Firewire issue affecting all the Dell Core Duo notebooks

At 96khz, I can set the buffer to the lowest (4ms) setting i Cubase and it works a treat . It does list an input/output latency that are higher than this (6ms input and 9ms output if I remember rightly). Not sure if that's good, but it's the lowest it will go.. it seems enough to use my Roland TR-909 live, which is fine by me.

I presume even at this low buffer setting that the firewire chipset pretty much determines the in/out latency? i.e. the only way I could improve it is by getting rid of the Ricoh?

Binny.

 

ve just got a Dell Vostro

I have read the full thread about the problems with the firewire connection, I hope it is now solved. My firewire seems to work ok so far with my Yamaha GO46 audio interface, but I would like to use it with an Express card.

Please could someone confirm that this problem has been solved and if necessary which firewire cards work. This is very important to me as I am about to buy an Express card and I don't want to have to take or send it back.
stotcj24 is offline Reply With Quote

 

TI chipset express cards probably won't help at all.. only the PCMCIA/Cardbus ones will help matters.
Besides, Ricoh chipsets *should* be fine for most people, as long as some IRQs are freed up and wired/wireless networking is disabled. It's working a treat at pretty low latencies for me now.

Binny.

 

Question: I just got a FireStudio Project which I have every intention of connecting using my onboard Ricoh FireWire (of course, I haven't tried to connect it yet). I've heard a lot of people mention disabling Internet access, particularly wireless, but what about Bluetooth connectivity? Has anyone noticed any issues related to that? (In particular, I'm planning to use a Bluetooth mouse.)

Oh, and I won't be using the PC in my sig. Specs are as follows:

HP dv1000t
Windows XP Pro, SP 2 (clean installation)
Core Duo T2350 (1.86 GHz)
2GB RAM (2x1GB)
100GB HDD (7200 RPM)

Any suggestions, Bluetooth-related or otherwise, are greatly appreciated.

 

Your best bet is to check device manager. If the bluetooth mouse is using the same IRQ as the Ricoh firewire interface then I would disable it. If not, then you may well be fine.

Binny.

 

Hello guys, greeting from Israel.
I was reading the thread since I got my Vostro 1400 two months ago. I didn't have a firewire interface then, but my worst fears came true when I got my Firebox today and it didn't work whatever I tried to disable or enable.
After I install the first drivers and the installation asks me to insert the soundcard into the computer, I plug it in but nothing happens. The laptop doesn't find anything, the Firebox doesn't even light the red sync light....
It's like I don't even plug it in.

Any ideas what can I do? All of the posts on this thread is about pops and clicks, I haven't find anything like I have...
I didn't really understand if the PCMCIA does solve anything, should I get a TI one?

no i feel like a stupid man to get that dell laptop. I should have find that thread earlier

 

Hello there

Can anyone inform me if these matters have been resolved, especially regarding the Dell xps 1330? Is it still the same crappy firewire chirset inside?

Can any other pc laptops be recommendet for audiorecording?

 

So anyone know what we can do?

I need to use an Express card firewire adaptor with my Yamaha audio interface.

I've already bought one with a TI chipset and of course it didn't work, so I returned it.

Does anyone know if the SIIG 2 definately works otherwise I've wasted £650.

VOSTRO 1700
512 GRAPHICS
3 GB RAM

 

Have you actually tried the onboard Ricoh?
Just interested in how it ran on that.

 

Thanks

Yes it works with the onboard 4 pin slot. But I need to use it mobile and my Yamaha audio interface needs to be powered by a 6 pin firewire slot i.e. express card adaptor.

Anyone else know if the siig 2 works ok?

By the way, i'm running xp 32

 

>>Can anyone inform me if these matters have been resolved, especially regarding the Dell xps 1330? Is it still the same crappy firewire chirset inside?<<

To Tinitus

Evidently No.

How can this be allowed to continue??

I found this thread only days after buying mine.

It seems that Dell laptops apparently do not work via Expreess Card/Firewire and Audio Interfaces, there may be some exceptions it would appear.

