Firewire issue affecting all the Dell Core Duo notebooks

Guys-
Anyone know if HP laptops with AMD 64x2 processors are working OK with fireports?
Thanks.

 

yeah....

I had problems with the firebox so I guessed it might have been because i have Windows MCE, so i got XP Pro like the guy at presonus told me to, and i still had IDENTICAL problems.

this was very frustrating as i had to re-install all my apps for music as well as graphics and 3d and web development and programming apps for school
not only that but my CPU doesn't benchmark as high as the initial MCE install

so that was a big, fat waste of time

 

hey guys, remember have seen somewhere a fix for toshiba's laptop for ON/OFF fan fix, because that is the only click I have on my firewire device!!

Thanks for help

 

Is there a comprehensive list of laptops that work well with firewire? (I'm talking about core duo, or core2duo)

 

Hey wreecked,

Hate to break the news to you but i ended up selling my new tos laptop because i simply couldn't fix the fan on/off audio click. Toshiba don't care and won't help the only advice i can suggest is using speedfan or something similar (eg. google notebook fan control). I tried all the tricks of changing my cpu temperature trigger so the fan stays on, but it totally stuffed windows and it blue screened XP pro. Good luck with it maybe you might have success, but be careful tweaking with temps as it may cause big problems and void your warranty.

 

Quick update in case anyone still has hope

I've pretty much tried every suggested fix posted so far on this thread. No luck with my E1505/6400 with a FW410.

Thankfully this laptop was only a temporary solution between two custom desktops music systems (last one died). Obviously I'll make sure my the new desktop has a TI firewire chipset and test the 410 extensively. If I still have any probs, I'll let y'all know

 

You know if i was you I'd not bother getting a motherboard with built in Firewire. Just add the Lacie PCI firewire card, it works well and has the TI chipset.

 

Thanks for the tip I had thought about getting a dedicated card to be saafe, so I'll go for this model.

 

hey guys, I had a Dell 6400, after that I tried the Toshiba with the fan on/off problem, I was close to buy a MAC but now I got a HP DV5250 with chipset TI for firewire, it everything goes well!

 

Guys, I just sold my Firewire Audiophile to a guy who wanted to use it on his Mac.

I'm now saving up for a Konnekt 24D or Konnekt 8. I've read that it works with the built-in firewire on Dells.

 

Anyone tried the new Mackie Onyx Satellite yet? -

 

hey sam - where did you see the data that the konnekts work fine with the ricoh chipset? can you post a link?

 

hi guys...

I have a Dell 9400 / E1705 and am having trouble with my firewire as well.

This is the first time I have used firewire, and it is with a external hd.

I am getting really slow transfer speeds using firewire.

When writing a 700MB file, I was getting about 15MB/s , which is pretty slow compared to my USB2 connection ( approx 25MB/s ). I think I should be expecting 35 to 40 MB/s?

Anyway... I have skimmed through this thread and there doesnt seem to be much about using the connection for external hd, but I noticed something about a BIOS update. I went to the dell website and got the latest BIOS (A04) but it doesnt seem to have solved anything. Although I thought that it slowed it down to 8-9 but mustve been a once/twice off.

I have also patched my XP SP2 with KB885222 and checked the registry settings so that it allows for 400 speed.

I have run out of things to try... am I missing something?

 

Anybody tried with the Belkin firewire expresscard? I just got an email saying savastore finally has them in stock, but as I'm now resigned to selling my laptop I don't feel like throwing away another £40 on the off chance..

 

Hey all, I'd like to post my recent experiences with this.

Bought a Dell Latitude D820 for use with a Mackie Onyx 1620 with Firewire and their Tracktion 2 software.

I got constant pops and dropouts and random blue screens with the onboard firewire (O2Micro combined cardbus/1394 controller). I immediately went out and bought a Belkin F5U512-APL 3 port PCMCIA firewire card from Staples. It uses the Texas Instruments chip and fixed all the clicks and pops!

The only problem is, this laptop is to be mounted in a vehicle for mobile radio broadcasts and the extra couple inches of width for the PCMCIA card is unacceptable.

So, I still tried every suggestion on this thread that I could find and nothing helped. But, seeing another thread made me check the wireless connection. The latitude has a switch on the side to turn all 802.11 radios off, and when in the off position, the onboard firewire sounds great! Clicks and pops are gone!

