I have recently purchased a new Motu 828 MkII to place my Roland Edirol FA66 running on a PC.

The problem:

After installing the lastest drivers for XP, and following the install procedure exactly, I got everything to work ok...for about 5 mins before the whole system froze. I tried various combinations of ASIO/WDM drivers - all worked for anywhere between 5 seconds and 5 mins. Eventually the PC would hang on boot up or before I loaded Sonar 4. It got so bad that I could not boot up at all unless I did so in Safe mode.

If I remove the FW cable - the PC works perfectly.

With the Roland Edirol FA66 I had zero problems.

Details of PC:

Intel Pentium 4 @ 3.2 Ghz
1 Gig ram
Intel Desktop Motherboard - D915SPBL
Intel i915P chipset
Onboard firewire - FW322/323 IEEE 1394 OHCI Firewire controller
DAW: Sonar 4 Studio Edition

I have researched GS, the Motu site, and a few other sites and they all point to the same thing - install a FW card with Texas Instruments chipset. For example the TI Chipset TSB43AB23.

I need advice on the SPECIFIC FIREWIRE CARD with the TI Chipset that will do the job - hassle free.

Thanks,
Phil Young

Got to you local apple dealer (yes apple!) and buy a pci card there (with the TI chipset). They do a marvellous job for me and cost around $90.

I went to CompUSA and picked a PCI Firewire card that said it had the TI chipset. It has 3 6 pin ports, came with a 6-to-4 cable and cost $35.

It works fine with my 828mkII.


Sorry I can't tell you which specific brand -- it's in the computer (which is behind a work area) and I threw out the box -- but it wasn't a big name.

Of course, I still couldn't guarantee you it'd work in your system.

There were a number of brands with different feature sets that had TI chipsets. (If I recall correctly, I may have taken a print out of the recommended chipsets with me to the store. It's a bit hazy. I've been doing this stuff for 21 years. When I get done with something and everything is working I just clear my head -- 'cause by the time I do it next time it's all gonna be different, anyhow.)

Thanks for the advice guys.

I know the local Apple dealer quite well....I'll give them a call.

The motu site also says not to install XP SP2. Any comments re running SP2 with a MOTU ?

youngy

I KNEW there was an SP2 warning I forgot to pay attention to when bringing my new (Win Multimedia Center Edition - SP2) box up. heh

No... as far as I can tell, I haven't had any SP2-related problems in the couple months I've been running my MOTU 828mkII with WDM/KS drivers under Sonar.

(I recently began experimenting with ASIO drivers under Sonar and Tracktion. Yesterday, I had some glitching with the ASIO driver while I was working and switchted to the WDM/KS driver with no further problem. But I didn't pursue/diagnose the problem with the ASIO drivers, yet. I suspect it can be ironed out, but I do not tolerate any glitching, clicks, etc, and didn't want to fool around testing right then. So there COULD be an issue there. Possibly. In my gut, I'm thinking it will probably be easy to sort out. Maybe.)

Of course, YMMV.

Supporting even a slightly different OS version is difficult for vendors, since there can be so many variables. USUALLY, they err on the side of caution, refusing to officially support a new OS version until they know for sure they're not going to be hit with a tidal wave of complaints. It can be frustrating -- particularly if most folks aren't reporting problems -- but it's simply self-preservation for the companies.

I am running SP1, but my dealer runs SP2 on his demo PC's and says he hasn't got any problems with it.

I have an 828 and I know when I tried to install SP2 a few times it always messed things up for me although I can't remember if it was with the Motu specifically cuz it was a while ago.

Just purchased & installed an ADS PYRO PCI 64 card with the TI chipset.....works perfectly now!!

Thanks for all the advice.thumbsup

Phil

I've used various cheap TI based cards.

Plus I'm running SP2 fine - I think I did the fix for SP2 mentioned on the rme site i.e. use the firewire drivers from SP1

si