Hello,

recently I've started to experience very powerful and harsh crackles/noises during computer / RME UCX startup. It's not constant - sometimes it's just regular short and dull "electronic signal", but once in a few days it's 5 - 10 seconds of very harsh crackles which are accompanied with the lights blinking and "glitches" (random characters ) on the display on the RME panel. But after that everything is always working quite solid. However, those sounds could easily blow the speakers or cause a damage to ears if happen in a live situation on a big sound system. And what troubles me is that I never experienced those symptoms before during the last couple of years of using it.

I connect RME via Firewire to Thunderbolt adapter to my MacBook 15' (previous generation) and OSX and drivers are up to date. I also always plug RME into the wall power with the original power supply (despite it's not necessary and the unit works fine just without it ). Those noises have no correlation with the way I connect the unit (with or without wall power ).

My only concern is that maybe it's better to use USB to connect UCX, but I have all my ports occupied with midi controllers and other gear so I prefer this Firewire>Thunderbolt way.

Would love to get any advice/opinion on this subject.