PCI-424 Dead?

[elartesanosonoro]

My case,

I bought a Pcie 424 on march 2009, totally new.
The first I´ve received make my computer don´t boot. NEW COMPUTER, with Asus Motherboard, etc...

The second one work, but in december of 2009 make big noises and I can´t work. Another time to talk with my suplyer and 2 MONTHS LATER, I had a new one, in march of 2010.

Until 9/6/2010 works fine, but in a recording session we go to eat something, turn off the computer and the same of the other people. The system don´t enter on windows (Xp 32 bits).

I can´t believe, 3 ••••ing (sorry for the word...) cards broken. Now the card It´s going to my suplyer to Germany, because I think it´s broken too... BUT NO, IT´S A DRIVER PROBLEM, FROM MOTU...

I think I have very, very bad luck with my Motu system, the next time maybe I won´t buy Motu, maybe I look for other systems like RME or similar.

Motu until now makes me lost time and money!!!!

[Panagiotis]

Did anyone experience problems trying to enable control surfaces after the latest driver installation in win7 x64?
Audio Console freezes and windows returns the following message:

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: BEX64
Application Name: MOTU PCI CueMix Console 64.exe
Application Version: 1.6.9.1
Application Timestamp: 4c126645
Fault Module Name: StackHash_f08c
Fault Module Version: 0.0.0.0
Fault Module Timestamp: 00000000
Exception Offset: 0000000080008890
Exception Code: c0000005
Exception Data: 0000000000000008
OS Version: 6.1.7600.2.0.0.256.4
Locale ID: 1032
Additional Information 1: f08c
Additional Information 2: f08c1b4328094db43083ac9f99db1d34
Additional Information 3: 341b
Additional Information 4: 341b4aed311d974c536c691fccca5c83

[heuristic]

Dang! I reformatted... shame on me for not checking here first. Ah well, time for a cleanup anyway. Everything was backed up so no worries, just a few extra pots of Coffee!

[heuristic]

Was this only in the Wintel world or did the Mac drivers cough too?

[chriss]

That's really interesting. I had the same trouble on Friday. While I tried to prepare a session the trumpet-player already tuned and prepared himself. After 2 hours we both went to a shop to buy a new 424PCIe since it turned out this is the one to cause trouble. 2 more hours later I sent him back home, bought a new motherboard, built a complete new system and - nothing. I tought maybe one of the interfaces is dead and destroyed the 424's so I got another 424PCI and another 1296 from ebay. Still nothing. To give the trumpet-man another chance I hired a rme-System (and of course I couldn't charge him anything after this hassle).
And now since I found out what the problem is, I'm rellay stunned. I worked with a backdated system yesterday and haven't tried the "new" drivers yet, but anyway the MOTU-Windows-drivers are so bad that MOTU should really be ashamed about it.
So, am I right that all Windows-424-System worldwide failed on Friday? Would be interesting to find out about the financial side of this. For me it was a minus of around 1.000 Euros. What about you?

Chris

[Roger Boden]

Well, I've always thought that MOTU were a bit 'reserved' with their customer support and I would have thought that this problem was almost certainly to do with a disgruntled ex-employee getting his own back!

To be fair to MOTU though, I think they've resolved this issue very well. Admittedly it shouldn't have happened in the first place, but they had new drivers posted on their website within 24 hours. I emailed customer support yesterday and suggested that it might be a good idea to issue a statement, which they have now done in their tech notes.

My first reaction was that my cards had blown up, but I was lucky to have two of them and concluded quite quickly that they couldn't both have blown up at the same time! However, I can't for the life of me understand why people would just rush out and buy new cards! Did they not bother googling the problem? Surely in our industry this is one of the first ports of call when a technical problem arises? On the morning of 11th June I found this thread immediately. I also called the UK distributors who said they were aware of the problem. It didn't take very long and wasn't difficult, but most importantly - I knew it was a software and not a hardware problem....

[chriss]

Hi Roger,

well first thing: I don't have internet-connection in the studio, so...

Second: I only had one 424 before so I could not compare two of them, so: Yes, I bought a new one to do so.

Third: I have already heard of quite a number of 424's that have died, so I thought this could be very possibly be the case here.

Fourth: Just read the tech-note you mentioned: Why - for heavens sake - is it necessary to remove the card before de-/installation? It's 2010 and 424-installation is like Windows 95! In my eyes this fact is the same lack of professionality like the 11/06-issue. How can I trust in a company that has such kind of trouble?

