MOTU PCI-424 Windows 8 Pro x64 BSOD

[DJ Synchro]

Hi guys,

I thought I'd share my experience with the PCI-424 card and Windows 8 Pro x64 RTM. See my signature for my hardware config.

The driver (v.55333, but also the previous one) causes Windows to crash during cold boot and resume from sleep with a IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL Blue Screen.

I'm pretty sure it's the driver. Here's what I've done:

- I found that the MOTU card shared an IRQ (#16) with the on-board ASMedia® ASM1061 controller. I updated the driver for this device, but the blue screen remained. Since there is nothing connected to this controller, I decided to DE-install the driver and disable it in the BIOS. After that I shut down the PC.
- After start-up the Blue screen with 'IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL' remains The MOTU card is now the only device with IRQ 16 as far as I know.
- I disabled the MOTU PCI Audio driver in Device Manager and shut down the PC.
- I rebooted; no problems. No blue screen and super fast start up (!)
- I re-enabled the driver in the device manager and again shut down the PC
- After boot, again BSOD with IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

So, it's the driver alright.
Also, I found that disabling the MOTU driver causes the system to boot up twice as fast compared with booting with the driver enabled. How's that possible? Does the MOTU driver uses that much resources? Anyone?

I provided this information to tech support as well. I hope they can provide a solution to this asap.

Feel free to comment on this if you like. I'm interested in more experiences like this.

[billruys]

Yes, I have seen this in Windows 8 too. I guess MOTU will get around to a Windows 8 specific driver some time. In the mean-time I have rolled back to Windows 7 for better stability.

[UltimateOutsider]

Same issue here, with the PCIe version.

Cold boot of Win 8 crashes, but eventually loads after automatic reboot. I installed WinDbg and opened the crash dump, and interestingly, it says the crash is in Ntoskrnl.exe (the core of the Windows OS), but the problem didn't start until I installed the PCIe-424.

Not a big deal since I still have my Windows 7 partition, but yeah.

[torrentg]

Ultimate, you can upload the crash dump and I'll check it for ya...very likely something else is your problem, but not 100% sure until I see it.

@OP: Yep, see here: http://www.motunation.com/forum/viewtop ... 14&t=51005

Although actually now without changing MOTU driver, my system has been up for 8 days no crashing. It is likely and possible that the rare instance of other software was causing the fault in the MOTU driver, and that could have been Flash itself since I updated that around 8 days ago I think.

COuld have been a little combo of both having issues, but when Flash was fixed, MOTU's was "alleviated" or similar. I can't say precisely for sure because I'm not a software engineer. I can troubleshoot awesome, but not code.

[DJ Synchro]

Ultimate, you can upload the crash dump and I'll check it for ya...very likely something else is your problem, but not 100% sure until I see it.

@OP: Yep, see here: http://www.motunation.com/forum/viewtop ... 14&t=51005

Although actually now without changing MOTU driver, my system has been up for 8 days no crashing. It is likely and possible that the rare instance of other software was causing the fault in the MOTU driver, and that could have been Flash itself since I updated that around 8 days ago I think.

COuld have been a little combo of both having issues, but when Flash was fixed, MOTU's was "alleviated" or similar. I can't say precisely for sure because I'm not a software engineer. I can troubleshoot awesome, but not code.

You mean Adobe Flash Player? How does that affected your MOTU driver?

[torrentg]

Well, Flash could have been behaving in an inappropriate way which caused the MOTU driver to fail...

but a few moments ago, back to the same old problems...

and it is only when MOTU driver/hardware is active, as stated...

[DJ Synchro]

Just want to let you guys know that the BSOD's at cold boot and after resume from sleep have been solved by installing the latest BIOS for my Motherboard. This completely solved all issues I had with the MOTU PCI-424 55333 drivers.

Hooray!

[billruys]

I did notice a windows update for Windows 8 that was supposed to fix some copatibility/stability problems with drivers. It could have been that too.

