Firewire issue affecting all the Dell Core Duo notebooks

Thanks! I will try this ASAP, hopefully tonight, with my E1505 and M-Audio FW410, and post my findings...

 

Disabling the mentioned devices didn't solve the problem on my laptop.

I got this email from Dell today:

" Sam,

[...]Also, I wanted you to know that I am closing your case. The 1394 issue is back in engineering, and they are researching it. According to them, they have resolved the issue, and they are not sure why yours wasn’t fixed. If I receive any new info, I will be sure to pass it along to you, but at this point it is out of my hands.

If you would prefer, I can have a replacement M90 sent to you, since there seems to be the expectation that the issue is resolved. I have spoken with customer with recently purchased M90 systems that are using the 1394 successfully. I even spoke to a tech about a customer who was using a 2 port 1394 expresscard, and it was working correctly as well. I am not sure of the brand of the expresscard. I have also not heard any new reports about the 1394 issue. It appears that the issue only involves systems sold more than a couple of months ago.

To be perfectly honest, I have no idea what the problem was, or what was done to correct it. Engineers tend to keep that information confidential. But if the information I have is correct, a replacement system should work normally. If you wish to try this route, I will approve the replacement.

Best Regards,"

Could you guys make sure that you have the latest BIOS installed and see if the firewire issue has been resolved? I'll give mine another shot this week.

 

There is a similar thread over in NBF. I stated there that there is a known issue with M-Audio and other breakout boxes and the lack of a dedicated TI firewire chipset. Unfortunately, a PCMCIA/Expresscard firewire card will not remedy this. You will get nothing. Both of my neighbors are managers at my local Guitar Center (keyboards/pro audio), and I have spoke to them about this too. Seeing I am good friends, I did some playing with my M1710 and my buddies HP dv5000. We found that the Presonus Fireboxes work extremely well in contrast to almost every other system we tried. It setup the first try and the audio quality is incredible.

just my .02

 

Well, the BIOS update didn't fix anything on my system. I might go for the replacement, I also may not! I don't have the nerve to follow the case anymore.

Yeah, it's seems that the Fireboxes and the Konnects are not affected. Wish had bought one of them at the first place!

 

I hope you guys are right. I just ordered a 1705 to back up my Studio PC where I have the Presonus Firebox. The who FW issue nearly made me buy an ASUS or Compal.
Presonus on their website says TI and VIA FW is okay. NO on NEC. No mention of Ricoh............

Too bad no PCMI slot.

 

Thought I'd add my own update. I posted about halfway through this thread about problems i was having with a Focusrite Saffire pro and a dell 6400. I've now managed to get things working albeit at higher latencies then my (slower) desktop - 3ms Firewire buffer and 6ms ASIO buffer to be precise. I think this gives something like 10ms input latency and 13ms output latency. Oddly enough some higher buffer setting don't seem to work.
I've not done hugely extensive/scientific testing as I've been very busy, but from what I have done this seems to be stable even at high CPU usage.

It's slightly irritating as at these settings the latency is just noticeable - if i could get things slightly lower it would be ok to use live, but it works so I shouldn't complain too much. This is with only the analog inputs enabled, I imagine I'll have to up things a bit if i turn the ADATs on.

The original problem i had actually never resurfaced, i have no idea what was going on (initially i couldn't get it to work at any latency settings)

Don't know if this is a factor but I have the built-in intel graphics rather then the ATI/nvidia expansion (i know someone earlier said they solved the problem after switching cards) I've also noticed that on non-working latency settings, noisebursts/cpu spikes seem to co-incide with redraws. The task monitor in particular completely screws things up.

Have been testing with Cubase SX 3.1 for what it is worth.

Not much help but i didn't want to leave any uncorrected mis-information on here.

I'm on an old bios (A03) and haven't updated, partly for fear of breaking things (the video bios is listed as one of the things that is updated, for 'performance' which scared me) and partly as firewire is not listed anywhere in the update notes.

 

I was lucky enough to be allowed to test an ASUS A6Jm with my M-AUDIO FW410 soundcard in the shops. I experienced the exact same problems as with my DELL INSPIRON 9400 that i recenty managed to talk dell into accepting in return. Both these computers are equipped with the 945 chipset, I know the ASUS A6Jm is has the 945PM chipset but im not sure whether the DELL INSPIRON 9400 has 945GM or 945PM. Anyway, unlike the DELL INSPIRON 9400, the ASUS i tried has a PCMCIA slot that takes PCMCIA cards, the guys and girls behind the counter let me try the card through a PCMCIA firewire adapter and it worked like a dream... well at least it worked.