Now, this is only outputting one track through the Mackie, so it may not be the true test of whether the onboard 1394 is up to the task. And, I still can't use it because I can't just leave the wireless connection off all the time.

So, even though I've got it working for the most part, I'm now thinking about getting a macbook pro and sending the Latitude back to Dell.

 

But your port is PCMCIA, and not express card like on 6400

 

Hi

I was thinking of buying Dell Precision M65 but after reading tru this post I am not very sure to proceed further or not....I needed laptop primarily for video editing (and of course mix audio with video and may be record audio in future)....

Is this FireWire port issue only for audio or will it impact even video transfer ???? I mean will there be issues in connecting a camcorder to laptop using FireWire port to dump Video/audio ???
If yes, how come no one till now discussed about their problems with Video transfer etc ???

Does the laptops of other manufaturesrs like HP using core 2 duo processor (HP Dv6000t, nc8430, nw8440) have the same problem???

Finally, Can you people please suggest some good laptops (in the similar category of M65, with core2 due 2GHz or more) which will work perfectly without any hassles for video editing and audio recording as well...(eg HP dv6000t, nv8430, nw8440, MacBook pro etc)

Thanks
Raju

 

Transfering video won't be as much of an issue if any issue at all.

The problem with audio recording is latency and and zero error recovery time. If there is a bad hand shake or glitch it turns into a pop or click. A video transfer can try again at any point to recover from hand shake problems.

That said if you are doing video editing you'll want as much graphics power as you can get. I'd suggest a laptop with at least a Nvidia 7600 GPU in it, I think the M65 has a 7400 equivalent GPU. But most important is our HD absolutely get the 7200rpm drive and maybe even an external secondary.

 

You probably won't have problems with M65. It has both PCMCIA and Expresscard slots, so if you have any firewire issue use a PCMCIA firewire card.

 

Hi Jeff/Sam

Thanks for your useful advice....
As I have anyway not purchased it yet and open to other options as well...Can you please suggest any other laptop/model which would be more suitable for my work (video editing...ocational audio recording if necessary)...though I have not ruled out M65 just checking if any better models in the same price range ($2000 - $2500) preferably in the HP, Lenovo/IBM or Dell brands...with 15.4 screen, core2duo 2 Ghz or more...

Thanks again...
Raju

 

Hi,
I have a m65 and use it with avid xpress no worries, although i have a belkin
PCMCIA firewire card. Although I have only captured a few things off a domestic camcorder . I run pro tools M-powered fine, through the belkin. The vid card is openGL which works great and is supported by avid. Can't really complain about how the m65 handles video really. Plus, depending if you are going to use avid, it is certifed by both dell and avid to work. COme to think of it i think adobe premiere is certified as well.

 

Hi Jono,
Thanks for your advice...I have seen on Avid website that Avid Mojo is not supported for M65 ( http://www.avid.com/products/media-composer/mojo-SDI/specs.asp)....
what is Avid Mojo...will it a big limitation not to have support for it?? How about the other models of HP nw8440, nc8430 which seem to have full support of all Avid tools...will it be better to go for HP models?

Also, in general are s-video and spdif port useful or can be ignored. is it worth purchasing the advanced port replcator to add s-video and spdf port support (additional cost about $250) to M65.

Thanks
Raju

 

Well, i have never had any experience with mojo, i assume the mojo is just video input/output hardware for sdi etc. probably a cutdown version of the high end avid products. I work with avid media newscutters and unity at work through HP desktops supplied by avid and the HP's are great. If you are thinking about doing high end SDI 1:1 video maybe you should look at a desktop rather than an laptop, more storage, speed, better video card etc.

As far as wether or not having support for mojo matters, i would say yes it does big time especially if you want to use it or other avid tools in the future. The reason why is because if you don't buy a avid approved system for your particular product they will not support you when the trouble begins, which will happen. Remember avid owns m-audio and both have terrible support which is half the reason this thread started. No supported system, no support basically. So if you want to use avid with all the bells and whistles now or in the future then yes i would go for a avid approved HP laptop instead.

I have no idea about the port replicator sorry, i am lucky enough to digitise all my pics at work then transfer them to an external hard disk and take them home to edit. As for s-video and spdf well it just depends on what devices your are inputing from, if they only have these connections then you will need a them.

 

New bios for 6400 : A11

Enhancements
------------
1. Thermal control enhancement.

