M-Audio FW-410: problems

FuTz wrote on 12/2/2005, 5:50 PM

I've had problems with this cards that I bought for mobile work as well as in house.
Main thread:
http://www.sonymediasoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=1&MessageID=377731

Now, after a while not using much more than to listen radio/music/this kind of things a SoundCrapper could do fine, I'm back on more serious work and there is problems again. Well, in fact, as soon as I want to record with multi-track, capture video on another 1394 port or even plug an external hard drive thru other 1394 port, problems arise.
Something freezes 'til I shut down one of the devices (camera/hard drive) or 'til I simply reboot, taking care to shut off the FW-410 before rebooting.
IF I don't use the FW-410 , everything is going well.
AS SOON as I use it for a little "over average" use (read: more than uncle Bill would use), I get problems.
I'd like to know how you guys who didn't have problems with this (often recommended) card are hooked up to your computer.
My specs are in my profile, btw so if by any chance one of you has the exact same config' , I'd be more than glad to hear about it ! :)

Thanks

Comments

farss wrote on 12/2/2005, 11:04 PM

I've got a 410 I use quite a lot on both one of my desktop edit systems and on my ancient VAIO laptop for field recording.
It is not goof proof but then nor a lot of 1394 devices including Sony decks and cameras.
I run the 410 off it's own port and it seems pretty happy that way.
A few things that'll spin it out.
1) Make certain the clocks are set to internal and optical unless needed otherwise.
2) Disable ALL Windoz sounds, they can cause the 410 to have to switch sample rates.
4) I use the ASIO drives and unload / disable all other audio device drivers.
5) If switching around 1394 devices I power down the CPU, change them around and ensure they're all set to go before rebooting and all is well.

Basically what seems to go wrong is Windoz somehow gets confused as to which driver is talking to what physical device, video gets sent to the 410 and data to the VCR etc, big mess with lots of nasty sounds.

BTW, I'm running W2K on the system it mostly lives on and WinXP at around SP1 on the laptop. On the laptop the 410 is used only by itself, no other 1394 device.

Bob.

Chilivonhaus wrote on 12/3/2005, 12:43 PM

I have followed 410 protocols similar to farss with success. I work off a laptop, Windows XP SP1, with the 410 connected via a dedicated 1394 connection, and a 3-way 1394 card for all other connections (camera, external preview, external drive). I use the 410 for audio out to powered monitors, and voice recording in.

When running a single device through the 3-way 1394 port, no problems.

When running multiiple applications with multiple devices and jumping around alot, windows does sometimes confuse the correct device for the specific application. In those instances I manually redirect/reconnect the device/application. the frequency of occurrence is regular but low enough to be tolerable.

FuTz wrote on 12/7/2005, 4:54 PM

Woo-eee

I already got all the Win sounds switched off and the internal-optical setting to "on" on the card.
I don't really know exactly where to go in my comp' to see if I'm just running the ASIO drivers. I tried Control Panel/Manager/drivers and M-Audio/drivers but can't really find a clear answer as to which driver(s) I'm using ?

farss wrote on 12/7/2005, 10:40 PM

I THINK they all actually run, each app gets to choose which ones it wants to use. So in Vegas you can select the ASIO drivers. If you don't have any need for the others you can simply unload them.
Had to do this on my laptop but that might just be me.
Bob.