Has anybody else tried using a PCMCIA firewire thingy ? i am considering a ZEPTO Znote 2425W whitch also has a working PCMCIA port in hope that this will work. I have spent months now trting to find out how i can buy a laptop that i know will work and that is fast enough to run the live projects i am curently rinning on a stationary PC

 

Hi everyone,

interesting thread. The problem is most probably not related to Dell but to intel speed step power saving technology for notebooks - which simply don't work very well with firewire audio. In windows xp speedstep control is integrated into the operating system so turning speedstep off in bios won't help as windows overrides and turns it on again.

Try downloading speedswith xp (it's free). http://www.diefer.de/speedswitchxp/index.html

Then set to max performance preset in speedstepxp. Then click "options", "CPU policy"-tab and set "AllowPromotion" to "No" on all C-states.

This will cause the processor to always run at fix maximum speed and I believe it will solve your problems. It solved mine.

My previous crack and pop system:
Dell Inspiron 510m, integrated firewire-port, M-audio 410

Maybe some of you don't think this will work with your system, but please give it a try.

 

Already tried it, didn't help. This is an unrelated issue regarding the firewire chipset.

 

I found a way to solve this. I install the Asio4all driver each time I log to windows. That way I can record 512/s on 96000hz in 24bit with no problems. I tried 20000 things and that one did work for me. Try this and tell us if it works for you!!

My equip:
Dell Inspiron 6400
M-Audio Firewire 1814
Using Pro tools in Windows XP Pro.

Peace

 

speedswitch fixed it.

i get jitters when running 10 tracks of romplers at 96K off a 5400rpm drive. but everything else is cool.

thanks man!

now, to return this emu 0404 usb...

 

THANK GOD im not the only one with the problem

so far i have tried

1) Prosonus firewire (sounds great when its not fricken dropping out)

2) M-Audio FireWire Audiofire (seems to work ok, but too low end for my needs)

3) Edirol FA-101(drops out every 2 minutes for 10 seconds, during those 2 minutes i have audio coming out of all 8 outputs), WORST ASIO control panel i have EVER seen, no mixer, just verbal drop down menues

i have tried all these interfaces with the SIIG expresscard as well as the internal ricoh...

the SIIG is ABSOLUTELY useless, the ricoh at least works for short periods of times

 

Time to join in on the Grief .. Inspiron E1705 ... Firewire to Tascam FW-1082, Same problem as everyone else .. Playback of 6 tracks 44.1khz 16 bit, audio drop out at anything less the 1024 ... large latency ... Using Internal Ricoh Firewire in the Dell , Sonar 6 and Reason ... both have issues ... I keep hoping that someone finds a Expresscard firewire card that will help ... If not my wife is going to get one hell of a laptop for christmas ... 2GHz dual, 2GB mem.

 

Well, Expresscard is essentially PCI Express x1 isn't it?
SO I wonder if it can be direct-pin adapted to a PCI Express interface
like a MOTU 2408 Core PCIe ?

there IS a Expresscard to PCI adaptor by Magma but the thing costs $1000
on top the cost of a PCI audio interface

soldering iron anyone?

heres the pinout! http://www.interfacebus.com/Design_PCI_Express_1x_PinOut.html

getting pretty desperate here

 

Did speedswitch help anyone else?

 

SpeedswitchXP helped my software performance but the firewire issue still remains

 

Didn't change anything for me.

Inspiron 6400
M-Audio 1814

 

I have been able, since the installation of speedswitch, to use my behringer fca202 at 48/24 both in both ASIO and DX modes for simultaneous recording and playback.

Previously, the ASIO fcs202 driver was completely unusable at any buffer length. It was just squelchy, choppy dropouts constantly. DX would sort of work ok at full buffers in Live for about 10 secods, and then it would drop out.

It also improved the performance of the EMU 0404 USB 2.0 interface and the internal wave driver. I'm pretty sure the dropouts I am experiencing now are due to my 5400 stock drive or because I really am maxing out the CPU.

I'm thinking about getting the firebox now. Folks here were saying it worked great on the core duo Dells, so I'm wondering how it will work post-speedswitch.

 

I remember Mimp saying it was working on his 6400. How ¸do you change latency settings? and is it still working for you ?

