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My Traveler has been a trusted studio centerpiece since August 2005. However, this morning, I flipped the power switch on, and... nothing. No lights, no screen, no relays clicking inside, no recognition on my laptop.

Totally dead.

I always use it with the wall wart because the audio engineering school I went to strongly advised against using bus power when possible. Besides the question of whether the computer can always keep up with the current demands of the device, there were instances of the computers' motherboards burning up because of bus-powered Firewire hard drives.

Last night I was at a friend's, and we used the Traveler with his laptop (the same as mine, a powerbook G4) in bus powered mode. Everything worked fine.

This morning, I put it back in my studio, and it's dead.

I haven't heard anything from MOTU yet, and their phones have been busy all day.

Anyone else have this problem? Did MOTU repair the Traveler? What was the cost/turnaround time?

Thanks.

Did your Firewire/Bus power switch get flipped by accident?

Hmm... it's possible that my friend may have flipped the switch when he set it up. Will that kill it? The only reason we used bus power was that we were out of available slots in his power strip. Dang.

dokus wrote:I haven't heard anything from MOTU yet, and their phones have been busy all day.

Anyone else have this problem? Did MOTU repair the Traveler? What was the cost/turnaround time?

Call them first thing in the morning when they open US Eastern time -- that is the best time to get thru. Once the Californians wake up you will never get thru.

Phone: 617 576 3066
(9AM - 6PM EST, Monday-Friday)

They used to have a flat repair rate of like 99.00 for their hardware audio interfaces.

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Thanks! I'll try. Their support phone was busy all day yesterday, and I called right at 9:00. I can't remember the last time I got a busy signal.

One more Traveller in the list.

When you use bus-power you j=have to switch of the interface before the computer shuts down?

My friend thinks he may have pulled the Firewire cord out of the back before shutting off the power on the Traveler. Could that have done it?

I don't think so.
All my experience with the Traveler is that this unit is really weak, DC, Bus Powered, whatever you use. I'm sure they don't pass the minium Quality Control, or the Control is really light.
I'm sorry, hope you get a solution.

Thanks to everyone who responded. Let's hope MOTU answers my service request by the end of the year, otherwise I'll just send it to Sweetwater to have it fixed.

i got mine from sweetwater too

what are they like with faulty goods?

mine was oct 06' but im from england, so its gonna be a pain

but ill be happy to get a reliable unit

So what did MOTU do to get Sweetwater to lay such heavy praise on these units if they're as problem-prone as this board seems to reflect? I know that Sweetwater's constant recommendation of it had made me think about getting one, I know that much. Luckily, this board exists. Sad when it convinces people not to go w/ MOTU, but what can you do.

You sure the power switch on the side of the unit is at the AC position ?



( just in case )