Firewire issue affecting all the Dell Core Duo notebooks

On my Inspiron 6400 system I have to disable both the DVD drive and my Wireless adapter for the DPC graph to be clear. Has anyone else had this experience? If I request replacements for the DVD drive and Wireless adapter, which models should I request from Dell?

 

This is the most terrifying thread ever.

Is this firewire issue restricted to Dells? Are the new 1420's having the same problem?

 

HI,

a little info on why your having issues.

Scott
ADK Pro Audio

Issues with the majority of new laptops.

Not all laptops are created equal. While they may appear to have the same specs, (processor, memory, harddrive) the performance for Pro audio is drastically different.
Most name brand laptops will NOT work for Pro audio as they are plagued with resource allocation issues, IRQ conflicts and poor bios'.

Contrary to popular belief no one makes their own laptops. In Other words Dell is made by someone as is Apple, Gateway etc.
There are 9 or so ODM's (manufacturer's of laptops) in the world.
Clevo, Quanta (makes the new MAC and higher end HPs and others), Compal, Mitac, Asus, MSI, Twinhead, Uniwill/ECS, Arima, Movita.


While this has to do with both Intel and AMD I will confine this to Intel as AMD Laptops are underpowered.

Intel Core 2 Duo, and Santa Rosa (core 2 duo with 800 fsb)

1) Chipsets: the main chipset is the Intel 945 PM/GM (gm means onboard video) And this is not the issue. The Chipset issue is what is being used for the Cardbus(if it actually still has one), Memory card reader, modem, network, Firewire. or what's called combo chipsets. (all in 1)

Ricoh: (asus and others) a lot of incompatibility with audio interfaces and general poor performance.
ENE: (compal and others) same as above, the Cardbus is horrid. Usually with Via firewire. The via firewire does better than ricoh.
Realtek: now found on several laptops, not just as audio, but audio, card reader, Cardbus, modem, Firewire.
Texas Instruments: firewire and Cardbus (again cardbus is gone from most new laptops). The chipset to have!

2) Bios: most laptops are 512k some are 1 meg, where a desktop will have 4meg- 8meg.
This is probably the biggest issue. The Bios for the most part is responsible for IRQ and resource allocation. A small and poorly written bios is what causes so many things To be lumped on to 1 IRQ.
ACPI handles this.
Microsoft developer site

with laptops you have “hot swap” devices (cardbus, Express slot and more) this adds to the issue. Understanding that resource allocation is memory based (name space and virtual memory), A small bios has a hard time allocating space for all potential product IDs.

Add to that we now have PCIe even more bios issues arise.
More from MS.

“Insufficient bridge resources appear when the platform BIOS cannot assign appropriate PCI-bridge resource windows during POST. Systems supporting hot-plug PCI devices are particularly problematic. When a PCI device can be hot-plugged behind a PCI bridge at run time, it is impossible for the BIOS to ascertain during POST how large a bridge resource window must be to accommodate a device. Additionally, a PCI bridge device might be hot plugged in certain situations—for example, in generic docking solutions that connect through CardBus adapters”

“””The previous scenarios are exacerbated with the emergence of PCI Express. PCI Express defines many bridge devices that are used to represent ports, thereby making complex bridge hierarchies more prevalent. Additionally, PCI Express hot-plug will be widely used in desktop and workstation client systems, so hot-plug scenarios will not be limited to large servers.

“” So small bios means less ability to handle ACPI steering and resources in “virtual space”

3) Expectation of ODM: most laptops are NOT designed to be used as workstations. The vendors never expected this. Laptops are designed to be light weight, long battery life used mostly by biz people on the go, or typical home user surfing the net, playing music. Therefore they program the bios in a careless manor.

Here is more about how its left to the individual ODM to program the bios.

“””The rules for the above programmable ranges are:
1. ALL of these ranges MUST be unique and NON-OVERLAPPING. It is the BIOS or system designers responsibility to limit memory population so that adequate PCI, PCI Express, High BIOS, PCI Express Memory Mapped space, and APIC memory space can be allocated.
2. In the case of overlapping ranges with memory, the memory decode will be given priority.
3. There are no Hardware Interlocks to prevent problems in the case of overlapping ranges.
4. Accesses to overlapped ranges may produce indeterminate results.
5. The only peer-to-peer cycles allowed below the top of memory (register TOLUD) are DMI to PCI Express VGA range writes. Note that peer to peer cycles to the Internal Graphics VGA range are not supported.”””

