Laptop to 8pre FireWire issues.

[SaxBlaCussionIzer]

Hi-

I'm having an issue trying to connect a MOTU 8pre to a laptop running Windows Vista SP2. I am using the FireWire cable that was shipped with device and i have a FireWire card made by SII (purchased from Best Buy) that plugs into my PCI port on my laptop. I've done a bunch of research online, and i've also submitted the issue with MOTU. During my research, i've also read that MOTU "support" might not be the best, so i hope that i might encounter someone on this forum who has worked thru this problem.

I bought the 8pre like a year ago brand new, but due to various delays (mostly the install software program hanging) have not been able to focus on this issue till now.

The basic issue is that my laptop does not recognize my MOTU 8pre device. I have successfully installed the software that came with the device. Next, i've connected my FireWire cable to one of the FireWire ports on my 8pre. At this point, the 8pre is still off. Next, i plug my FireWire cable into my PCI port (and the light on the cable comes on). I hear the traditional system sound of "New device has been detected". Next, i boot up my 8pre. The lights on the display scramble and finally, the "Converter" light ends up being lit as well as one of the word clock lights. As i understand it, the light that "should" be lit if i have successfully connected is the "Interface" light (not the "Converter" light). When i turn on the 8pre i again hear the traditional Windows system sound of "new device found". However, after the bootup process has completed and the lights stop scrambling, i hear a Windows system sound that indicates that a failure of some type has occurred. The sound is three lower beeps which to me indicate that the "handshake" between my laptop and the 8pre was not successful. When i turn the 8pre off, i get the Windows system sound of a device being disconnected. I also get that sound if i remove my Firewire card from the PC slot entirely.

All of what i am thinking in terms of things not working correctly was verified when i tried to open the Audio Console application. The error message that i got said: "No MOTU Audio Device could be found. Make sure your MOTU Audio device is connected, powered on, and that the drivers are installed". And, i think that at this point, i have done all of those things.

My first thought was that perhaps my FireWire card that connects to my laptop is bad. To test this theory, i disconnected the cable from the back of my 8pre and instead, plugged it into a disc drive that i have. That test worked fine, and i was able to examine the contents of my disc drive from my laptop. To me, that disproved my hypothesis.

My next thought was that perhaps i don't have the most recent drivers (being that i actually purchased this a year ago). At the time that i began this process, i was on Vista SP1, but when i started looking for the most recent drivers on the MOTU site, the notes said that i needed to be on Vista SP2. I've since done that upgrade, downloaded what MOTU says are the most recent drivers and successfully installed them. This has not changed my result though, when i start the Audio Console, i get the same error messages related to not being able to see the device.

I am all ears on things to try and/or solutions to this problem that others may have encountered while traveling this path!
cheers,
jim.

[torrentg]

Hi.

To be honest, you've said some things that make me think not-so-well thoughts.
And on the other hand, you've said some things that make me think this isn't a huge issue. Let's try to get to the bottom of things.

Before I say anything well or not about the situation, can you try one thing for me and tell the results, please?

Power off everything. Make complete physical connection between MOTU and laptop. Power on MOTU. Boot up laptop. Once to desktop, open device manager. Do any MOTU and/or "unknown devices" appear in the Sound section at all? Which if any?

And finally for now, some information: MOTU recommends firewire solutions based on the TI (Texas Instruments) chipset(s). This does not automatically mean other chipsets will fail, however.

[SaxBlaCussionIzer]

Power off everything. Make complete physical connection between MOTU and laptop. Power on MOTU. Boot up laptop. Once to desktop, open device manager. Do any MOTU and/or "unknown devices" appear in the Sound section at all? Which if any?

Thank you very much for the reply. When i get home this evening, i will do this test and report back my results.

And finally for now, some information: MOTU recommends firewire solutions based on the TI (Texas Instruments) chipset(s). This does not automatically mean other chipsets will fail, however.

If i understand you correctly, you are saying that might need to have a TI firewire cards rather than the one that i currently am using, is that correct?
thanx much, i will report back tonight!
cheers,
jim.

[JeffB]

FWIW my 828Mk2 is working fine with a Ricoh FW chipset.

[SaxBlaCussionIzer]

Thanx much to Torrentg for the help, i followed the steps given exactly and it did get me thru my problem.... with some struggles. I will document them briefly for those who may read this down the road. Following the steps that Torrentg gave helped me to RESOLVE my issue.

Here's the gory details...
Once i powered on my PC, i went to the Device Manager. The MOTU device was not listed under the Sound devices, but there WAS an "Unknown Device". I activated it, which prompted a message along the lines of: "Device activated, but still may not work properly." However, after a few seconds, it was clear that the system was updating things. The "Unknown device" became a "MOTU device" and showed up the Sound device section. A msg appeared on the screen indicating that the drivers were being updated, etc.

At this point, i thought i was good to go, and i attempted to open AAS Tassman 4 to test it. However, it would not start. I then tried to open Ableton Live on my pc, and it did "start" (it took about 10 minutes to come up, and i had not configured it to recognize the MOTU in advance, it was still set to use the internal speaker). Eventually, it did start, but when i went to the Audio tab to attempt to change to the MOTU device, Ableton froze completely and i had to kill it via Task Manager. I tried the process again, got the same results again and killed it again. I then decided to reboot (note to the kiddies at home: Reboot immediately after the Vista recognized the device). When i rebooted, the system had to go thru 3 separate updates (more likely related to my Vista SP2 upgrade from earlier), and i got a system msg saying that the process had failed due to a bad driver, and that i should disconnect any devices and try again.

The long and the short of it is that once i rebooted with the MOTU off, started my pc up, finished the updates and THEN turned on the device, everything worked just fine. The whole process took maybe 2 hours total, and it probably could have been shortened considerably if i had simply rebooted once Vista had recognized the MOTU device.

I hope this helps others in the future. My thanks to Torrentg for his/her help! Does anyone know if i would experience similar problems if i upgraded my OS to Windows 7?
cheers,
jim.