Any one have this problem with MOTU?

[PKLehner]

I have a MOTU 24 I/O with the 424 PCIe card. I have a very predictable, very annoying problem. Here's the sequence of problems.

1. Plug the Motu unit into the computer, power it on, and power the computer on.
2. When Computer finishes loading Windows, the 44.1 screen on the MOTU just blinks, and when I load into Windows, it gives me the message "No MOTU Audio-wire card found"
3. I restart the computer with the MOTU still on, and it boots just fine, 44.1 stops blinking, and switches to 96, and I can access it just fine.
4. Reboot the computer a second time, and the clock on the 24 I/O switches to 48, and I once again get the message "No Motu Audiowire card found"
5. At this point I have to reboot the 24 I/O, and start the sequence all over again, to get it working.

Anyone have any ideas? I have a feeling its more a problem with the Audiowire card than the 24 I/O, but I'm not positive.

[Jidis]

PK,

You may want to log in and post over in the Unicornation forums. Intermittently vanishing hardware was one of their strong points back when I hung around there, but I'm afraid there wasn't any one particular cause or solution.

It does sound like the card itself is disappearing. I think when it's the i/o box or its connection, you'll still get access to the MOTU panel, there just won't be any interfaces available in it. I have a 424 too, and mine has done things like that which, IIRC, were related to its slot location on a particular board. Finding one that it liked seemed to fix it (resource sharing issues I guess). Mine would work for a while, and when I opened an audio app or when something tried to access the MOTU driver in some way ...pow! (flashing clock lights and no hardware)

If you haven't fished around inside your machine and/or added any hardware recently, it doesn't look good for the card. I'd try to take it out and reseat it, maybe blowing some air in or cleaning the contacts with something, and lastly, maybe move it to a different slot or dig up your board's PCI resource docs and see if you can find a better, more isolated one. It probably wouldn't hurt to do all this with a different FW (audiowire) cable just to rule that out, but it probably runs the same with no box.

Hope you get it working!

George

[dannygold]

If you call MOTU tech support here's what they'll tell you to do (and they'll be right).

First try this: Remove the 424 card. Uninstall the 424 drivers. Reinstall the 424 drivers WITH THE CARD OUT OF THE SYSTEM. Make sure you have the LATEST 424 DRIVERS INSTALLED. Now reseat the card. The reason for above is that isn't important that the card plug and play with the drivers present.

If that doesn't fix it it may be an IRQ issue... you're not going to like my suggestion to fix that... I'd remove all PCI cards including the 424. Also disconnect other devices like USB/FW/ETC. Then follow my steps above. If the 424 card works on it's own, add the other cards back until you figure out what conflicts, or it maybe work because you've installed in a different order.

That's just the reality of troubleshooting PCs. If that doesn't help it could be a bad 424 card.