I don't however neccesarily blame Dell, it could be 'Express Card' to blame.

 

Hi, I found a thread with a very plausible explanation and fix for the firewire issue (on at least some of the machines). Check out http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=200359&page=2!

 

Most of the comment in this thread concerns using the Ricoh Firewire port with a Pro-Audio soundcard. It's not that the FW ports dont function but that they dont perform well in certain situations when running something as time critical as running low latency multitrack digital audio. It's not a cable issue but certainly worth mentioning in case someone finds this thread searching for "Firewire Issues"

 

Thanks for the clarification . Hopefully now if people have a firewire problem they can come to this thread and have at least two solutions, lol!

 

Just to clarify........ I don't have a firewire problem on my Vostro 1700.
My integrated firewire port works perfectly well(I must be lucky).
It's the Express Card that wont recognise a firewire device(audio interface in this case)
So I need to find an Express Card which will work with firewire on a Dell Computer, up to now, this doesn't seem possible.
If anyone has found one, could they please post the details'
Thanx

 

Guys, the Ricoh chipset is just as good as TI. Read the earlier posts, the various problems with the firewire hiccups were caused by different things: on the 6400 Inspiron, the TSS dvd drive was the culprit, on some other machines it's the Dell wireless card, yet on other machines was the fan starting or stopping that produced pops, on other machines was a bad motherboard design such that components shared IRQ's.
IT'S NEVER BEEN THE RICOH CHIPSET !!! My inspiron 6400 works great at 80% CPU usage, with 64 buffersize @ 96kHz, using Ableton Live 6 in combination with Echo Audiofire4. Popfree!!!
This Ricoh story dates back to few years when TI chipsets were replaced by other brands but at the same time new mobo and CPU architectures were being delivered, the core 2 duo came on the market for instance.
I just changed my laptop recently to a Toshiba Satellite with TI chipset and it performs just as good but not better than the Inspiron 6400.
One great thing I discovered recently though is that if you install your Windows XP in MPS mode rather than ACPI, the DPC latencies are much lower, components have individual IRQ's and the behavior overall of the machine is more stable. The price to pay is that you cannot know if your bat. is full or not, or that the fan runs constantly.
Check out this subject (ACPI versus MPS installation) as it can be a good solution for some bad mobos ( BIOS implementation or desing).


Note: The issue related to the Express port not functioning properly on dell machines is a completely different story.

 

I bought a Dell Studio 17 notebook to use with my Motu 828 mk3 firewire sound card. TOTAL CRASH! This setup could not even play a wave or mp3 file without audio dropouts and producing weird high frequenzy sounds. I tried to disable just about everything without any success.

In the end I installed Windows XP and WOW! A totally different reality. Xp perform so fast on this thing it is amazing and the Motu card together with the Ricoh card can handle my productions without any problems at all.

Installing XP was not easy either. You have to go in to the bios and change the hd controller from AHCI to ATA for XP to being able to see your hard drive. NOTE!! Doing this and installing XP will KILL the preinstalled Vista!!

You will not be able to find a driver for the wireless card and the soundcard. But I do not really care about this as I do not intend to use the build in sound card or internet during recording sessions.

After installing XP I also did a clean install of Vista on a second partition (I formatted the HD and split the partition in two) and I can now dualboot XP and Vista depending on what I am gonna use the computer for.

 

I recently bought a Dell Vostro 1510, Dual Core 2 (965 PM chipset) and a Mackie Onyx Satellite. I got the latency peaks that everyone else on this thread have, every 30 second or so. After spending two days indoors, reading every forum on the web and trying everything I could come up with I was so close to giving up... opening the window... throwing the computer out... an sending a big bomb to a certain computer manufacter. But finally I tried disabling the driver for the battery and then the computer god looked down upon me, laid his devilisch hand on my head and whispered in my hear: "You did good son, you did good...."

 

Please let me know if that works on other laptops with other chipset..

 

Richu, are you using Vista?
What are the drawbacks of disabling the battery driver?