Taken from Intels white papers Here

A few manufacturers put more thought into it. Again the more expensive TI chipset is a good indication that there was consideration for use as a workstation. The bios will be a bit more open and better programming as well as usually larger. The more different chipsets there are internally the more likely they will have their own resources, as opposed to everything in 1 chipset. So that about covers the less obvious (HDD, ram etc)

 

Dude, I've read your post somewhere else before, it's identical to another forum. Despite the fact that it took a whole page, it doesnt say much.
The point is there are some incompatibilities on the market at the moment between different firewire chipset and firewire audio cards. I had a hard time with my Inspiron 6400 and M-audio Firewire Audiophile and I kept on blaming the Ricoh chipset. It turns out M-audio sucks as a brand with a lot of the new laptops, but brands like Presonus and Echo work perfectly with Ricoh. The proof? See 3 presonus ( 1 firestudio and 2 digimax) chained up and hooked to a Dell 6400. Take the first link of this google search: ( the actual link I couldnt post here as it has the word c ock in it .
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=6400+firepod+audiofire+gear+people+mobile&btnG=Search


So, who is to blame?
My advice for all the people who wanna have a laptop+soundcard going is to read up a bit more and find a combination of laptop and soundcard that's reported to work properly. If you already have a laptop, go to a shop and try some cards. And give a chance to the Inspiron I am happy with it ( again ).

 

So, if you have a Toshiba Samsung drive ( TSS ) it's very likely that that's the problem. I got dell to replace mine with a NEC after they read this forum. I am surprised about the wireless card. Which one is it? Do you disable them from the Device Manager?

 

You're right I have the TSS drive. My wireless card is the "Dell Wireless 1500 Draft 802.11n WLAN Mini-card Rev 4.1".
Yes, if I disable both from the Device Manager I get a clean DPC graph and firewire audio (Mackie D.2 mixer) works without a single glitch. I tried just disabling the Wi-fi radio and this doesn't do it, I have to disable it and the DVD drive in the Device Manager.

 

It seems to be a mixture of everything, bad drivers from the laptop manufacturers, bad drivers from the interface suppliers and cheap knockoff versions of hardware.

 

presonus? LOL

thats one of the units we use to verify if a laptop will work. if the presonus does most anything else will. as they are the most persnickity. 1/2 the presonus units will not work on Ricoh.

Maudio is almost never a problem. (win xp not Vista crap)

what i posted says alot if you can understand it. and its based on testing over 20 laptops in the last 8 months or so.
Every TI chipset unit i tested worked perfectly to 64 buffer.
the others mostly fall on thier face with 512 buffer being the best.
(assuming a real audio test not some podunk 8 tracks, no effects or samples.)


but hey thanks for commmenting.

Scott
ADK

bottom line Ricoh and ENE suck and TI is by far better.

 

So, what you posted is too many words for nothing, man. You just copy pasted from some places.I understand what you wrote but I think most of is is irrelevant stuff. And as I said, I saw the identically same post on another forum. This forum here and what I am saying refers strictly to Dell, and specifically to Inspiron 6400. Even if you tried 8 laptops and the ones with Ricoh chipset performed badly, I have counter examples for you where the Ricoh chipset in DELL 6400 performs great. So then its not the chipset that's faulty but probably other things ( like the mother board or the implementation of that chipset through drivers or BIOS) that sucks.
To argue with you:
1) Look at the first link in the google search I posted above. You will see a ricoh chipset on a 6400 Inspiron running 3 big presonus cards desy chained together, all at the same time. That's your proof that Presonus and Ricoh work great even when pushed to 30in/30 out.
There are plenty of reports that the Firebox works well with the Inspiron 6400. Also, the echo audiofire cards seem to work fine with the 6400. On the other hand the M-audio firewire series sucks with Ricoh processor and I read quite some posts about it. So what you say it's not true, it seems the Presonus is the least picky about firewire chipset and M-audio the most troublesome. I can look up those posts again, if you're interested. Also, if you read this entire thread from the beginning till the end, it is confirmed that the firebox worked more than fine with the 6400.

