828 Mk III causes very slow Laptop response

[BitPutty]

Hi all,

I've recently purchased the 828 Mk III for use on two seperate systems. One permanent Mac config, and One portable windows Laptop.

When used on the Mac install, everything is fine when using the 6-pin firewire to connect the units.

I'm experiencing problems when using the Laptop configuration though.

I.e. The Motu boots fine, Laptop boots fine but when any audio application is launched, (Cubase 4, CueMix or Motu settings) I'm experiencing extreme slow down in that it takes approx 5-10 mins before anything loads. Cubase looks as though its strugling to gain control of the Motu drivers (noted through C4 splash screen)

So my only theory at the moment is that the 4-pin firewire is problematic (investigated as a Ricoh chipset for the laptop - Asus A6Km Q013h)

Anyone had any experience with these or any ideas greatfully accepted.

[nickhill]

I'm having pretty much the same problem. With any application, widows media player for example will load up fine, but as soon as I try to play a file everything grinds to a hault and media player has to be closed. No audio is ever heard. It's the same for web content too, but instead of hearing nothing I'll get a few crackles and then nothing! (No such problems when using the laptop's on board audio.) I've had the interface for over a week and yet to hear ANY decent audio through it!

I've also had some strange, loud, high pitched noise come through and had to turn off the unit to stop it.

While this is happening the meters on the front panel are going crazy. Often the ADAT and digital meters will illuminate but I have nothing connected digitally.

I've tried uninstalling drivers and installing the v1.06 drivers. No difference.

When asked to turn on unit with page button in, the laptop does not recognise any hardware.

I'm using a dell inspiron 6400 with a cheap ebay 4pin to 6 pin adapter to use the firewire cable included. I've tried using a decent belkin 6pin to 4pin cable. No Difference.

I'm real unhappy so far... so any help is greatly appreciated.

[majdid]

it is truely a shame that motu support cannot give us a clear answer instead of blaming everything on windows,firewire chipset... MOTU REWRITE YOUR DRIVERS!

btw, i am experiencing the EXACT SAME symptoms (extreme slowness loading anything,meters going crazy, hight freq sqeals), with a RICOH, a TI, and an express card with TI Chipset(BELKIN). things with the ricoh and the expresscard are much worse (BSOD's every time)

[BitPutty]

Hmm, well.

Background on problem system:
Win XP Pro, AMD Turion 64, Ricoh Firewire Chipset, 2GB Ram
Separate Hardware Profile created for audio purposes

Hardware Profile - Audio

• 
  Realtek Built In Audio
  Card Reader
  Web Cam
  PCMCIA Slot
  WiFi
  Infra-red port
  ACPI Interface

All disabled in above hardware profile.

Motu have only just replied to the techlink with the standard reply as seen in many posts on here. Un-install & re-install the latest from our website - I can vouch that 'latest & greatest' approach doesn't always work - check my cubase.net forum posts for a better explanation.

So now I'm stuck without a mobile rig till someone can code properly

Incidently, has anyone managed to or knows where I can obtain the original firmware release for the box. This is the first thing I upgraded when I connected to the Mac - I feel a downgrade may help in obtaining information on the problems.

[APADRecordings]

Firmware version 1.06 is a routine maintenance release. It contains one major "fix." The Mid-Side (MS) implementation on each input has been corrected.

I had a new Dell D830 laptop and couldn't use it. Not only would it not stream audio reliably but turning a MOTU device on or off would cause a Blue Screen. Sound Forge was very sluggish to respond. I also noted that even when the MOTU units worked the video display on the Dell would flicker in conjunction with HDD I/Os. The D830 video, firewire, and cardbus connections all share the same IRQ. This is not changeable but everything should work. I reasoned that the Nvidia driver might be hogging IRQ/CPU time. So I disabled "hardware acceleration" (right click on the desktop screen, select "settings tab", click on Advanced; then click on Troubleshoot and move "hardware acceleration to None.) and discovered that eliminated the problems mentioned earlier. Latency of the Nvidia driver was indeed the problem. The D830 can now record/playback while running other programs and can also run 3 MOTU devices simultaneously. The only drawback I've found is that on boot up I get an annoying dialog stating that "Nvidia control panel is unable to start up." That, of course, further confirms that Nvidia was hogging the IRQ and CPU.

I have reported this to Dell and, hopefully, they will take it up with Nvidia. I've now used this "fix" with success on several dual core machines.

[acidrecords]

as i`m having the same problem with another notebook msi pr200.

any news?

videocard and firewire expresscard are sharing the same irq.

cuemix response is extremely slow. eg i move a fader with the mouse, then it takes 3-4 seconds until the fader moves.
sometimes it also reponds fast and the suddenly extremely slow.

so i`m moving the fader all the time up and down > and it stops, then moves fader again, stops moves again ... and so on ...

also i can`t play sound.

is this a bandwith issue? irq issue?

[acidrecords]

@ ALL

read this thread!!

http://forum.msi.com.tw/index.php?topic ... #msg939234
on my own notebook this is all caused by problem with pci/pcie registers!!

i`ll open a thread regarding all possible problems with slow cuemix gui, firewireproblems and all this stuff soon.
be prepared for that.

there are really much possbile sources of problems with this stuff!! > again > read the posted link ... hope to have the final answer to all of this stuff soon