Problem: motufwa.sys blue screen of death

[TheRealRoach]

I get these fairly randomly and they seem to be related to larger projects, especially when shuttling/scrubbing back and forth around the project. The screen will freeze for about half a second and then BSOD, citing motufwa.sys.

Any ideas? or previous fixes?

[hswin]

Hey therealroach,

I have an answer to a bunch of questions that have been popping up on this forum. The topics range from yours to units not sync'ing. I have noticed that when my FW cable gets moved in even the slightest, It may go out of sync, cease operation shortly, or die altogether (BSOD). The technical answer is that it loses connection from the computer to the MOTU units (or any FW units).

I am not really sure just where the problem is. I have access to 3 FW ports on my laptop (2 6-pin on a PCMCIA card, and one internal 4-pin), and at any given time it can occur with any of them. I would have thought that the 6-pin plugs would be a tighter fit and I would not have that problem. Not necessarily. I have thought about tearing into my laptop to see if the FW jack is getting loose or needs replacement. I have even tried several cables thinking it may be a cable problem. Since the same problem exists with the 6-pin PCMCIA card, that makes me really wonder.

I was on location recording a pianist and my neighbor (nice lady who meant no harm) brushed up against the FW cable and my recording stopped. Twice! So since I couldn't save anything, I had to start all over with my setup file.

My best solution right now is to tie the FW cable very securely with a velcro tie to the laptop power plug (nearby), and hope for the best. For the time being, that seems to work as a band-aid.

I would love to see some more feedback on these issues from others. I'm sure now that this issue is far from over. We need to spread the word around.