 

Dude, do it the other way around : disable only the dvd drive and see if it works. Not the wireless, and then the wireless + dvd drive.
Also, when you check, dont run a DAW, dont connect a sound card, just have a look at the latency checker program. If there are not red spikes when ONLY the drive is disabled, then the drive is your problem. If there's still red spikes with disabled drive, then disable also the wireless module. And see if the spikes go away after that.

 

Thanks for more ideas, but I have tried this already. I've found it doesn't matter the order that I have disabled the devices, the DVD drive is causing some spikes when enabled, and the wireless does the same. I have to disable both to clean up the graph. All other devices on the system seem to have negligible effect.
This is without a DAW running and with the D.2 disconnected. But checking with the DAW only confirms what the DPC graph shows.
Now that you've had your DVD replaced, are you able to use firewire audio without troubles? Do you have wireless enabled, what device do you have?

 

Hi. Ok. It seems you have a different wireless card than mine, mine is an Intel 3945 a/b/g.
After I changed my dvd drive, I could use my new NEC dvd drive while making music. The dvd drive problem is well known by now, even by dell ( in some countries). The wireless card is a new issue and it seems you might have to give up using it during your music time.
Some other things I would try before you give it up ( you might have done this already).
1) Check in Device Manager whether your wireless card and your 1394 port share the same irq. This one is VERY IMPORTANT. In some new Toshiba laptops, for instance, the wireless card shares the irq with the firewire.
2) Make sure you have the lastest drivers for your wireless card. Go to the manufacturer's website, if necessary. And google whether there's an issue with this wireless card ( without looking for music production specifically).
3) Make sure you have the latest BIOS update for your laptop. My Inspiron 6400 just got version A17 for the Bios Version A17, released recently, addresses some serious issues including express card support. ( just an example of how important BIOS support could be.)
4) If none of the above work, get a new wireless card. Either a cheap usb one for 10 bucks or change the one inside your laptop ( should be possible rather cheap and not too difficult.)

 

Yes, like i said everything is off that it's possible to turn off.
Has anyone with a firewire adapter tried it with the new bios yet?

 

As long as you still see spikes in the latency checker program, without the sound card connected, then you will never be able to use that comp. for making music. It has some bad hardware; if you dont manage to isolate and/or replace it, you might as well buy another laptop. Even if you try different expressTofirewire cards or whatever port you have, if latency checker report red spikes, nothing will work: your comp is waiting too long when handling different backkground processes.
I installed the new BIOS but I had no express card to check the improvement.

You should also report your configuration. Do you have an Inspiron 6400/1505? Was it bought before Jan 2007?

 

Alll right people!!! The new bios A07 for M90 solves the firewire expresscard problem. I am soooooo happy!!!!!!

 

Still pretty bugish with my yamaha daw, but with disabled multicore support and Powerstrip all works mostly ok. At least it is working at all. One thing that gets on my nerve is that after reboot, the latency in the Powerstrip has to be reset. Any suggestions?

 

SUCCESS!!
First I replaced my DVD drive as recommended on the forum. This helped the issue but my Wi-Fi device was still causing glitches. I replaced the Dell 1500 WLAN card with the Intel 3945 WLAN card and now firewire audio finally works without any glitches even while streaming online content!

So, for any other prospective Dell Inspiron 6400/E1505 music-makers interested in firewire audio, you will need to get the following configuration or replace the following components:

Incompatible components:
1. TSSTcorp DVD-RW drive
2. Dell Wireless 1500 Draft 802.11n WLAN Mini-card

Compatible components:
1. NEC (Optiarc) AD-5540A DVD-RW drive
2. Intel ProSET Wireless 3945 A/B/G WLAN Mini-card


I don't know if this applies to other Dell laptop systems, but I would imagine so. Avoid these components!
Getting the parts from Dell wasn't too hard. I found it simpler to claim that the parts had failed instead of trying to explain this compatibility issue. Installing the parts was easy, just follow the instructions in the Service Manual: http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/ins6400/en/sm/index.htm

Thanks for the help everyone, and good luck to all future laptop rockers...