 

So here's my observations and questions regarding sound/midi capture:

1. Seems like onboard firewire is no go with Dual 2 core
2. Seems like there is a pcmcia card firewire solution

So:

1. If I can't use pcmcia, is there a good Expresscard firewire solution that we know actually works?
2. And if I just want to avoid cards altogether, is there instead a good USB solution? That seems like it would be the simplest solution. I'm trying to decide on a laptop and it's tough to arrive at the proper configuration. Also, without having done this before, it's difficult to know what sound capture hardware iw the best.

All recommendations greatly appreciated!

 

Core Duo or Core 2 Duo has nothing to do with it and neither does the 945 chipset. The firewire chipset brand is the problem, Dell for the most part uses Ricoh for a firewire controller. TI is the only brand supported by all audio interface manufacturers.

Find a laptop with an onboard TI firewire chipset and Core 2 Duo and you'll be fine.

 

wow...perfectly clear now. Thanks so much, Jeff!!!!!!!

However, looks like finding an acceptable notebook with TI chipset is not going to happen, so I'm back to:

1. Is there a PCMCIA firewire card that would work (worst)?
1. Is there an Expresscard/firewire that would work (better)?
2. Does anyone have any great suggestions for USB (maybe best)?


Thanks!

 

There are Expresscard issues with the dells, no one knows if it's a bios problem or what but the computer doesn't like any expresscard firewire cards. A real bummer.

PCMCIA should work if you can find a laptop that still has a PCMCIA slot. Not many do. If you do find one I'd suggest the Lacie FW800, I've got one and it works well.

As for a laptop with built in TI. Check out the HP laptops, they are good machines and the higher end models should have TI chipsets. But do confirm that first.

 

Hello!

I am successfully running an Inspiron E 1505 Core 2 Duo 7200, 2GB RAM, XP Media along with the Firepod from PreSonus. This runs into Sonar 6 Producer and I can record tons of tracks at the same time in 24 bit 96kHz no problem. Latency is 10ms, but could probably go lower, however no need to for live recordings. The built in firewire works great, and has from the beginning. I just needed the latest drivers from Presonus. However DO NOT do the latest firmware update as that cuased all sorts of digital noises and blipps etc. Presonus sent me a downgrade for the firmware and it is perfect now. Tomorrow I will connect the Presonus ADL600 in through the Firepod and do more testing.

Today I received the SiiG FireWire express card (wish I would have found this forum first!) and it just plain DOES NOT WORK with the Firepod at all. At first it wouldn't even work with any firewire devices (Sony HandyCam). It also had all the previously mentioned issues like not being able to reboot with the card in etc. etc. After a couple hours of reading around I found this and found that my BIOS was A08. Dell is now out with BIOS Flash Update A12, so I flashed it. It solved the Sony HandyCam and it recognized it in seconds. However still same issue with the SiiG card and the Firepod. All I get is white noise and distortion, nothing related at all to a .wav or .mp3 file. Garbage...

So, the question is, do I keep the SiiG solely for the Camcorder, or return it to NewEgg. Or keep it in hopes that sometime soon these companies will get their act together and offer an update? I mainly bought that card as a backup in case something happened to the built in FireWire port. Since the built in works perfect I can use the entire rig no problems, just need to treat that one lone port like GOLD!!!

I think the fact that the Express Card is new there had to be a lot of us "beta testers" out here to find these things and inform the companies. They can't try out every single audio device on all the different configurations. Like software, the more it is used, the more it is updated to accomodate specific issues that arise. Let's just see if that is actually the case here however. Would be nice if they evened out USB vs. FireWire ports. I certainly don't need 4 USB ports and could definitely use more FW!!!

Thanks for all the information found here.

Regards,
Brett

 

Ok...

Here is my question, does my firewire work? I just recieved a core 2 duo e1705

 

Presonus supports VIA chipsets as well as TI. I have no issues with my E1705 and the Firebox.

 

E1505=6400, no ?

I've the firepod too, and i think i've got the last firmware
Could you send me the downgrade (i can pm you my email) that i can try if it works better?

 

Hello,

Yes, 6400, I was referring to the processors which are T7200 at 2.00 gHz each.

You can contact PreSonus and I'm sure they will send you the downgrade for the firmware. I have it, however I don't want to assume any responsibility if anything goes wrong with the firmware downgrade. I think that if PreSonus sends it to you and anything should happen they will take care of it for you.

I dealt with J.B at PreSonus, I'm sure he will be happy to send you the patch.

