Firewire issue affecting all the Dell Core Duo notebooks

@ Styves,

I'm not sure if mentioning my case number helps, unless you want to return your 9400. The agent I work with is away for another surgery, I'll give him a call when he gets back.

 

my firebox works fine with my e1705. I am using the onboard firewire port.

 

How's that possible? The e1705 doesnt have the TI chipset I guess? Is it possible that the Firebox or Saffire also works with a Ricoh chipset then? (that's the one I've got in my e1405). The e1705 should be quite similar to the e1405 right? Although....it probably has a different videocard?

 

Hello all,
I have found this thread via google. I have an inspiron 6400 and a firepod.
I use the firepod with my desktop pc and with my inspiron. Yesterday i record a band in acoustic (only 3 tracks) and have the suprise to have some "pop" on the 3 tracks when i listen to it after the recording...
I have read this thred and now i realize that the problem is known and seems to be unsolved
And i have to record drum tracks tomorrow with the 8 inputs ! I'm afraid to have those "pops" again... There wasn't a patch for the firewire with SP2 (400 to 800 or something like that ?). Or put the ACPI to standart pc ?
Thanks for the thread, and for the help !

 

Try using larger buffers, you may not be affected by the problem. I hardly can play a VSTi, let alone recording multiple audio tracks!

 

I use sonar... how can i setup the buffers ?

WIth cubase, the software can check that, but with sonar ?

 

There are alot of things that could be inducing the clicks and pops.

Disable the internal audio
Disable wireless
Disable network support over 1394
Disable modem
Disable network adapter
Disable media card reader
Turn off all power management

What speed is your hard drive? If it's less than 7200 you should consider an external HD.

 

I dunno what chipset my e1705 has built into it, but all i know is it works with my firebox. I would also imagine it is the same used in the e1405, but who knows. Also, I doubt the video card has any effect on all this.

 

It's "pops" in facts (or "ptt" ) . My hard drive is a 7200 (80 go).
I've disabled internal audio & modem for the moment.
What do you call "Disable network support over 1394" and "Turn off all power management" ? Can you explain the way to do it please ?

 

I haven't work with Sonar for a couple of years now, read the manual or the help, there should be a section about changing the buffer size.

 

Yes i find it : you can only change buffer in WDM mode, in asio mode, it's "automatic"

 

Isn't there a place in your Presonus control panel to change this?

 

Are any of you guys using Media Center? That has been known to cause problems. You can disable MCE services to fix this problem.

This thread is so long I can't remember if MCE has been discussed before.

 

I don't remember either, but I use XP Pro. So I'm not sure if it's MCE related.

 

In your device manager:

Under Network Adapters disable the 1394 Net Adapter. In fact disable all your network devices. Windows will go off and do stuff like check time servers etc if it finds an active network adapter.

Make sure your power management settings are always on. And any device in your device manager that has the option to conserve power, make sure it's off.

Kill any programs that don't need to be running. ie) Things that start in the startup and/or are running in the task bar.

 

No, you can only change latency.

I've tried to disable 1394 net adapter but it stops firewire so i can't use the firepod . I've tried to record an acoustic guitar with 3 mics to test : less "pops", but still some (1 per minute or so). Thanks anymay.
In france, a ot of people are waiting for the Expresscard Firewire adapter to resolve that, but i saw in this thread that it was not the solution ... Is that expresscard works for someone ?

 

More latency = Larger buffer

 

Anyone tested their Expresscard with the new BIOS update?

 

Disable the Network 1394 adapter should not stop actual 1394 device, are you sure you are stopping the right thing? Mine's disabled 24/7 and I talk to my MAudio Firewire Solo and my Onyx 1640 just fine.

 

Disable the Network 1394 adapter should not stop actual 1394 device, are you sure you are stopping the right thing? Mine's disabled 24/7 and I talk to my MAudio Firewire Solo and my Onyx 1640 just fine.

Jeff, do you have a 1705 or M90? There's nothing in your SIG. THX.

 

Neither, I have a pavilian ZD8000 right now and a 1710 on the way(hopefully this week). I'm certain neither will work on the 1710 when I get it but, I was just trying to help with my experiences getting 16 tracks of 24/96 going on my zd8000.

 

As I wrote before in this thread I tried the FirePods with no success with either the internal Firewire connector or through a Sunix firewire expresscard.

I've now risen from the ashes and continued the search for a Firewire interface that works with my Inspiron 6400 dual Core T2400 1GB RAM.

I stumbled upon these sound cards that seems to work:
http://www.tcelectronic.com/Konnekt8
(with no DSP, and only 2 analog in/2 analog out+ s/pdif I/O)
and
http://www.tcelectronic.com/Konnekt24D
(with DSP and 4in 4out +s/pdif I/O + Adat I/O)

People that uses it with their Inspiron 6400:
http://www.soundonsound.com/forum/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=370837&Main=353736##370528
http://www.hispasonic.com/ficha332.html

Seems nice!