 

Whoever's still struggling with this, I've got some (possibly) good news.
I've been going through this nightmare for ages with my Evesham Dual Core2 laptop, 945pm chipset. Had the same issues with the Express Card (not working even the slightest bit) and my wireless card was behaving erratically, but I think after 9 months of hell I've finally solved it, at least for now it seems to be working great on very low latency settings.

The solution came in two steps:

1. After checking the "conflicts" parameter in System Information, I disabled everything that was on the same IRQ as the 1394 controller in the device manager except for my ATI graphics card, which I've tweaked as mentioned earlier in this thread. This seemed to do the trick, but it left me with no functional USB2 ports which is not really an option.

2. As a desperation move I updated the drivers for the chipset.
You can download them from Intel's website (they're called "Software Installation Utilities") but make sure you get the right version for your model as there are numerous 945 models. I enabled the "conflicting" devices (which definitely made it fail earlier, I experimented with this endlessly) and it's all working like a charm for now, including the wireless, though I'm still keeping one of the USB 1.0 ports disabled just to be on the safe side.

Also worth mentioning that I followed the Switchspeed solution mentioned earlier in this thread too. Cheers to all of you for sharing your wisdom over a year, hope my little bit helps.

 

...so I set up my mLan gear with M90 and cubase via firewire expresscard, did all the common ms fixes, and everything seemed to work except one thing - the clock is slightly drifting! I tried disablind speedstep, did the dell c3 powerstate fix with no avail. And the problem persists even with the multicore support disabled. I also tried changing all the cubase settings like system timestamp usage and priority. It's not that easy to hear the drifting - it's very small, but i have some gear that depends on a very stabile clock, and as soon as the sync is lost the delay time change note pitching sound occures. And it happens all the time - once in a measure aprox. It's really frustrating, because all my project sounds like a bunch of sleepy drunk guys... help..?

 

OK...Ironic. This thread freaked me out. I bought a HP dv9410 (turrion x2 1.8ghz- with the dreaded Ricoh combo chip) which can have 2 hard drives. I ordered my second and am waiting so i can't test fully. But it DID PASS an important test. fivetoweres sx test. No spikes, dropouts etc at all on my TC Electronics Konneck 8. At 48-32 samples buffer there was distortion but no dropout and this is understandable. It tests perfect!..so far...but here's the irony-My desktop would not see the Konneck! So on to buy another firewire card.

Edit-I haven't input anything yet to check "drift". But still looking good.

 

I have the Vostro in my sig and have been thinking of getting a small, stereo mainly, firewire solution - kinda looking between the Presonus Inspire 1394 and the Echo Audiofire 2. So if I have the 965 Santa Rosa chipset with the Ricoh 1394 controller and an LG Hitachi HL-DT-ST GSA-T11N DVD combo which do you think will give me the least problems? Any have any experience using the above components? Pit falls?

Any info gratefully received

 

Hi. I would advice to to get the Echo Audiofire2. It's very petite, it's solid aluminium case and the great part is that is has separate headphone bus, so you can monitor or send certain tracks in your daw to that, process them through an effect and record them again through the 1/2 ins. I got the Audiofire 4, and I am really satisfied with the sound quality, size and functionality. It goes great with my Ricoh chipset ( Inspiron 6400).

 

Cool - good to know, thanks.

Been leaning towards the Audiofire 2 just cause of it's size.

 

Hi folks!!
I'm trying to use the firepod on the Dell M65... I tried everything I saw here with no success.. I can't even listen an mp3 in wmp.

So... I'll replace this laptop with an Dell M4300 with the new intel 965PM chipset.. do you guys think that I will be ok with this one?? I can't find any info on this... probably because this model is to new.... is so I'll make test for everybody ehehe.


Thanks for your help!

Jeb

 

I'm seriously considering a Vostro 1500 with 2 GB of memory and a 1.6 GHz Core 2 Duo processor. What I'm thinking of is tracking audio using my desktop and then mixing (using a Glyph external firewire hard drive) on the laptop.

Are there known issues with the Vostro chipset these days ? Anyone know of problems with my intended use ?

