices under the control panel which would also hang if i tried to change anything.

Things i've tried to get it to work:
1. Installed it on a freshly formatted Windows XP original (no service packs) with only basic notebook drivers installed (no sound drivers installed)
2. Installed all notebook drivers and disabled the WiFi, voice for modem and mobo sound card and then attempted to install the Ultralite.
3. Installed SP1 and tried the above steps again.
4. Tried to install it on a fresh install of Windows XP SP3.
5. Tried to install it on Windows XP SP3 with all the latest drivers with the same things disabled as above only this time i also disabled the graphic hardware acceleration as well as disabled any Realtek start up exe's
6. I've also tried diabling the onboard soundcard from BIOS security settings.

On each occasion i tried multiple drivers. The original ones from the supplied CD, the repacked ones supplied by reeper (thanks) on these forums, and the latest ones released on the 10th on November 2008.

I tried the following steps for installing.
1. Booted computer without the Ultralite plugged in.
2. Uninstalled the existing Motu drivers from my system and restarted.
3. Installed different drivers and shut down the computer.
3. Plugged Ultralite into the 4-pin firewire port of my computer and also plugged the Ultralites power supply in.
4. Tried 2 different step 4's;
a. Without powering up the Ultralite I turned my computer on waited for the system to settle then turned the Motu on.
b. Powered up the motu then turned my computer on.

In either case the outcome always led to step 5.
5. Detected new hardware: Motu Audio, Motu GSIF, Motu MIDI, Motu Wave
Most times i chose to specify the relevent driver to avoiding having to wait for the search function.
Some times i let it search and find what i assume was the same driver i specified anyway.


I've read that there is no point in trying to get an Express Firewire card with TI as it still goes through the Ricoh all-in-one (aka lets-break-everything-all-at-once) chipset.
Is there anything else i can try?
I have opened a Motu tech link with the same information as above and will update if I get a response.

Thanks for reading,
Luke

[steinary]

I bought a new expensive hp laptop to use with my traveler. The result was a lot of pop and clicks during playback. I even bought the expresscard with ti chipset(this made it even worse and the cuemix acted wery slowly, and wouldnt play at all)
I spent a lot of time and money on this project. The result was that i had to sell the laptop and buy a stationary pc instead with the ti chipset. Motu says that their products wont work with the chipset you have.
Im sorry to tell you this.

Steinar

[reeper]

hmm... im not sure about this.. dont give up yet im starting a new thread
http://www.motunation.com/forum/viewtop ... 14&t=32798

[acidrecords]

same here!!!

the cuemix gui is extremely slow when connected with firewire expresscard to my notebook and winxp and no sound from the motu!

so please > all people with this problem > write motu techlinks!! they always reply that there are no problems known like this... blahhh

[pignion]

Identical problem here with a Dell Inspiron 1720 and a Traveller, only I'm lucky if I can even get my laptop to reboot on its own, once trying to launch Cuemix or the Audio console. Most of the time neither application would actually show up, but be present as an unstoppable, running process. I've pretty much gone through the same routine as you with the same unfortunate results using different XP flavors, reeper's driver, disabling everyting etc. I'm considering buying an express card as a last ditch effort, but feel very doubtful.

How disappointing that this product flat out doesn't work with certain (from this looks of this forum many) laptops. I guess I shouldn't have blindly thought that these days this kind of equipment actually works with a firewire laptop running XP, like MOTU implies. Perhaps that's why I don't see any system requirements printed on their website or on the packaging. sigh.

Chappo, please let me know if you have any success. I don't really want to give up, but I'd also like to record some stuff.

[reeper]

you will have the same problems with this laptop and another vendor,trust me.

[pignion]

you will have the same problems with this laptop and another vendor,trust me.

Yeah, that's not surprising . Do you happen to know any vendors the Dell's FW does with? The Traveler does me no good at this point, though it makes me sad cuz i have 2408 mkIII on my desktop that I've been quite fond of...

[acidrecords]

always post this thread in your motu techlinks!! if you have the same problems described in this thread.
motu has to wake up and fix it!

[reeper]

always post this thread in your motu techlinks!! if you have the same problems described in this thread.
motu has to wake up and fix it!

fix what?

[acidrecords]

hanging and slow respones of cuemix sw. (+ no sound output) on notebooks with fw expresscard and xp

[reeper]

hanging and slow respones of cuemix sw. (+ no sound output) on notebooks with fw expresscard and xp

its your laptop that suck. i have np at all with my ThinkPad SL500.
http://www.pocket-lint.co.uk/reviews/re ... view.phtml

[steinary]

I had this problem with my HP laptop as i said earlier. Its the chipset that causes the slow handeling. Motu told me that the ricoh and nec chipset wouldnt work. Unfortunatly my laptop had one of these chipset and didnt work. (The laptop itself didnt suck and was one of HP s top of the line laptops). Changing to the texas instrument chipset by installing an expresscard made it worse, because the bad chipset is involved in controlling this unit too. The result was that cuemix reacted slow and there was no sound at all. When i used the built in fw port on the laptop i just got pop,clics and high pitched screams during playback.

I spent a lot of time on this one, and motu diddnt disagree when i told them that i was going to buy a new pc and sell my laptop. Their homepage also says to stay clear of the richo and nec chipset.
This is a shame because everybody expects things to work when you buy new and up to date equipment. Therefore people doesnt realize that their chipset doesnt work before after they have bougt the laptop.
I have spent a lot of time searching this topic, and found no solution other than buying a new pc.

This is what motu say on their faq:

There's an incompatibility between the NEC chip found in some FireWire cards and the MOTU FireWire line of interface.

If the FireWire installer warns you that you're running a FireWire card with the NEC chip, you should replace said card with a card that uses the TI (Texas Instruments) or LSI (formlery Lucent/Agere) chip.

Keyspan, Sonnet, Miglia, and ADS are a few of the many brands using the TI or LSI FireWire chips. Note that not all cards by a given manufacturer use the same chipset, so please check with the manufacturer of the FireWire card before purchasing it to ensure it has a TI or LSI chip. Many combo USB/FireWire cards do not a use TI or LSI chip, so a dedicated FireWire card is recommended.

I hope this can help you

Cheers Steinar

[pignion]

Their homepage also says to stay clear of the richo and nec chipset.

Not really. No word is mentioned in any of the marketing material found at http://www.motu.com/products/motuaudio/traveler/, nor at any other obvious location in MOTU's site. In fact, a search on MOTU's site for "RICHO" yealds zero results. Now, I'm not suggesting that MOTU go as far as advertise on their site that their products do not work with certain laptops, but frankly, I think it's a bit irresponsible to not list any sort of system requirements anywhere on the website. These requirements would of course include include a bit about not using certain hardware, such as the most popular two brands of laptop on the market. Had i been forewarned about this by MOTU in any way (BTW, i got no warning about incompatible hardware during installation like the FAQ suggests), even with a hint that this company's hardware would have been incompatible with my current hardware, I would not have purchased the product, and would have looked for an other way of accomplishing my recording goals.

Thanks for the info, steinary

[reeper]

everybody expects things to work when you buy new and up to date equipment. Therefore people doesnt realize that their chipset doesnt work before after they have bougt the laptop.

welcome to the wonderful world of PC lol - too many choices.

a simple rule - dont buy crap... go for IBM or toshiba

[reeper]

Their homepage also says to stay clear of the richo and nec chipset.

I would not have purchased the product, and would have looked for an other way of accomplishing my recording goals.

Thanks for the info, steinary

you will have the same problem with any other firewire product out there with that laptop... its at chipset level.