The konnekt8 is a bit too limited though for my taste...


Anyone else tried these cards with success?
I need some confirmation...

If these work, there's hope for other cards to work too.
Any other cards yet that are known to work with the Ricoh chip?


--:: MrYatzy ::--

 

Perhaps the beginning of a solution... i will try it when i will have time :

http://duc.digidesign.com/showflat.php?Number=1057701

 

I'm not sure, but I think that advice is related to a USB audio interface.

 

yes, but the microsoft "patch" is for core duo processor, it worth a look...

 

I have the patch installed and it doesn't help. You can even disable one of the cores in BIOS.

That's not what causing the problem.

 

Joined to add to the masses of people clearly having clearly related issues. My situation's a little different so may add a little to the pot.

My setup:
Dell Inspiron E1505 Core Solo (i.e. not Duo) 1.86Ghz
M-Audio FW410
Onboard 4pin firewire controller
All latest drivers, latest BIOS update (10/30/06, I think)

Symptoms:
Playback is fine at all times except heavy CPU load (to be expected)
Recording on the other hand - after a random amount of time (anywhere from a minute to even over an hour on testing), it stops recording the input audio and records a roughly -25dB nasty buzz (not ground hum) until I stop recording. When I start recording again, it will record fine until it does the same thing again after another random amount of time.

I'm really just waiting to hear from anyone who can recommend a PCMCIA or Express Card interface that does work with the Dell laptops with firewire soundcards. Any news yet?

Mike

 

Let's divide the issues into two categories:

1. Firewire Chipset Compatibilty: It is a common problem between all the Dell Notebooks which have the Ricoh chipset. My Inspiron 5150 had a TI chipset but ,as far as I know, all the recent Inspirons (6xxx, 9xxx, XPS) have the Ricoh chipset.

If your laptop has a PCMCIA slot, no matter what platform, you can solve the compatibilty issue with a PCMCIA Firewire adapter.

2. Expresscard issue: It is affecting only the notebooks with the 945 chipset. And the problem is that It simply doesn't work like the PCMCIA when used as a firewire adapter in order to bypass chipset compatibility problem.

 

I'm hoping this will solve some problems for us.

http://www.notebookforums.com/thread177507.html

 

Dell now sells AMD Turion laptops... has anyone considered exchanging their coreduo pcs for a turion from dell? I'm surely considering it!

 

Unless the AMD machine has a TI chipset you are no further ahead.

 

Might be worth having a look into, obviously making sure they use a different 1394 controller first!

Does anyone have history with Dell when it comes to asking for a replacement regarding the issue where because their hardware is faulty, another company's hardware won't work with it?

 

Actually if the Expresscard problem is caused by the 945 chipset, it might help.

 

I spoke to a few people at Dell.ca tonight and they both told me that since it's past 30 days i cant get a refund or an exchange. The firewire port on my 6400 is dead to begin with and is going back anyways so I might try this option and see what they say. I wonder if it's the Radeon that i should be asking for a swap out? Any other parts I should ask for?

That's what I was thinking

Does anyone know if it is T1?

 

Dell offered me a full refund, exchange with a desktop and a compensation package. I chose the compensation package. I think you could return your laptop - if that's really what you want - but you should spend some time explaining them the issue. Tell them about this thread or give them my case number (I think you should call Dell US for that).

They most likely use Ricoh chipsets in their AMD notebooks, why would they use TI when Ricoh is cheaper?

 

mrtunes:

Do some research and find a laptop model with the TI chipset. I'd start by looking into some of the HPs. My ZD8000 has onboard TI and work awesome for recording. 16 tracks 24/96 no problem.

 

People...I actually found a solution to my problem...I returned my firebox(which was a refurbished model) and got a brand new one in exchange. And this one works perfectly with my dell inspiron 9400(which uses the generic 1394 chipset) AND my aunt's desktop(which uses the VIA chipset)...So the proper functionality of your sound card may be something to consider as well...

 

When I rented the Firebox a few months ago it actually worked a lot better than the m-audio firewire 410 did. I had a bigger problem with it other than clicks and pops, my rental seemed to be defective with monitoring levels. I had to crank the preamps way to high and then the monitor volume had to be left way too low in order to prevent blasts. people who owned it told me something was up with my device.

The Mbox2Pro actually works with the inspiron6400, and my company bought one for their in-house PC. I got to use it on this machine a few times before my firewire port DIED, but it even ran pro tools(which you cant run on this laptop with the mbox 1). Does anyone know how my firewire 1394b port might've broke? So weird!

 

I spent 1/2 hour explaining it to customer care and tech support last night (2 employees) - they would definitely not accept a refund or exchange!

Interesting, i'll keep an eye out for these

 

Hi all,

I would like to report back a success story.