Are you getting digital noises at all with the latest firmware? If not, then I would leave it as is. The problem only occured when plugged into the PC with the FireWire connection active. Check that first and then see about contacting PreSonus.

Sorry, but I just don't want to assume responsibility if anything were to happen to your Firepod, I hope you can understand.

 

I understand, np.
Yes i've got digital noises (clicks and pops) when i record and when i play projects on sonar 6 whith the laptoP; On my other pc (desktop), no problem.

 

I assume you've done all the other tweaks such as disable any wireless cards etc.? If the Firepod works fine on your desktop, then I am inclined to believe that it might be something on your laptop, and not the Firepod since the firmware, if it were to be the problem, should also create those noises on your desktop as well. I could be wrong, but worth checking.

 

So, besides the one person on this page with a problem. , is the firepod/firebox confirmed as good to go with E1705/E1505 system?

 

For me personally, yes, the FirePOD and the E1505 work just fine together using the built in firewire port on the laptop. You just need the latest drivers (NOT firmware) from PreSonus for the optimum audio quality for recording and playback. I am using it through Sonar 6 Producer in ASIO for real time live multi track recording. Records and plays back without a hitch.

While the processor(s) speed is(are) an important factor with this type of recording also mind the HDD speed, since streaming several tracks in 24 bit 96kHz in real time really taxes the HDD. So far I've not gotten any issues at all concerning HDD speed and the Sonar Processor and HDD status bars are more often than not down near 0 when recording, or when playing back audio.

You want to tweak out the laptop and software as much as possible to reduce overheads from other services, or options that are not needed. These options however are user specific depending on what you are running. For me I have nothing but a handful of audio programs and that is it (Sonar 6, Wavelab, Sound Forge and Nero). It is a dedicated laptop to be used solely for recording, so the less you have on it, I feel the more chance of a success you have in getting the different pieces of gear to work nicely together.

I just wish I could have gotten the Siig firewire card to work. It is being RMA'd back to NewEgg.

So far my experience with the Dell E1505 is that it is one nice powerful little amazing machine!

 

This seems promising...

Can you just be more specific regarding the version number of the firmware/driver that you are using? So I know what to request.

The presonus web page says:
"The latest driver/firmware package addresses minor stability issues, increases stability when using multiple Firepods, and adds a new standalone feature."
( http://www.presonus.com/firepodFWupdater.html )

Do you know if the multiple Firepods improved stability is caused by the firmware or the driver?

Have you used two Firepods or more at the same time successfully with your DELL? At what bit depth and sampling rate? And how many channels at once?

Regards, MrYatzy

 

New Bios for M90: Improved Express Card support for Vista!

I won't be home until next week. Could someone test the new bios?

 

I got an E-MU 0404 USB 2.0 a couple of weeks ago and been giving it a go

Works great, sounds great, built like **** tho

not enough inputs and outputs

a good, reliable fix for recording and playback ability, but not a satisfying solution.

so sad it had to come to this, i'm a poor student and cannot be making $250 intermediate purchases while i wait for a final solution, but the thing is i need to be able to do work NOW.

 

I believe the firmware is what supports multiple Firepod's being daisy chained together. I only have one Firepod, so this is not an issue for me. I am also not using it as a stand-alone, so for me the firmware update doesn't really matter. I'm using the latest driver available from PreSonus which is v.2.14.25. I am not sure of the firmware version since I cannot seem to find where that is listed. However I believe since I downgraded it it is now the same as what came with the original installation CD, or rather how the Firepod was originally shipped to me prior to any firmware updates.

For my purposes I am recording 24 bit 96kHz to 6 tracks simultaneously into Sonar 6 Producer. However I've tested it with more tracks and it works fine. I have other dedicated mic preamps which feed into the Firepod. Basically my Firepod is a fancy means to connect to the laptop digitally from my other analog mic pre's which are far better than the mic pre's on the Firepod.

I hope that helps.

 

hi guys,

New to this site and i would like to say thanks to everyone involved in this thread as i was about to buy a Dell Inspiron until i read this thread.

I have just ordered a Motu Ultralite but I am still undecided whether to get a desktop or notebook.I would prefer a notebook but it seems I might struggle to find one with a TI chipset onboard.The Inspiron is now a no go due that poxy Ricoh chipset.I know this is going over old territory but i just wanna see if any of you guys can give me some advice...as u seem to know what ur talking about!