 

I took the time to register so if this finds someone in need of help i hope i can give back.
I have a dell m1330 fully loaded, (7200rpm drive 2 gigs ram etc, rev12 bios). i could get close to perfect multitrack recording on my firestudio tube interface and the built in 1394 dell card (ricoh?) but not perfect. every minute or so i could get a very light audible pop intermintantly.
I disabled everything including dvd, wireless, network etc..i mean everything!
still had odd light pop intermitantly.
i bit the bullet and bought the siig 34mm expresscard 1394 400 2 port adapter
NN-EC2012-S1 fits in the m1330 54mm slot no problem.
guess what, holy crap for a change something worked out painlessly. plugged it in (xp ser pak2) and it was recognized fairly quickly, drives loaded from windows. i rebooted and ran cubase4
no pops with 5 continous tracks for 5 min with everything even enabled again (though i left wireless and blue tooth still disabled, will test later)
amazing!
i hope this helps someone, i sure could have used it!

R.

 

I agree Apple the way to go.

 

Hi there...I ended up purchasing the exact same card about 7 months ago when I purchased a Dell Inspiron 1520. It has the Intel 965 chipset (not Ricoh, as many others have), operates on XP...

That particular SIIG model worked for one gig, and then it didn't. Even though I got the solid blue light on my Firebox (which is good!), the sound coming out of my software was awful...so, I disabled everything I needed to, blah, blah, blah...

I ended up buying an ditching firewire altogether and purchased an Edirol UA 101 USB interface...been operating minimal free since...

I have since revisited this issue to see if I could find ways to utilize my Firebox...unfortunately, after reinstalling drivers, purchasing another TI compliant expresscard, and even downloading and installing ASIO4all, I still have not had sucess...

I can only conclude the expresscard technology is at fault here...Presonus's Moderators are saying that there's 1,500 soundcards out there, and so some work and some don't...that's not really a solution. That's a roll of the dice.

It's either the cards or the slot...either way, it doesn't leave me on firm ground, and that's too bad...the Firebox is a great device...

 

OMG!
Please tell me which DAC will work better with my Ricoh chipset:
Firebox, Echo AF4, M-Audio 610

 

My Echo Audiofire2 works pretty well. Can't comment on the others.

 

great......

So yesterday I ordered me a nice sounding Dell!!!!!

And today, I find this thread, and almost hang myself.

Did I just make the biggest mistake evar?

I am looking into using a firewire interface that I can use for both the laptop and my desktop. Has this issue been resolved? Is their a way I can use a 6 pin expresscard to bus power a FW interface?

Should I return the computer and look out for one with a TI chipset?

(Returning would suck because these specs and the price I paid, I would not be able to find another system like it for the price)
$520
Vostro 1500

Intel T9300 (2.5G, 800FSB, 6MB L2)
4G Ram
Nvidia 8400M GS 128 MB
160GB 7200RPM HDD

 

No Expresscard Firewire cards provide power even if they have a 6-pin port as far as I know.

 

orly?

So then, Would this machine run good latency with, say, a Konnect interface threw the 4 pin? 512 does not seem like a good latency.

 

The difference between 6 and 4 pin is just the power - there should be no performance difference otherwise.

I think I run my Audiofire 2 at 128 which is about 5ms in Cubase but I haven't got it rigged up at the mo to check. Works fine but I haven't really stressed it too much yet with my projects.

 

Vostro1700
Vita Ultimate

My Yamaha g46 audio interface plays flawlesly with the 4pin port but only general audio listening, vst instruments and modules i.e. proteus x.

Recording: tried Ableton Live 7 - nothing but trouble Cubase SX 3 - problems all the way. FLstudio - seems ok so far, but haven't really tested it.

No Express card firewire adapter has worked yet - haven't tried the Siig, but others have said they don't work either, even though someone has got it to work. Stuck withe Vostro now so I'll just have to persevere because it is an awsome machine otherwise. I love it for everything else but for DAW using firewire - it just doesn't work.