Q: In your DAW app (I run Sonar), are all of the channel pairs in the correct order? For me, it's fine in Windows 7, but Windows 8 had them all jumbled up.

[Altariel]

I have this exact same issue. I own a MOTU 896 Original and therefore use the exact same driver package offered on the MOTU website. No problems what so ever on WIN7 64-bits.

However, when I install a fresh copy of WIN8-64 Bit, everything runs like a charm in the beginning. Even the MOTU driver works fine. At some point WIN8 pulls in automatic updates, it installs, reboots and from there on I get a IRQL_LESS_OR_NOT_EQUAL error, and it won't go away. I've managed to get my system running after hours of trying restoring and uninstalling the windows updates, only to find myself in the same BSoD after a few hours. I'm not exactly sure if it's the MOTU driver causing the error, as it only happens after certain windows updates, I'm not sure which exact update is the culprit here either and if it's really the MOTU driver causing the problem. Can anyone actually confirm this as a definite answer?

Is it confirmed that a BIOS update will resolve this issue? I am running a brand new build, ASUS-P8Z77-V Motherboard with a I7 3770 CPU and 8 GB of brand new Corsair Dominator Platinum RAM. I'm very very hesitant trying WIN8 again as it requires a fresh install (I hate update versions, always causes instability on my DAW) and it's a bitch installing all my software over and over again... so unless there's a definite answer on what the solution to this problem is, I'm remaining on WIN7, but would obviously like to be able to use WIN8 at some point.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Cheers,
Maarten

[Altariel]

So I've tested this; I have updated my BIOS to the very latest version (ASUS P8Z77 Motherboard) and reinstalled a bought and genuine retail version of WIN8, fresh clean install with a fully formatted drive, nothing was on there.

I made sure NONE of my external devices were connected to the computer during installation. After installation was complete I made sure I first downloaded all the Windows updates to make sure my OS was fully up to date. After this I started to connect my external devices one by one installing their respected drivers, no issues at all. I made sure I left the MOTU 896 Original Firewire interface till last.

Installing the driver itself was not a problem, Windows 8 did it without complaints. However, as soon as I switched the MOTU on the first time, BAM, BSoD IRQL_LESS_OR_NOT_EQUAL and since then it would loop forever. However, if I disconnect the Firewire cable and switch the MOTU off and reboot the computer the driver will not load up and Windows will boot as normal.

Funny to say, this problem ONLY occurs after Windows has updated itself. Running the MOTU with this driver is no issue on a non-updated fresh install of Windows 8. So who's to blame here, MOTU, or Microsoft? I'm not sure, but either parties are not offering me alot of help so far. I've created a ticket with the MOTU Technical Support but I haven't heard back from them so far.

Once again, any help or updates on this horrible issue would be most appreciated!

[JeffB]

No problems here with the latest MOTU drivers and Win8 Pro x64 with all updates.

Did have BSOD on cold boot until I updated my video card drivers.

[Altariel]

What do you exactly mean by "cold boot" though?

Videocard drivers, I'm using the latest for a Geforce GTX 550 Ti. All my drivers should be up to date actually considering it's a clean install...

What happens to me is when I switch on my MOTU device I instantly get a BsoD with the message I wrote in my post above. After this my pc reboots and fails to recognise any sort of OS or even boot device, until I manually boot the Windows Boot Loader partition from my BIOS, after that, taking into considering the MOTU has to be fully disconnected from my PC, everything turns back to normal and my PC shows no problems.

[Ad0]

Also getting a BSOD. but after talking to support on mail, they sent me a link to a beta driver. But it does not load the settings properly, so I have to play audio, exit the app, then go into Motu control panel, and reselect card and sample rate.

[Altariel]

The beta driver gave me no succes so far. Still working on the problem and running more tests...

[Ad0]

I made a program disabling / enabling the MOTU PCI driver. That loads the correct sample rate and most of the settings, except the input gain settings