Thanks,

Dave

 

Wow, so I just realized how long this thread has gotten, this is for anyone who had the issues stated in about the first 10 pages of this thread...

(Short version)

The Intel® Chipset Software Installation Utility (INF Update Utility) solved my playback issues using the 945GM chipset and a firewire audio controller.

Download can be found here:
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Product_Filter.aspx?ProductID=816&lang=eng

(...end short version)
(Start long version...)

Using the following setup:
Dell Inspiron E1705 (945GM chipset)
Integrated 1394 controller THEN the SIIG 2-port 1394 Expresscard (TI Chip)
Presonus Firepod

When I originally had issues with the integrated firewire controller, I used a USB device for the output while continuing to use the Firepod for input. No issues there. When I decided to finally get a 1394 Expresscard (prior to finding this thread, unfortunately), I had even worse problems. My system would lock up on the Windows splash screen if I had the card in prior to startup, the audio was very glitchy (slow and distorted). ASIO4All didn't help.

After installing the INF update, audio works fine, the Expresscard and Firepod can be connected on boot and I don't have any issues.

 

I am also a Dell Inspiron 6400 user with audio problems. My personal situation is this: First I purchased a MOTU Traveler. I did some minor testing for short periods of time, with no real problems. I took the rig to record a live concert and had major problems with drop outs, digital glitches and in one case a record crash where I lost over 20 minutes of 8 tracks of audio. I suspect that this might be due to longer continuous recording over 30 minutes.

I did all of the MS hotfixes for SP2 and tried disabling devices and went on a recording gig to a large concert hall for some piano and shakuhachi duets. I also got drop outs and digital glitches. Bad for clients, bad for me.

I go and return the MOTU and pick up the Presonus Firestudio. The Presonus BLUE SCREENS the machine when I hit record. After working on configuration issues and driver updates, I made no progress in fixing the problem.

For both audio interfaces, I was unable to get meter feedback through software of incoming levels.

Dell is sending a SONY DVD replacement for the Toshiba Samsung Drive and I ordered a SIIG ExpressCard Firewire from ADK. Hopefully these changes will resolve the problem. If not, I won't have any clients left in a couple of weeks.


"I'm sad that I'm flying," -Strong Sad

 

I have now added a SIIG ExpressCard 1394 with TI Chipset @ 400 Mbps. Also replaced the Samsung DVD with a Hitachi and so far I am able to run DPC Latency Checker without getting into dangerous levels of latency.

So far, so good. If it wasn't for this thread I would be making perfect 3/8" holes in my craptop with my drill press. I am getting my MOTU Traveler back today to test it out with some 24 bit 88.2 audio streams.

I'm off to GC...

 

Hi all,
i'm a newbie there, but just found this tread this week and spent an evening reading it.

I just purchased an Inspiron 1520 with c2duo 2,2ghz / santa rosa 695 chipset etc. for performing live using Ableton Live.
I use M-Audio FW Audiophile interface. I'm aware that M-audio recommends
TI chipset, but it was a quick decision, cause my old laptop was broken, and i quickly needed a new one, cause i play quite a lot.
And then I realised that it has a Ricoh OHCI firewire chipset, so i was laready a bit stressed,
and found this tread while googling.

The laptop had preinstalled Vista, but I already thought about downgrading to XP, cause i find it quite reliable, and already heard some bad opinions about using Vista for DAW's.
But first i checked tha audio performance on Vista.

The audio seemed quite ok, but from time to time I was getting a single clicks or pops, that would probably not be very annoying in studio work, but I need flawless performance for live gigs.
In my old fujistsu siemens laptop with AMD sempron, such clicks were caused
by AMD PowerNow! technology, so just setting the power management to "always on" solved the problem

I checked recording and there were no stutters or dropouts, recorded sound was ok.
But those clicks were a bit annoying, and I found out about DPC latency checker from this tread.
I tried it and the performance wasn't ok, and I was getting a quite a lot of red peaks, so i tried disabling all the wi fi, bluetooth and almost all the drivers,
maybe i was getting less red peaks in DPC latency checker, but i was still getting quite a lot of them.

Abyway the audio performance wasn't that bad, I've read about much worse cases in this thread, but this single clicks and pops were annoying me.

