• Registered: 2009-03-06
  • Posts: 15

Topic: My FF400 ramdomly disconnect itself from my PC !

Hi, Firstly I'm from Turkiye,
sorry about my bad Eng.
so, my ff400 lights its red Host led ramdomly when I was working on PC, no error Pop, no click sound, just the red host led turns on and sound went off.
This has not an order, and completely random.
I feed electricity to FF400 from FW cable on my Pc. But first times I used to work with its original power supplier but the random host error were appearing. I learned that its not about power I think.
plus, I notice that when I plug smthg to electrical outlet box that feeds also all my PC system, the Host goes again. This prob. according to electricity shall be fixed by a power regulator I think, but previous one is about what? I cant consider that, and it drives my crazy.

Can anyone tell me the possible solutions or informations?
thanks

  • From: Germany
  • Registered: 2007-04-10
  • Posts: 9,778

Re: My FF400 ramdomly disconnect itself from my PC !

Please provide more details about the PC. Have you tried another FW cable?

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

RME Support's Website

  • Registered: 2009-03-06
  • Posts: 15

Re: My FF400 ramdomly disconnect itself from my PC !

First PC : Asus P5-xx mainboarded + quad6600 intel with OCZ cpu cooler + 3gb RAm @800 + (250gb+500gb SATA2 HDDs) + GF8600 Graph Card + thermaltake 500w PSU feeds all. 2 LCD monitors vs.
signal way : Pc>FF440>(optical)>benchmark dac1>Genelecs

I tried for 1 week with another FW cable + original Power supply of RME on a Laptop(toshiba), but the problem of Host losing still appears along the week.

Thanks for Reply.

  • Registered: 2009-03-05
  • Posts: 3

Re: My FF400 ramdomly disconnect itself from my PC !

I have the same problem. It's a massive annoyance. Takes hours to get it working again. I get the best results when i unplug everything else from the firewire. Then disconnect the ff400. Then uninstall the 1394 device from device manager. Then have a cigarette and wait 5 minutes. Then plug the firewire back in. Then reinstall the 1394. Then plug the other devices back in.

This works 1/10 times.

  • Registered: 2009-03-06
  • Posts: 15

Re: My FF400 ramdomly disconnect itself from my PC !

The weird thing is I have no FW devices all but FF400. Hope I need serious electricity Grounding or a power regulator or?
I'm waiting for RME Support's post now.
Thanks.

6 Reply by MC

  • MC
  • MC
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  • From: Germany/Thailand
  • Registered: 2007-04-06
  • Posts: 25,599

Re: My FF400 ramdomly disconnect itself from my PC !

When electrical sparks cause a bus reset (LED red) then indeed your electrical wiring and power quality is not good. Maybe it's the fridge in the other room...

Regards
Matthias Carstens
RME

MC's Website

7 Reply by MC

  • MC
  • MC
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  • From: Germany/Thailand
  • Registered: 2007-04-06
  • Posts: 25,599

Re: My FF400 ramdomly disconnect itself from my PC !

strangejuice,

what do you mean by 'uninstall the 1394 device'? Are you uninstalling the FireWire port (OHCI1394) or the Fireface?

Regards
Matthias Carstens
RME

MC's Website

  • Registered: 2009-03-06
  • Posts: 15

Re: My FF400 ramdomly disconnect itself from my PC !

MC wrote:

When electrical sparks cause a bus reset (LED red) then indeed your electrical wiring and power quality is not good. Maybe it's the fridge in the other room...

Thanks,
I'll check the power cabling and other stuff.

9 Reply by coltivatore (edited by coltivatore 2009-03-08 22:33:57)

  • Registered: 2008-10-06
  • Posts: 7

Re: My FF400 ramdomly disconnect itself from my PC !

I'm experiencing the exact same problem for a while now. In my experience it's not necessary to reinstall everything though, i just have to power off the fireface (in my case FF 800) and just wait for it to cool down, so it seems, because after a while (varies from 20 mins-7 hours) it's suddenly working again. It's a massive annoyance indeed. I'll also check my power cables and stuff.

The Fireface is connected to the firewire port of my Gigabyte DS3P-R motherboard, which has a TI chipset, so this should be working fine. I figured it wouldnt be necessary to buy a dedicated firewire card since i'm already on the ti chipset?

Cheers

  • MarP
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  • Registered: 2007-05-03
  • Posts: 2

Re: My FF400 ramdomly disconnect itself from my PC !

Are you saying that the power source for the FF will cause the disconnection between the computer and FF?
I am running on Windows XP with a FF800 connected with a fw400 cable. I also have a same problem, with it disconnecting at odd times. I have to switch it off/On or disconnect the cable and plug it back in. Sometimes I can record 3 minutes, sometime 15.. ...
It appeared to happen more if I was recording at 92,000Hz. For testing, I switched it to 48000 and the first time around I ran it for 4 hours and 55 minutes non-stop - no problems. I was happy. Then came the "big" day - recording a wedding - live - and 20 minutes into the ceremony, the ff disconnected! Extremely annoying, to say the least! (And I was running on 48000 again, so it's not just that.)