 

My 1700 (Vista Business) and Echo Audiofire record fine in Cubase Studio 4. Recorded some takes the other day of over a minute each without any drop outs, glitching or other problems at 5ms. The rest of the project was undemanding though - just Battery 3 for drums and no plug-ins.

The only trouble I do get is the odd ASIO drop out when exporting mixes but I'd like to think I could solve that by just dropping the latency back a notch or two. Haven't got round to that yet, only got CS4 just before Christmas so am still building projects up.

 

I should also have mentioned in my post above that my audio interface won't work at all with wireless switched on. It has to be off otherwise - usually within a few minutes it just stops working and will only work again after a re-boot.
The problem with this is if i'm all set up on a project and I need to go to the web - I only have wireless, then when I go back, my audio is usually gone and I have to close down and re-boot to continue.
There's no doubt about it, these(otherwise great laptops) were not designed to be used as digital audio workstations - that also goes for most other budget laptops, of course. If that's what you want to do, then you must go PC or MAC.

 

I just bought an XPS m1330. I hooked it up to my firewire Glyph external drive and ---- nothing. Tried it on my Latitude D630: nothing. Glyph guys said they've had problems w Dell latptop's firewire.

 

Take it the drive is powered from another source?

 

hmm, good to know. im waiting on a buddy to bring his presonus firebox to test out. I still have a few days to decide if i want to return it and look for something with a TI chipset. my other buddy just ordered a Dell Studio laptop and I guess it has TI.

 

Seem to remember someone earlier in this post running the Presonus without problems.
The new Studio's still use a Ricoh 1394 controller as far as I'm aware.

 

Update

Same problem as above, now with FL Studio - audio keeps cutting out and won't work until re-boot.

I have to emphasize that everything worked fine on my old Asus laptop and trouble-free using a Cardbus(pcmcia) firewire adaptor with XP.

I used Cubase, Ableton and FL Studio without any problems with the Yamaha GO46 firewire audio interface.

I can now positively say that the Dell firewire port - including the Express card(firewire) does not work with firewire audio interfaces (although there seems to be a few exceptions)

 

Hello,

I'm pretty new to music recording using DAW's, or at least new to understanding how things work. I recently bought a Tascam fw-1082, a firewire soundcard/control surface + more, but I cant get past the plug n play stage of the installation.

So, I went nuts, and before I knew it, I was pulling my hair and teeth. I read forums until I dreamt about it. And I eventually ended up here! I've found this forum really useful, since alot of you dell users out there seem to have the same, or at least similar problems, but it's just that you are not running on the exact same hardware or software as me, which brings most info posted here to wild guessing! I have not solved any problems, my computer refuses to recognize my Tascam interface and I realize it has everything to do with the build in firewire interface. But over the days i've read about persons who actually solved it by doing whatever actions i hardly understand to various components or registry entries.

I've tried disabling my dvd-drive, but correct me if im wrong, this is mainly to sort out drop-outs etc? Not about installing the hardware?
I've also tried disabling WiFi in my bios. I have also installed the SP1 firewire drivers, as suggested on other forums, maybe even on this one. And I've also altered SidSpeed in the registry so that it runs on max speed (but this is mainly for 1394b afaik, and my guess is that it's not included with the Dell Laptop firewire).

Im running on:

Inspiron 9400
Tacsam fw-1082
Windows xp pro Media Centre sp2

I've heard that media center can be the problem, but before I get another OS i want to check all the other options posted here first. But as I said, Im a beginner, and hardly know what half of the words you use here mean.

Grateful for help!

/Frukt

 

For a start have you tried the hardware on another PC? Have you tried any other fw hardware on the port? Is the Ricoh 1394 controller in Device Manager and showing no problems?

If you are seeing no recognition of the hardware when you plug it into the port be aware that sometimes the plug can make inefficient contact due the way these ports are and some people have had good results from just taking the rubber/plastic on the cable jack back slightly to reveal more of the metal. There's not a lot of room for error with these little 4-pin laptop jacks and a slightly forward connector rubber.