I reinstalled to XP PRO, and for now I made just a very minimal install.
I installed only mainboard drivers, nvidia geforce 8600GT drivers, touchpad driver and an m-audio driver.

I run the DPC latency checker, and now it seems ok, so i installed ableton and couple of VST plugins that i use in my liveset.

And the audio performance seems to be quite stable right now, but sometimes I'm getting a single click, when minimising the abelton window while playing.

i had a couple of single red peaks in DPC latency checker, while monitoring all the time and for example launching ableton, but then it was ok with DPC latency.
And I'm getting clicks and pops only sometimes while minimising the ableton window, i tried opening an mp3 in media player while ableton is playing etc..

So it seems to work not that bad on my intel 965 chipset / ricoh OHCI firewire chipset...
but i still feel not 100% confident if this is reliable...

couple of times i lost MIDI IN signal from my Behringer BCR2000 controller.. then after restarting the Ableton it worked..
so i plugged in my midi controller through USB and it seems to work..but

but i still get this little clicks while minimising ableton window, and also i'm disturbed by losing the signal from the midi input of my audio interface

I have two gigs on this weekend, so I'll do a "battle test" and hope I won't have problems.

I'll post my experiences,
after the weekend I'll try to install other drivers, like wi-fi and stuff and see if there are conflicts.

and I also look forward to hear about your experiences with this SIIG expresscards etc.., cause my system seems to work but i'm not 100% confident with this RICOH chipset

 

those who have mLan gear should try the new drivers. I'm experiencing improvements!!

 

Is this thread still up? I wanted to leave it on a high note I've got a Dell Latitude D820 (2ghz core 2 duo) and I was having major problems with getting my Presonus Firebox click & pop free with the inbuilt dell firewire ports (Which are O2Micro btw). I tweaked every tweak under the sun, including creating alternate hardware profiles and disabling any conflicting IRQ hardware....sometimes i thought i had solved it, but it would never be 100%.

The solution.......

A Belkin 3-port 1394a Cardbus (PCMCIA) card (F5U513v) w/TI chipset. Not only does it provide perfect stable audio from my firebox, it did so under my regular "untweaked" xp config. Meaning, no optimizations, no hardware disabling, wi-fi still running....so there is light at the end of the tunnel. It is a pricey card, but you get what you pay for I've found.

Good luck 2 ya all, turns out it's just the crappy firewire controller in the Dell lappy's, O2Micro in my case.

 

Hi everyone,

I wonder if someone could help me out here.

I basically use my laptop, a presonous firebox, Ivory, Cubase LE, and Finale, but the main reason a bought all this gear was to use the pianos from Ivory. I sold my Yamaha Motif 6 to buy this gear.

The laptop was working relativelly fine with the Yamaha 7ft, without the foot pedals and other things, but I couldn't run the Steinway or the Bosend. without having problems. So I bought me a new Dell Laptop thinking it would solve my problems just to find it is worse than the old, slower computer.

My new Dell has this configuration:

120 GB HD
3 GB RAM
Intel Core 2 Duo
2.2 Ghz
7200 rpm

I instaled the Presonous Firebox first, than I installed Cubase, and last I instaled Ivory, could that be my problem, the order of instalation?

I use from the Firebox to the laptop a 4 pin firewire they say is a firewire 400, and I heard that the firewire 800 is best, could that be the problem?

Could I be having problems fixing my latency, or sample rates, or buffer size configurations?

My HD has 50 GB of free space, and it does not seem like the problem is memory, when I play the piano and it starts cutting off the "slow disk" message doesn't show up but the red light blinks on the firebox very rappidly.

I downloded from Synthogy's site the VST Standalone version, could it be that I need the RTA version?

Any ideas?

Thank you very much,

Mark David.

 

You would not believe what happened last evening. I went on Dell's site and the technician went on my system from his computer and removed my IEEE (firewire) drive and installed a new one. First he said I should test the firewire output with some other device. I told him I was positive that the problem was with it and that I had tested my softwares with other computers and they worked just fine. When I was about to ask him if I could have my $ back I asked if there was any correctional update for Inspirons on their IEEE drive. He gave me a password and installed a new drive while I watched his mouse running through my screen.

