I find the forums on the net very helpful and conducted in a generally friendly and philanthropic manner, so thanks to all.  I do find that quite often no-one answers my questions (see: Flash update tool mac or windows below).  It would be useful to know weather the questions are too difficult to answer or just too dumb to be worth the effort.  I suspect the latter, and am quite prepared to undergo the humiliation of being told so!

cheers

I would hardly agree that your questions go unanswered quite often. There was only one post here from you that had no answer yet.

Thanks for your hints about getting more response, perhaps I need to be more clear in general.  My comment was related to "the forums on the net " not just this one though.
The problem I have is of drastically distorted audio when using the card with the specific piece of windows software that I need (SADiE 6 native).  The sound is very chopped and is similar to that obtained when the buffers are too small.  I have tried all available combination of buffer size.  The windows drivers and hardware are up to date and the boot camp version is up to date for 10.5.  The software works fine using WMD, but of course without the in/out quality and flexibility I get from the HDSPe card and digiface on the mac side.  I also can not get the windows media player to play through the RME, not that that is very important, but may be a clue in resolving the problem.

chris

I am using ASIO in my DAW software (SADiE 6 native) when the main problem i.e. distorted audio occurs.  The software works fine with the windows media driver.  I do not have another windows audio software package to test with.  The windows media player will not play through the HDSPe/digiface.  I followed through your instructions thus: (maybe I am getting it wrong) from windows media player tools/options/devices/speakers/properties/audio device to use, I have 15 options:
Default Directsound Device
DirectSound: HDSP ADAT1 Out(1+2)(1) (emulated)
DirectSound: HDSP ADAT1 Out(3+4)(1) (emulated)
DirectSound: HDSP ADAT1 Out(5+6)(1) (emulated)
DirectSound: HDSP ADAT1 Out(7+8)(1) (emulated)
DirectSound: HDSP ADAT2 Out(1+2)(1) (emulated)
DirectSound: HDSP ADAT2 Out(3+4)(1) (emulated)
DirectSound: HDSP ADAT2 Out(5+6)(1) (emulated)
DirectSound: HDSP ADAT2 Out(7+8)(1) (emulated)
DirectSound: HDSP ADAT3 Out(1+2)(1) (emulated)
DirectSound: HDSP ADAT3 Out(3+4)(1) (emulated)
DirectSound: HDSP ADAT3 Out(5+6)(1) (emulated)
DirectSound: HDSP ADAT3 Out(7+8)(1) (emulated)
DirectSound: HDSP SPDIF Out(1) (emulated)
DirectSound: Realtek HD Audio output

The first and last options work ok.  None of the others do - they neither output any sound nor show any level in the HDSP mixer window.  Incidentally when trying to use SADiE 6 with ASIO there is level showing in the HDSP mixer.
I read through the trouble shooting you pointed to but none of the cases seemed to correspond to my problem(s).  I am on a MAC pro desktop using a HDSPe internal card not fire-wire.  I do also have a Fireface 400 which I use with a mac book pro for location recording with OSX 10.5.8  (no problems here) but I would like to get the HDSPe card working in the studio as the Digiface is hooked up to my ADI 8 ADA and ADI 8 DD.  Would testing the windows system with the fireface 400 be as simple as pluging it in to the fire wire port of the Mac Pro?