XP MC is supposedly problematic with pro-audio (although why that should be as it's only XP I'm not sure) but I doubt it's causing this problem.

Oh - add yeh, all the DPC Latency stuff refers to drop outs when streaming audio and has nothing to do with non recognition by the port itself. No doubt you'll be invesigating all that should you get the lappie to see your hardware

 

Thanks for the quick reply.

First things first:

Yes it has been tested on another compy, a mac. But on that machine it was also used with other cables. The tascam gets firewire signals tho, (the firewire LED on the tascam is blinking) so it's hardly the cable that's the problem.

And i've also tried a USB/Firewire external HD, LaCie, that works fine with USB but not with firewire.

I cannot see the Ricoh 1394 controller in the device manager, but an OHCI 1394 Compliant IEEE Host Controller. I do have the Ricoh drivers installed, and they can be viewed thru Control Panel -> Add/Remove Programs. Might this be the issue?

This might be an issue, but the remainder of the non-metal material on the cable is hard plastic. I'll have to get a toolbox knife out n make the life short of the plastic. Should this really be needed?

Thanks for the time bit of humor there Really needed since the hardware is not funny at all atm! =/

/Frukt

 

It says "RICOH OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller" under IE 1394 controllers for me but maybe the 9400 doesn't use a Ricoh chip. It's an MS driver though - the Ricoh drivers are mainly for the card reader. Not sure what to suggest if the port is seen and the drivers loaded.

On the plug trimming - it can be needed if there is no device seen because the connector doesn't go deep enough into the port. Many people have posted here about, usually, digi camcorders, that weren't recognised but a little trimming of the plug allowed a more suitable contact. My firewire card would connect but the slightest touch and it would get lost. I used a pin (with the machine turned off) to gauge the depth of the socket and compared it to what was available on the plug and it was slightly deeper than the plug allowed. A little trimming enabled a more solid connection and less likelyhood of it losing the connection. Your milage may vary but it's worth thinking about.

 

The card installed and that showing in the device manager only says OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller, no Ricoh there. Trying to get in touch with dell to see if my 2 years of warranty still applies, the compy is nearly that old so gotta act quickly.

Anyway, tried to trim the cable without success, so seem like that is not the problem anyway. Which in one way is a relief.

As of now, it seems as if Dell is the only ones that can help me, IF they can help me.

/Frukt

 

Beginning to look that way. You should be able to find out about any warranty status online using your service tag.

 

Yepp, the warrany has expired. Only had 1 year worth of warranty, but as it seems now the port has not been working since it left the factory, so it's a darn shame i gotta pay for a new motherboard and the shipping and everything costs.

Oh well, that's what u get for being a newbie at hardware. Last time Im ordering from dell, that's for sure.

/Frukt

 

It's always a problem with a port that gets used rarely - I'd had this 1700 for 18 months before I got a chance to test the FW port. Sorry to hear about your expiration.

 

Hey, back again!

Been on the phone with dell all morning and they've agreed to swap my motherboard at no cost. I managed to speak to one of their superiors and had him know that it's against swedish law to charge me for the exchange of the motherboard if the computer is not yet 3 years or older.

Thanks for all the help, and if this motherboard swapping wont do the trick im not sure what will. I've tried it all.

I'll certainly be back once my compy is back and 'should I get my tascam installed' (C)SteveJonesy , due to the problems I have to deal with then.

But until then!
Cheers for the interest in my problems

best regards
Frukt - Kim Melander

 

That's excellent news. Hopefully you can be making music in good time
Let us know how it turns out.

 

@ all!!

read the full thread here!

http://forum.msi.com.tw/index.php?topic=119513.0

 

Not too sure what that has to do with much in this thread. This is more to do with problems running the onboard Ricoh FW controller with DAW software.
People have used Expresscard FW without problems (as you have decribed to my knowledge).

Care to elaborate what you think the connection is between your problem- which appears to be specific to your machine/BIOS with other users reporting no problems - and the subject of this thread?