Sound problem Motu Ultralite Hybrid Mk3

[darkins]

A while back i posted about this very same issue. The issue still remains but i have narrowed down the problem.

Highly unlikely, but i wonder has anyone else got the same PC and the same problem as i do.

The problem i discovered is not the Ultralite device at all, rather it's in fact my Dell XPS Core i7 2600. It just refuses to work with this soundcard.

The soundcad works perfectly fine on 2 laptops i have, one is winXP and the other is win7 pro 64.

I bought the Dell XPS especially to do music production on and the laptops are for work and family stuff like email & surfing.

Problem 1 - connected via USB and power adaptor:
No sound or signal coming from the motu device when i play sound from any source. When i right click on the task bar audio icon and select Playback devices, i can see there is a visual green bar signal to indicate sound, but i can't hear anything from headphones or speakers.

Problem 2 - connected via Firewire:
Connected via firewire is slightly better, i hear sound but intermittently it fades in and then fades out a couple of minutes later. I also here a beep like a power surge just before it dies.
The sound goes for a while then this same fade in / fade out process repeats over and over.. very annoying.

I have the latest driver as i have installed on all 3 machines at the same time, both of which worked instantly with no issue. Each time i repeated the same setup and configuration. I'm not new to music making so i know what i'm doing, been doing it for over 15 years with a multitude of equipment and audio devices.

I've also tried updating the PC's bios, chipset, graphics, video and no joy.

I would be extremely greatful if anyone can shed some light on it or at least share their thoughts or possible options.

Here is a link to my msinfo32 file if anyone needs to see what's inside my PC:
https://rapidshare.com/#!download|821p2 ... zip|51|0|0

Also, for a quick look, here is an online spec: http://reviews.cnet.com/desktops/dell-x ... 01813.html

thanks
~darkins

[wc2wc]

Darkins

With usb- did you use the poweradapter ?

With the firewire connection have you tried the fix for the iee1394 driver
http://www.motu.com/techsupport/technot ... -windows-7

General solutions :
Cable check !!
Onboard audio disabled ?


Werner

[darkins]

Hi Werner,

Thanks for the reply.

With usb, i am indeed using the power adaptor. USB is my only option on both laptops as neither machine has a firewire port and as i mentioned in my post, both work perfectly fine with this setup.

I haven't tried the firewire fix, so thanks for that suggestion, i will try later this evening and let you know how i get on.

Regards cables: the USB cable i am using is the same one i used to successfully connect with on the laptops, so the usb cable is not an issue.
The firewire cable however is the one that came with the audio device and is the only one i have.. i presume it is fine, but no harm to get a second cable to rule that out.

There is no onboard sound, it came with a creative labs Xtreme 7.1 card, which i've removed physically and uninstalled drivers etc.

regards
~declan

[darkins]

Hi werner,

Just updated the firewire driver as per the link you sent me and so far so good, seems to have done the trick. Wasn't able to test it for too long, hopefully it's a perm solution.

Thanks for pointing me to that
~declan

[wc2wc]

Declan
Strange though that the usb does not work .
Do you use a usb hub ?
If you connect other devices to one usb port there may not be enough energy
Have you tried other usb ports ?

Werner

[darkins]

Hi werner,

Sorry i was away for a couple of days.
Yea i thought this was strange too.. i'm not using a hub and i've tried every usb port, with no success. No idea why that is, but it's definitely something to do with this PC, possibly a power issue to the usb ports or something.

The firewire option since updating seems to be fine.. it still fades in when i play audio for the first time, but at least it stays now, not like before.
Would like to get to the bottom of the USB problem though as it is a really odd one.

~declan