I have a Dell Inspiron 640m, 2GHz Intel Duo Core Processor, 2Gb of RAM, onboard firewire with Ricoh chip, ExpressCard slot and no PCMCIA. Basically the standard model for having issues. After reading this thread I was quite apprehensive about getting a soundcard for my machine, but finally last night I got my hands on a Presonus Firebox and gave it a spin.

It worked. Everything was fine - with 6ms I could push Ableton Live to 80% CPU, and at 3ms I could push it up to 60%. The guy who was selling me the Firebox told me they had had a few bad batches of Fireboxes - some of them cause issues and some of them don't, although lately most of them have been fine.

So for those of you still out there looking, and if you think the Firebox suits your needs, try it. Try a few if the first one doesn't work. You may get lucky. I did.

 

lol
i wish it wasn't this way as my luck tends to be the worst you can find. are you saying that some of the fireboxes are defective with the dell models or what? the problem i had with the firebox i rented, persisted when i tried it on my desktop pc.

 

Hi. New to this forum, trying to get the right ExpressCard Firewire adapter for my E1505, and I definitely sympathize with those who have had problems with their Dells.

However, fingers crossed, I have not had any problems at all with my E1505 & Firebox setup -recording, MIDI control, CPU etc. all okay so far. One thing I made sure to do was to immediately disable and uninstall everything I could find 'under the hood' except what would run XP and my music applications, and have never gone online with it or really used it for anything else but music. So it's possible.

 

Hey everyone, I am new to the forum as well...I bought an Ispiron E1505 (2.0GHz/2.0 GB RAM/100 GB 7200 RPM) with the intention of using it as a DAW with the Presonus Firepod, not knowing about this firewire issue. So two days ago I got the laptop and yesterday I read this entire thread (good timing right)...I was lucky enough to borrow my friend's Firepod and test out the issue for myself. After uninstalling all the bloatware from the E1505 and disabling pretty much everything (including firewire networking) but the firewire connection, I installed the Firepod driver and connected the unit. I opened up an Adobe Audition multitrack session and started recording. The first track I recorded sounded OK, but after recording the 2nd track and playing back the session, there were largely noticable "pops and clicks". I called Dell support and even gave them the incident number from this thread (they didn't even know what the hell that number meant), but of course the experience was futile...So I called Dell today, got a return authorization and am shipping the laptop back for a full refund.

It's a **** shame b/c I really wanted to like this laptop...it has great features and I got it for a great price, but since I can't even use it for its intended purpose, I guess I'll check out the HP DV9000z and its AMD Turion 64 X2 processor...Especially if the problem is indeed in the Intel 945 chipset...Good luck everyone

 

Hello everyone,
I have been following this thread for a few weeks now with the same problem. I think I may have something here finally. I have an inspiron 6400 core duo 2 T7400, with 2 gigs of RAM and a 7200rpm HD that I got to use with a PreSonus Firebox. Until now I have been experiencing regular pops and dropouts in recording and playback with my firebox, that happen somewhat less often when playing with CPU and buffer settings but never go away. This is after reformatting my HD, installing clean and minimal Windows XP (home), and disabling my AV, firewalls, 1394 Net Adapter etc. All as instructed by PreSonus and Dell.
I finally after the third email full of suggestions from a PreSonus tech, created a new hardware profile, went into device manager, and disabled a whole crapload of devices for my music profile. This included all my network adapters, Richo memory stick adapters, modem, SD host controller, and the Express Root ports(system devices).
Afterwards, I restarted my computer and booted with the music hardware profile and managed to record 8 tracks through condenser mics in the firebox without any dropouts that I could hear.
Unfortunately I've been sent out of town for work the last few weeks, so I haven't been able to further explore this setup, but the initial results seem hopeful.
I'll update with more thorough details of what i disabled and changed (there may have been more, I can't remember), but thought I should let everyone know ASAP.
I'd like to hear if this works for anyone else...
Cheers,
Ron

 

When you say "new profile" ... you mean 2 install of windows or a new profile like on the logon screen ?

 

No he means hardware profile just like he said. Computer->Properties and the Hardware tab.

 

how do you set which devices are turned on for each hardware profile? thanks

 

If I remember correctly... you create the new hardware profile in system properties-hardware-hardware profiles, by copying the current profile and renaming the second copy. Then I believe you have to restart your computer and select the second HW profile before the boot completes. Then go into device manager and expand all the "+" signs beside the headings then disable each device as i listed in the last post. Then just always boot with that HW profile for recording and remember also to disable your antivirus and turn off your firewalls.

 

Here is the full list of what I disabled in my Music Hardware Profile:
-DVD/CD rom
-Ricoh memory stick controller
-MMC host controller
-Ricoh XD Picture card host controller
-conexant HDA D110 (modem)
-1394 Net adapter
-Broadcom 44x 10/100 integrated controller
-SDA Standard compliant SD host controller
-Intel (r)8280G PCI Express Root Port 27D0
-Intel (r)8280G Pci Express Root Port 27D6

 

I try that so.
Interesting !