Hugues

 

I encoded about an hour worth of video from my sony firewire DCR and burned same to DVD. No problems or dropouts. I have no idea what chipsets the Sony uses. 1 hour of DV uses about 40 gigs of drive space, for what it's worth.

 

i forgot to mention that while my firewire port was working, i was using the mbox 2 pro at work with the dell 6400. it actually worked pretty well from what i remember, i just cant recall how the dropout situation was. but it clearly wasn't that bad if i'm having a hard time remembering ( you always remember when a soundcard was a flake on your computer).

Unfortunately this interface is a bit more expensive than average, albeit because it has more routing going on with it, but if you can get access to try one out with your laptop give it a shot. music stores in canada here rent audio interfaces so it's not unreasonable to try these things out before buying.

 

It is still working, but not as well as i'd hoped - It's pretty stable but only if I

a) choose pretty high buffer settings. This is done with the ASIO control panely specific to the saffire pro and it lets you choose both firewire and asio buffers. Really high firewire buffers actaully create more glitching, which is interesting.

b) use the speedstep utility to set to max performance (ie turn off speedstep)

c) turn off multi processor support in cubase

This clears the glitching but i still occasionally get loud cracks which occur even when nothing is using the device. Doesn't happen when i use my desktop. very intermitent so difficult to test. It's useable but not ideal. Seriously considering cutting my losses and selling it (the laptop), but i reckon i'd lose £150-£200, so might wait until belkin's firewire expresscard finally shows up before giving up entirely. I know other expresscards have failed, but i imagine belkin do pretty thorough testing as they are such a large co. Maybe that's why its been delayed so much?

 

I have an update. First of all, I've got an Inspiron 6400/e1505 and my audio interface is an M-Audio Firewire 410. I just applied the latest bios update (A09), went into bios, loaded default settings after I updated, and that seemed to change something, but not fix the problem. After numerous tests/reboots and getting the same old results, I ended up trying asio4all drivers instead of my M-Audio drivers, and when I started FL Studio, I got a blue screen with the message reading something like IRQL_LESS_THAN_OR_EQUAL. I can't remember exactly what it was, but I know that it pointed to my m-audio drivers (deltafw.sys).

The strange thing is, when I rebooted to windows and submitted the error report, it said that the error was THREAD_STUCK_IN_DEVICE_DRIVER or THREAD_STUCK_IN_DRIVER_M and pointed out my video card drivers as the culprit. It had solutions, one of which is to upgrade device drivers, but Dell hasn't updated them in ages and the ones from ATI won't even install. The other solution was to disable hardware acceleration on the video card settings and also disable write combining (right click on desktop->properties->settings tab->advancd->troubleshoot: turn the "hardware acceleration" slider down to none and uncheck write combining), and to my surprise, that seemed to "fix" the issue. Before, when I started FL Studio with my M-Audio drivers it would sometimes work, but if I closed it and re-opened it or just rebooted and tried it again, I would get insane amounts of crackling/popping noises, or no sound at all, and FL Studio's CPU usage meter would be pinned at 99% even though I wasn't doing anything.

With the asio4all drivers it would blue screen, but both problems seem to be "fixed" now. I have an ATI x1400, and, well, can anyone confirm that it is in fact buggy video drivers and not the firewire port that is the problem? It wouldn't be a total surprise to me as ATI has always been notorious for buggy drivers, but then again, the drivers are provided by Dell but haven't been updated in so long.

Can anyone reproduce this? By the way, I also installed the "Fix #3 - Microsoft Hotfix" in the dual-core gaming fix guide at http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=983781 . I'm not sure if that helped fix anything really, but I thought it was important to mention. If this is a reproduceable phenomenon then we can probably get Dell to look into the conflict and update the video drivers. How many of you are using ATI cards and can reproduce this? How about the nVidia ones? I'm going to experiment with the video hardware acceleration settings and see if I can narrow down at what point my audio/firewire problem is solved.

As an aside, I seem to get better performance with asio4all drivers (as reported by FL Studio's CPU usage meter) than I do with native M-Audio drivers. That seems strange since asio4all is using software buffers. Looks like I will be using them from now on, provided I don't get any blue screens.

 

Wow, it seems to be working really well for me now. I only had to slide the hardware acceleration slider down one notch, which disables cursor and bitmap accelerations. I even kept write combining checked, and with those settings I've not had one blue screen or any issues with my audio interface whatsoever. It's a really simple workaround that I'm elated with, since I can now move my audio equipment away from my desktop like I have been dying to do and use my laptop as the workstation. Can anyone else re-produce my results?