Anyway, now I read your posts, and I'm still wondering: is the electrical power supply for my unit the real issue for something like this? I have a power bar mounted on my 'rack' for my FF; I plug everything that I need into that power supply - laptop, wireless headphones, FF, and anything else that would happen to need power close by.
Once I get back to my laptop and FF I'm going to take it to boot-camp and do some of that testing.. At this point I'm scared for my recording session end of this week! That FF is simply not reliable at this point.
If someone does have a solution or confirmation for this, that would be excellent!
Thanks for reading and helping!

11 Reply by MC

  • MC
  • MC
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  • Registered: 2007-04-06
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Re: My FF400 ramdomly disconnect itself from my PC !

coltivatore wrote:

I'm experiencing the exact same problem for a while now. In my experience it's not necessary to reinstall everything though, i just have to power off the fireface (in my case FF 800) and just wait for it to cool down

This might be a problem of the internal power supply. How old is that unit? You have a serial number?

Regards
Matthias Carstens
RME

MC's Website

  • Registered: 2008-10-06
  • Posts: 7

Re: My FF400 ramdomly disconnect itself from my PC !

MC wrote:
coltivatore wrote:

I'm experiencing the exact same problem for a while now. In my experience it's not necessary to reinstall everything though, i just have to power off the fireface (in my case FF 800) and just wait for it to cool down

This might be a problem of the internal power supply. How old is that unit? You have a serial number?

At first i didn't know where to look really, but then i discovered a barcode and some numbers at the back of the unit, so i'm assuming that's the serial smile. The serial number: 22788556
Thanks for your help.

13 Reply by MC

  • MC
  • MC
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  • From: Germany/Thailand
  • Registered: 2007-04-06
  • Posts: 25,599

Re: My FF400 ramdomly disconnect itself from my PC !

That unit is quite new (built in April 2008), so I wonder if you could do a simple test: put it out of the rack (or wherever it is in now) and put a fan beside it. Will it work then? If so it would be a thermal problem that seems to be reproducible, so the unit could be send in for repair.

Regards
Matthias Carstens
RME

MC's Website

  • Registered: 2009-03-05
  • Posts: 3

Re: My FF400 ramdomly disconnect itself from my PC !

MC wrote:

strangejuice,

what do you mean by 'uninstall the 1394 device'? Are you uninstalling the FireWire port (OHCI1394) or the Fireface?

I am uninstalling the firewire port.
This doesn't always work however.

  • From: Portugal - Lisbon
  • Registered: 2007-05-01
  • Posts: 151

Re: My FF400 ramdomly disconnect itself from my PC !

Check if the fireface is connected to the shared firewire port. I once pluged my fireface on that port and I had the same problems...

Cheers.

Fireface 400 + DIGI96/8 PAD. It's old but works.

undercode's Website

  • Registered: 2011-04-27
  • Posts: 3

Re: My FF400 ramdomly disconnect itself from my PC !

I have the same problem

I am owner of Fireface400 and i have for a few years but now it started to go off and the host red light to blink until i take out the firewire cable from the lap top and put it back in it starts to work again and the light goes off.

I am using Toshiba lap top
i7 processor
4 gigs of ram

Windows 7 64bits

Please help this has happen few times in a middle of a live act

Thanks

  • From: Germany
  • Registered: 2007-04-10
  • Posts: 9,778

Re: My FF400 ramdomly disconnect itself from my PC !

Have you tried replacing the cable?


Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

RME Support's Website

  • Registered: 2011-04-27
  • Posts: 3

Re: My FF400 ramdomly disconnect itself from my PC !

If you think about another Firewire cable yes i tried

Same thing happens

Any other option to check?

  • Claus
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  • From: Dachau
  • Registered: 2011-06-04
  • Posts: 1

Re: My FF400 ramdomly disconnect itself from my PC !

Glad to see I´m not alone. I´m having the same problem.

FF400, S/N 22530352, Firmware 1.70

Desktop PC, Motherboard Asus M2A-VM HDMI, AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4800+, 2 GB RAM, TI IEEE 1394a controller with 2 ports, Windows 7 Ultimate x64, 1394 OHCI Compliant Host Controller (Legacy), FF400 Driver 3.034 (17.12.10), user sessions as local administrator

Softwareplayers: Foobar2000, XXHighEnd

Output Devices: ASIO: ASIO Fireface, DS: Speakers (2 - RME Fireface 400), WASAPI: Speakers (2 - RME Fireface 400)

What I tried:
Using both FW400 ports of FF400
Using Bus powering for FF400
Using External powering for FF400
Using same Desktop PC with Windows XP SP3
Using Notebook with Windows Server 2008 R2
Restarting computers
Reinstalling drivers
Starting computer first then FF400 and vice versa

I did not (dis)connect FW cable while FF400 was powered

Searched the forum, tech info and faq.

Sometimes my FF400 plays 60 or 90 minutes. Sometimes it stops after 2 minutes. After power cycling all LEDs are on. If I keep it powered, the LEDs and display start to blink in a weird manner. A second power cycle leads to good looking LEDs and display but without function.

The only way I have found to let it play again is to disconnect the FF400 from power for at least 30 minutes, sometimes more.

Afterwards it might operate regularly until it stops again.

Any hints welcome.

Claus