Well and all speculations or certainties on the problem's roots wouldn't have helped me when I had to cancel a booked session and one for the next days too since there is no MOTU-support on weekends and they don't come along to deliver a replacement-system anyway... Sorry, but I don't see a point for being 'fair' on MOTU. There is no excuse for a crash like this. Look at their first page "www.Motu.com": It says "Professional Audio" not "Hobby-Audio". AND they are not brave enough to post this thing in their news-section even though it could be of some importance to some of their customers.

Sorry Roger, I don't want to offend you. Just I'm so pissed off about MOTU, that I could lose control...

best regards

Chris

[Roger Boden]

Hi Chris,

Firstly, no offence taken! I appreciate that this whole episode has been very frustrating for a lot of people.

Maybe I should have explained my situation better, but I thought I'd already said enough! I run a commercial studio facility in the UK and as I said, I am lucky enough to have two DAW's, both fitted with PCIx-424 cards. Obviously this made it easier for me to conclude that it was unlikely to be a hardware failure. Also, I've never heard of a PCIx-424 card failing.

Neither of our DAW's have internet access either, but we do have office computers that are online. The point I was trying to make is that google is a lifeline for anyone in pro audio or video in situations like this. If I have a problem in the studio, you can bet that someone has already had the same problem as me. In less than a minute I found this thread and knew that we had a software problem. A quick call to the UK distributors confirmed this. My advice would be that if you run your DAW offline, then it would be prudent to have internet access by other means. How else would you be able to download the new drivers?

The tech note is the usual unhelpful stuff from MOTU, as is the readme file with the drivers which must be 500 years old by now . I agree with you that it's all a bit weird having to take the card in and out. I usually don't bother and then check the file versions after installation. I think the card in and out routine is a failsafe method for non-technical people which guarantees everything getting installed correctly.

MOTU weekend support.... I don't know about time zone differences etc., but the new drivers were posted on Friday, so luckily it wasn't an issue for us. Also, it wasn't a hardware problem, so there were no logistics involved. However, if this had all happened at the weekend, and the problem was firmware on the card itself, then it would have been a very different story. I'm sure that if MOTU hadn't fixed this so quickly, then a lot of people would have considered legal action. However, I'd put money on it that legally there would be no obligation for them to pay up for consequential loss (cancelled sessions etc.)

On saying that, I'd like to think that anyone who bought a new card would get their money back, no questions asked.

Yes, it's a bit pathetic that they didn't fess up a bit more prominently, preferably on the home page . When I found the statement buried inside the tech notes I did actually laugh out loud! What I love is they say that people 'may experience an issue'. Has anyone out there NOT had an issue??

In a nutshell - I'm a firm believer in the power of Google and rely on it heavily. I was surprised that so many people seemed to panic without checking the web first. The info was there.....

[Brian Hunter]

I experienced the 6/10 problem on 2 PCs. I thought it was a Vista problem and bought/installed Windows 7 for one of the machines. I can't get the new driver to work on either machine.

The Vista machine freezes after the driver is installed and is in the "Installing New Hardware" phase of installation. The Windows 7 machine installs the driver but the 424 doesn't function. Windows doesn't see it, Sonar doesn't see it, Sound Forge sees it but gives me a blue screen when trying to play audio.

MOTU web and phone support are unable to solve the problem. I'm told Windows is seeing the old driver somehow but I don't see how this is possible as I reformatted when installing Windows 7.

If anybody has any ideas, please help. I've got 2 studios loosing money for 7 days now.

[chriss]

Hi Brian,

I tried the new driver on my WIN7-System and it works as fine as MOTU-drivers can... Did you remove the card before doing things with the drivers deinstallation/reinstallation? Maybe that helps. Did you also try to set the system-clock back to a date before 06/11? Did that also not work?

best

Chris

[chriss]

Hey man! You're kidding, that's for sure, right?!...
And for MOTU: Well they are so smart - It doesn't really bother them. I guess they didn't have any problems in their studio at all. Well maybe they don't have a studio anyway but also no problems. So you see: No problems, no need to act! "Professional Audio" -> "Professional Coolness"

[Brian Hunter]

Thanks for the help. I was able to get my Vista PC running by reinstalling the pre 6/11 driver and setting the date back a few weeks.

I've installed & reinstalled the new driver over and over with no luck. Every time with the card removed.

I believe the new driver is no good. This is the first I've had audio running in 7 days. I find it a horrible solution but at least I'm running again.