So the cuts are gone!!!!!!!!! And I'm very happy.

But now I have to do something about little clicks that occurs when playing the piano.

Anyway I'm feeling much better now.

The problem was with Dell.

Mark.

 

I'd be interested in knowing which driver you installed or where you got it? I'm having the same problems.

 

Also be aware that if you have Notebook Hardware Control (NHC) installed, I verified with DPC Latency Checker that this application causes spikes which results in clicks in the firewire audio stream.

Took me a while to figure this out because I thought of NHC as a "benefit" for my audio production (because it overides intel speedstep), but alas it causes spikes that affect realtime audio streams.

 

Hey Mark I have been looking for hours for these Drivers, can you please tell us where you found them?

 

did you end up finding the drivers?

 

Hey Mantrix, I hope your still around! I just purchase a Ultralite Aswell. I am having the same problems that you are having... I have spent the last week trying to figure out how to fix this disbaling this, trying new driver ect ect, then i stumbled apon your post. Looks like it was quite awhile ago. I basically have the same setup as you NEC DVD also. Have you found a fix yet for this.. Please tell me yes!! if so please reply or email me at 'editedout' Please PM me
Thanks!

 

pistolpete_1980 remove your email unless you want to be Hammered with spam..
Just put a request in via PM

 

thanks advice taken : )

 

!!! it works !!!

Problem is not the firewire interface but the ATI x1400 PCI express card!
You can't use pci latency tools cause it's useless for PCI express devices.
Initially disabling the display adapters driver stopped the clicks but working in poor resolution and colors is not possible.
Just make sure you have ati catalyst control center installed.
Go to POWERPLAY and set all 3 sliders (plugged in, high battery and low battery) on minimum.
This is somehow the priority setting for ATI device.
And wow! No more clicks and pops (no more errors in rme error counter). smile)

So do not buy other firewire interface or change notebook.

 

Problem is not the firewire interface but the ATI x1400 PCI express card!
You can't use pci latency tools cause it's useless for PCI express devices.
Initially disabling the display adapters driver stopped the clicks but working in poor resolution and colors is not possible.
Just make sure you have ati catalyst control center installed.
Go to POWERPLAY and set all 3 sliders (plugged in, high battery and low battery) on minimum.
This is somehow the priority setting for ATI device.
And wow! No more clicks and pops (no more errors in rme error counter). smile)

So do not buy other firewire interface or change notebook.

 

Problem is not the firewire interface but the ATI x1400 PCI express card!
You can't use pci latency tools cause it's useless for PCI express devices.
Initially disabling the display adapters driver stopped the clicks but working in poor resolution and colors is not possible.
Just make sure you have ati catalyst control center installed.
Go to POWERPLAY and set all 3 sliders (plugged in, high battery and low battery) on minimum.
This is somehow the priority setting for ATI device.
And wow! No more clicks and pops (no more errors in rme error counter)

 

Anyone know if these problems appear on the Dell M1330 as well?

 

I've currently got a Dell laptop with the 945 chipset and Ricoh firewire, so am obviously experiencing problems.
However, does any1 know if the new Intel Penryn Dells are using the same rubbish Ricoh firewire? I'm planning on maybe upgrading my laptop to a quad core in 5-6 months time.


UPDATE: Just found the following... looks like a brand new design/chipset. Hopefully it'll work this time.
http://www.dailytech.com/Intel+Roadmaps+Outline+Centrino+2+Platform+This+June/article10875.htm

Cheers,
Binny.

 

The guys from Focusrite told me there should be really no problems with the Ricoh Firewire, so I went ahead and bought the Saffire edition. It works great so far with Kontakt 3 and Cubase Studio 4.

 

Great.. my FocusRite Saffire Pro 26 arrives next week. Fingers crossed that it works! What laptop/motherboard chipset have you got? What kind of latencies etc have you managed to achieve?

Cheers,
Binny

 

Hi Binny,

I'm using the XPS M1330.

 

Just thought I'd mention that my Saffire Pro 26 i/o firewire interface works absolutely fine with my Inspiron 9400 with Ricoh chipset. Am using latest drivers and firmware.

Binny.

 

Hi Binny,

Good to hear. What kind of latency are you getting?