8pre won't start in interface mode

[danijelsh]

Hello, everyone. I have a problem with my 8pre.
With the drivers installed regularely, and xp started in normal mode, motu 8pre won't start in interface mode. it blinks for a couple of seconds and then turns to converter mode. i bought this 8pre, brand new, about 10 days ago, and everything worked fine, i've made some recordings, all the mic inputs worked fine, i listened to mixes via mains out, there were no audio dropouts, no cracks, clicks and glitches, although i used via chipset which is not recommended. everything worked fine until couple of nights ago.

Things i tried to resolve the problem:

# - I tried restarting pc and 8pre several times.
# - I tried swapping the firewire ports on 8pre and on my pci card (various combinations including hot and cold swap).
# - I tried using 6pin to 4 pin cable.
# - I tried using different 6 pin to 6 pin cable.
# - I tried reinstalling the drivers from the cd that i got with my 8pre, and from motu website.
# - I tried changing pci ports on my pc.
# - I tried installing motu 8pre on 3 more pcs, on a mac g5, and on a mac mini.
# - I tried manually moving the files "MOTU_FW.inf", "motufwa.cat" and "motufwa.sys" from "c:\Program files\MOTU\Audio\MOTUDriver\" to "c:\WINDOWS\system32\" in order for xp to load them during startup.

None of this worked for me, the 8pre just won't start in interface mode, whatever i do. Windows doesn't even detect that something changes when i turn the device on.

Basically, i tried using different port on the 8pre - I even tried this when i first installed it, and the one closer to MIDI i/o was working, the other wasn't. My conclusion was that the one that was working was primary, and that the other one was for daisy-chaining. Trying to install it on different platforms cleared away the doubt from pci firewire controller in my home pc, as the 8pre wasn't working on any other system. At one point, I tought that my firewire cable was faulty, but i tried hooking up an external firewire hard drive using my cable, and it was working. Also under sound, video and game controllers, nothing appears, as if the 8pre wasn't even plugged in. This led me to believe that the problem is localised in the firewire section of 8pre hardware.

What do you think? Do you have any suggestions?
Thank you.

[Mark S]

assuming you've followed the install instructions to the letter, and it is new, I'd contact Motu about a replacement. They may have some better insite too.

[danijelsh]

I did follow it. Well, that's it, no one at motu support is telling me something new, so I'll send it back.