 

Well that's interesting! So you can use your FW 410 even without Asio4all?

 

Didn't help here. Just one thing, you cannot use FW 410 thorough Asio4all. If you set your audio device to Asio4all and connect FW 410, it will actually bypass FW 410, it least it's what I got.

 

That stinks It worked for me. I've used asio4all with the fw410. I'm not sure exactly how it works, but I do get audio output from the 410. Do you have a dual-core processor and that dual-core patch that I mentioned in the previous post?

 

Well, good for you! Mine still doesn't work. When you use FW 410 through Asio4all, does the sound come only from FW 410 outputs or from both FW 410 and the laptop speakers?

You just turned down hardware acceleration one notch and it solved all the problems?!

 

Yes, it seemed to solve all my problems with the Firewire 410. I don't have to turn off any hardware at all like the wireless lan, etc., although if I did, it might run smoother, but it runs great as-is.

I know why you're not getting sound from the 410 when you use asio4all. You need to run the ASIO setup for asio4all. By default it attaches itself to the onboard sound. You can change it to use the FW410. I usually launch the panel from within FL Studio myself. Under audio settings it has a button to launch the ASIO control panel. You can also access it from the start menu->ASIO4ALLv2->ASIO4ALL offline settings. Just disable the onboard sound in there,and enable the 410 and you should be good to go.

Oh, and by the way, I am using the latest drivers from M-Audio's site for my 410. They updated the driver, but I don't think they actually made any improvements. As far as I can tell, they just added support for th NRV10. Anyone wanna get me one of those for Christmas? LOL Only thing that could make it better would be motorized faders, which I'm surprised they didn't include since it seems to be designed to work with the PC.

 

Nice, I'll try this when I get home! but this is weird because some people with others computers brand has problems with firewire!

 

does anyone know if you send in your laptop to dell for repair on the firewire port, how long do you think it would take for them to send back? thanks

 

Tried guys and it didn't change anything. I'm sure that it's a driver problem because when I first had the computer on Windows Media Center, My Pro Tools was working. Well, that was my last try, Tired of this **** just gonna return the computer to Dell. Thanks guys.

 

It's been said at least 20 times in this thread. It's the chipset. The Ricoh just doesn't work well with intense audio devices that need low latency. The TI chipset is the only one the audio interface manufacturers recommend.

Sure you might get it to run somewhat stable recording a couple tracks but that it. It's all luck.

Find a laptop with the TI chipset and you are gold. I have an HP zd8000 that I'm able to lay down 16 tracks of 24/96.

That said, if Dell was to fix the ExpressCard issue we might be able to use an external firewire card and we would all have a workaround.

 

What do you call the "express card issue" ? (sorry to ask)

 

Apparently no one can get any expresscard firewire cards to work. Not recognize, unable to boot with the card in. Go back through this thread to find out more details.

 

im gonna call in defeat for now....

i just ordered an E-Mu 0404 USB 2.0

i ****ing hate USB, iv been preaching against USB audio interfaces for half a decade. i hope 2.0 is somewhat better

lets all hope and push for expresscard audio interfaces...

 

Bought a Toshiba PSAAC8. MY PROBLEM IS SOLVED Except I hear click/pop sometimes only in hearphone in playback but when I do a Final WAV all is perfect! Strange?

Using: M-Audio Firewire 1814, Toshiba as an TI Chipset for firewire. Recording in 24/96 on a 7200 drive.
Recording 8 tracks in Pro Tools 6.7

 

Hi there, i own a very very similar computer, i have a:

inspiron 9400 1.66 core duo
ati mobility 1400x
firewire410
ableton live
belkin expresscard firewire400 and usb2

I tried everythig you post as you post it but my case is very similar to de sam vafei case still not working !!! the microsoft hotfix is great the bios and chipset atualization are ok, the ati parameters as you said, but neither the expresscard or the built in firewire works. The result is FIREWIRE 410 STILL NOT WORKING

PLEASE POST A STEP BY STEP SOLUTION IF YOU ALREADY FIND ONE!!!!