(1)Has anyone managed to find a notebook that has a Texas Instrument Firewire port? Jeff sais he thought some HP's might have it but I checked out a decent HP in a PC store earlier and unfortunately.....Ricoh!

(2)Will the Motu Ultralite work aswell using a PCMCIA card with TI onboard and if so does anyone know of a PCMCIA card with TI?
I have seen PCI cards on the net using a TI chip but no PCMCIA cards. Jeff , u said the Lacie FW 800 is a good one , does that use a TI chipset?

(3)If such a card can be found does anyone know of a notebook that is still available with a suitable PCMCIA slot?

Any info at all would be helpful! Thanks guys!

 

(2) The Lacie FW 800 is great I have one. Yes it's TI based.

(3) The Dell M65 still comes with a CardBus slot Type I/II.

 

looks like M-audio have acknowledged the problem with the dell's. Have a look at:

http://www.digidesign.com/index.cfm?navid=54&langid=100&categoryid=35&itemid=24380

About half way down they talk about Not Supported — Known Incompatibility.
Plus they have recommend laptops that do work, but remember they also said the M90 worked.

 

ok, do I get this right that my m-audio fw410 won't work with a dell notebook (either going to be a precision m65 or a latitude d820, most likely), unless I get a TI firewire card?

the m65 has slots for both expresscard and pcmcia I/II. Since I'll use that laptop for live recording/looping, bandwidth is an issue. does pcmcia I/II fully support the firewire bandwidth? AFAIK expresscard offers a higher bandwidth. Then again I've read about Dell computers having issues with expresscard firewire cards.....

-.-

any recommendations?

 

Yes pcmcia supports the full bandwidth of firewire. I'll also go ahead and recommend the Lacie FW800 PCMCIA card as your TI chipset solution. I have the card and it works well.

 

no more news in here ?

 

As I has a very similar problem with my new Lenovo / IBM 3000 N100 notebook I had some experiences with firewire and audio with the same chipset:

Intel 945PM Chipset
T5500 Dual 2 Core
Ricoh Memory-Card and Firewire Controller R5C832
see: http://www.ricoh.com/LSI/product_pcif/pcc/5c832/index.html

My firewire audio device is a RME Fireface 400. I have problems with loss of data with buffer size smaller than 256 bit. The Fireface Device Driver window has a special error counter which shows firewire based errors (not driver or cpu performance based errors). The errors are audible as a short dropout.

My first hunch was that the Ricoh Firewire Controller has a bad performance. I read the threads in this forum here from Jeff who repeat his statement 'use a TI-Controller and you have no problems' several times here. So I bought a EXSYS PCMIA-Firewire Card with TI-Controller on board. Costs: 30€ (about 40$). Result was no better perfomance - same errors at buffer sizes smaller than 256 bit.

After that I checked the performance of a Firewire-HDD with a benchmark tool. Result:

My second Notebook ( Siemens Fujitsu, 3 years old, internal VIA-firewire Controller): 30MB/s read, 20MB/s write. No errors with the fireface 400.

Lenovo N100 internal Ricoh-Firewire-Controller: 30mB/s read, 13,5MB/s write. Errors with the fireface 400

Lenovo N100 external PCMCIA-TI-Controller-Card: 30MB/s read, 8,5MB/s write (!) Errors with the fireface 400.

So, the write performance is really bad - even more worse if you use this TI-Controller-Card. Maybe its the PCMCIA-Card-Controller. I guess it is a general notebook problem and I decided to by another notebook with checked performance (a special audio notebook). The Lenovo internal PCMCIA-Card Controller is a ENE CB1410. After a google search I found out that a lot of user objected problems with this cardbus controller....

I hope this helps! I really suggest all audio interface users to check the performance of the interface before you buy the notebook!!! Don't trust on statements like 'use a TI-Controller-Card and you have no problems'. This is simply not the whole thruth. In many cases the firewire controller is bad AND the cardbus controller too (PCI express cardbus controller included...).

I found this in the web - not special for audio interfaces but very interesting! The Dell M65 has e.g. a not recommend O2micro cardbus Controller...
http://www.digitaltigers.com/notebooks.shtml

Regards

 

Have you confirmed you don't have resource conflicts with your PCMCIA card. Mine wouldn't work worth a **** until I disable onboard sound, wireless, etc etc. You can find my complete disable list somewhere in this huge thread.