MOTUnation.com

I recently bought a MOTU 8Pre that I'd like to use with my laptop, but I haven't been able to get it to work properly.

The unit works perfectly with my desktop, but using the same drivers (the CD that came with it) and the same version of Windows (XP SP2), it does nothing but pop & click when I connect it to my Thinkpad, my HP TX1000, or my Acer laptop. I keep trying to think of how these three laptops are different to my desktop, and the only thing I can think of is the Firewire chipsets. The Acer and the HP need PCMCIA / Express card adaptors (neither are TI btw) and the Thinkpad has built-in 4 pin Firewire.

If it's any help, I also had the exact same problem with my Alesis I|o 14 - worked perfectly on my desktop, but no playback or recording on any of my laptops. Alesis' tech support had lots of ideas but could not solve the problem for me in the end.
Also, my little Behringer FCA202 works fine with all of my computers

Would a TI express card fix the problem? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Evan

most probably yes

Thanks Reeper for the reply, but after tracking down an express card with a TI chipset, the problem is still occuring.

If it helps to pinpoint the problem, I've recorded the 8Pre's output while just playing an MP3 out of Windows Media Player, it sounds like this:
http://www.evan.net.au/storage/8pre_clip.mp3

Also, here is a screen grab of my MOTU software:


If you're able to give me any help at all, I would really appreciate it!

Thanks,
Evan

firstoff disable wlan/lan and try again.
also I need more info on laptop hardware model number etc.

Thanks for the reply.

My main laptop - which I'm using my new TI XIO2200 express card with - is an HP Pavilion TX1000 Tablet PC. AMD Turion64 with NVidia GFX, 3GB Ram, downgraded from Vista to XP Pro SP2. Problem persists after turning off WIFI & Bluetooth.

Similar symptoms occur with my IBM Thinkpad R52 (onboard 4-pin FW) and my Acer Aspire 1640 (PC Card FW - probably not TI).

I would be annoyed if my new Express Card isn't compatible - it's a 2 port Skymaster with the TI XIO2200 chipset, which I think is the same as the Belkin (which sits at over AU$150 over here).

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Evan

I see you're using adat AND Internal sync.Try switcing off ADAT or go ADAT sync if you are using an adat box.Also if you are on 4pin FW its no good,but if you are 6pin on the T.I. then try switcing off the laptops 4pin FW it helps the FW bandwidth

@ evanms

i have similar problem with my winxp sp2 msi pr200 notebook with fw400 (ti chipset) expresscard.
with vista it works (only after doing this hackflags registry hack: http://support.microsoft.com/?scid=kb%3 ... 59&x=3&y=7

but with xp it does not work.

so my question is is the cuemix gui on your machine also extremely slow responding + hanging. (when you turn knobs, move faders...)
additonal to that i get no sound out of it...

I've seen issues like this caused by poor/outdated video card drivers. For laptops, there's not much you can do except to turn on hardware acceleration, so you might give this a try.

Kevin

Also, you might check the power settings to make sure it's not turning off processors and disks at "idle" times. Laptops are quite concious of power usage.

@ evanms

wait some days .... i will post the ultimative thread rearding this and some other problems soon.
the whole last weekend was a troubleshooting weekend.

the output > extremely much information regarding. expresscard + firewire + motu gui + motu bluescreen problems
+ the fkin... tests i`ve done over the last month to find out the source of my own problem mit the mk3 + additional infos about other problems which i`ve also seen here in the forum.

i think i`ll start the thread in the next 2-4 days
writing down the whole tests and analyzed stuff takes much time

do you use two physical hard drives? (one for OS and programs the other for data)

IRQ conflicts (change them in bios if you can)

adjust your pci latency timers especially for the video to a lower value

revert back to the 3.6.7.x drivers