****************************************************************
IMPORTANT INFO FOR ALL USERS PLEASE PAY ATTENTION:

IN DELL INSPIRON NOTEBOOKS FIREWIRE SIMPLE NOT WORK. DOSEN'T WORK THE BUILT IN BUT NEITHER THE EXPRESS CARDS FIREWIRE, DELL COMPUTER NEVER DECLARES ON THEIR SPECS THIS SITUATION.
***************************************************************
THERE ARE 4 CLEAR STARDARDS USB1, USB 2, FIREWIRE400, FIREWIRE 800.
THERE IS NOT FIREWIRE 400+ AND FIREWIRE 400- CRAPY
FIREWIRE410 EVEN WORK ON OLD IBOOK G3 700MHZ.
****************************************************************
MAYBE THE CRAPY BUILT IN HAS REASON FOR NOT TO WORK. BUT EXPRESS CARDS!!!????? (EXPESSCARD SPECS ARE MUCH MORE ADVANCED THAN THE FIREWIRE 1394a) AND USING EXPRESSCARD FIREWIRE SIMPLE NOT WORK, NOT HARDISC, NOT CD BURN, NO AUDIO CARD FIREWIRE (ANY BRAND).

MY BELKIN EXPRESS CARD CONTAINS ONE USB 2.0, AND 2 FIREWIRE400, THE USB 2.0 WORKS PERFECT, THE FIREWIRE NOTHING
the Express card is perfect (i already check on a macbook pro and works PERFECT
****************************************************************

Finally I talk with dell support today and I mentioned the Sam vafei
Incident # 1462977 and they told me that the case number is incomplete
so i have $2500 Usd of equipment that dosent work

Please HELP Guys!!!!

 

****
Hi Sam!!
I called today to dell and I mentioned the incident # 1462977, they told me that is ok to refer to other users incident, no problem, but they told me that the case number is incorrect or incomlete

PLEASE SAM RE-POST YOUR INCIDENT NUMBER IN THE FORUM

Thanks for your patience and courage for this particular thread!!

 

malstrom, I just sent you a pm.

Guys, I was thinking about something crazy today: What if I take out the Ricoh chipset and solder my expresscard's TI chipset instead? Is that possible?

 

Sam, that is probably not possible because the richoh 1394 chip is also a cardreader chip (what a hunk of junk all in one crap grr!)
with that being said, pin configuration id probably different.

and its also totally possible that it's soldered in using little solderballs underneath the chip, i dont even know if its possible to desolder something like that. youd have to carefully 'chisel away' the old chip being careful not to peel away any lines or vias, and use an industrial soldering apparatus (irons wont work) to solder in the new chip.

 

Yep, I just opened my expresscard and there's no way I could desolder the chipset on it!

 

And ordering the chip, (1) each, can be a real headache. Surface mounted, no?

Unless Dell/Richo gets on the stick, it may be easier to switch to a TI based laptop assuming you have the means

 

How is the 0404 USB? I'm thinking of getting one.

 

Firewire....sigh. I'm in Canada and have just returned my Firebox after my 640M experienced the same consistent clicking/popping (4 to 6 pin firewire) after testing out Cubase LE. Plugged in, played a few notes, listening in the monitor and I got the clicking without even recording. It was intermittent and almost sounded like morse code. I came upon this thread about 5 mins after it happened....blast.

The guys at the major chain where I bought the interface are now aware of the problem and hopefully will be cautioning people about the firewire issue.


Needless to say I'm regretting not buying the intel Mac at this point. Lots of "told you so's" from friends.

I guess it's USB at this point, but would be curious if anyone is using something simple/effective with the 640M. Am just looking to record bass for some recordings without having to go into the studio. Receiving and sending WAV's or MP3's by email, etc. Thoughts appreciated....

 

Try Konnekt 24D or Konnekt 8. I haven't had a chance to test one yet, but it seems that it works with the built in firewire port.

 

I'm returning it. It has a really poor build quality - all plastic, and the neutrik connectors feel like they're going to rip off the board when you unplug a cable. It's also alot larger than I had expected. Definitely not a portable soultion.

The preamps were nice, though. I'm going to give the firebox a shot. After using speedswitch, performance is much, much better for me...so I think the combo of that and the seemingly more compatible firebox might be a workaround. For me, at least.

 

regardless of built quality of the 0404 USB, how was the output quality?

were there any dropouts?

what model notebook do you use?

 

Here is a review I found:
http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/proaudio/emu-0404-usb.html

 

Let me ask the people having trouble with their Firebox. Are you running Windows MCE? I read that most people have problems running most audio recording hardware in MCE, so XP home or pro would be a far better choice. I orderd a Firebox and should get it this week. Im also running MCE, but I have an XP home cd and might try that if all else fails.

Here is the article:
http://www.sweetwater.com/sweetcare/ts/detail.php?Index=30163&keyword=30163