The serial number is a 230xxxxx, so it should be OK.

The laptop has no BIOS options for power saving etc.

Would it help if I could (if it's possible) disable power saving on the express-card port on the laptop in Windows?

I think it's a fairly standard Intel chipset and a common Dell model, so it's not like I'm using anything exotic...

Hmmm. OK Matthias, but that means I now have the problem of:

Do I keep the card in the hopes that I can get a solution from Dell and/or yourselves or send it back to the retailer and get a refund?

It also effectively means that anyone considering buying one of these cards from RME is potentially entering a mine-field of: will it work on my system or won't it? In which case, they may be dissuaded from purchasing.

It might also help (unless you already have it) if you were to publish a list of laptops on which your cards are known not to work.

Edit: I also notice that users are having possibly similar problems on MacBooks:

http://www.rme-audio.de/forum/viewtopic.php?id=6962

Have to say - if Apple users are hitting (what as possibly) similar problems, there must surely be some responsibility for RME here?

In my day-job (as a Technical Lead for the UK's largest electronics manufacturer), I've often had to get Senior engineers from various companies in same room to work out why devices aren't talking to each other properly.

It's usually the case that both sides have misinterpreted an ambiguous specification.

Do you by any chance have any technical detail as to why Apple/Dell etc. or possibly Intel may be at fault here?

Edit: this isn't me being difficult BTW. I'm actually interested in helping out if possible.

I don't have much experience with PCI-E, but am the guy at my company who ends up attaching bus/logic analysers to find out what's not behaving (although I'm mainly a software developer). Often then involves a trip to the Bay area to talk to the various device manufacturers!

OK - will continue to dig and see what I can get from Dell. I've had some luck before in getting them to work on the BIOSes in the past.

Might see if there's a relevant bus analyser here at work which might point to an answer. Unfortunately, most of the devices I deal with these days are fully LSI and everything's on the one chip. No external busses, which means the analysers are sat on the shelf...

If this is a power management issue, there may be a route forward.

Edit: Right - it seems I can get this working most of the time, so long as I wait until Windows is booted before inserting the card. It just takes a while sometimes for the card to be recognised. If I have the card inserted on boot, it's not recognised. In that scenario, if I unplug the card and re-insert, Windows locks up.

So - I have a work-around it seems.

I'm hoping this is a driver issue or Windows itself.

WindowsXP on my work laptop seems to be fine.

is your work laptop the same make and modell? I am asking because I plan on buying a Dell Vostro 3700 with Windows 7 64 and I would use it with a HDSP Expresscard. Thanks!

Make sure to switch off the PCI Express ("Link State Power Managment") power-saving feature in Windows 7's power-management. Either switch to "High Performance" profile (and don't ever pull out the PSU of the laptop) or switch it off manually.

If you switch it off manually make sure to use "OFF" and not "Moderate Power Saving". Even though "Moderate" is a lot better than "Maximum Power Saving" in terms of both performance and stability it still seems to be a possible source of instabilities and should thus better be turned off.

You need to turn it off for both AC power *and* battery. Else it can happen that switching to battery leads to instability even when you switch back to AC later.

I have about the same problem here. I have just purchased a Dell Studio 1558.
Today I received delivery of the HDSPe Expresscard. No luck getting the machine to see the PCIe card.

Windows 7 64 bit Home Premium
Multiface I (Powered)
Latest drivers and the firmware is up-to-date
Windows 7 fully updated
Chipset drivers up-to-date also
Turned PCIe off in power management
tried to force load the drivers from RME, crashed the machine.

anyone have an idea how to fix this?

That is true, but we have no influence on the behaviour of the Express front-end used in our products. So this 'work-around' is a nice one, and not only makes our but a lot of products operational, as this 'front-end' is used widely within the industry.

Same here. I'm afraid I do feel let down. Especially when you read RME's marketting blurb which says: "compatible with all newer laptops with ExpressCard slots."

http://www.rme-audio.de/en_products_hds … sscard.php

I've been a user and fan of RME's products for years and I can kind-of understand RME's position, but it might be worth re-assessing the word "all" in that statement. Post #6 above kind-of blows it statement out of the water.

They are. And not - which is the norm when talking about computer hardware. There is no guaranteed compatibility, and you know that. It can happen with everything that you buy for your computer - or the other way round.

Please also think about that if all you have to do to make it work is to insert the card after power-on of the machine - then it's worth to do so. You can keep an excellent audio I/O system and/or don't have to spend a lot of money for a different laptop.

Well, if the card is never seen at all then we are talking about something completely different. You may just have a defective ExpressCard or a defective ExpressCard slot.

I just did that with no luck. Basically the card just sits in the slot and windows acts as if the card is not present and the slot is empty. I did get the red light to go off on the mutiface once by loading the force loading the drivers as legency drivers in the device manager while the PCIe express card was in the slot but when i rebooted the drivers caused the machine to crash. I could not reboot the machine until I reverted back to a former successful startup configuration.

I never get the message from windows that a device is present in the PCIe slot and you need to load the drivers. I think force loading the drivers is not really working since windows see these drivers as a device that is not present and then crashes trying to locate the missing device.

I have a friend coming over today with his laptop. If he has a PCIe slot I will try the express card out on his computer. I wish I had another PCIe type device to check to see if the PCIe card slot is functioning correctly on the Dell studio 1558.

Yes I have the latest BIOS on the computer.

Thanks for the replies.

Yes I checked that a few days ago. My Serial Num. is 22944xxx.

Hi Fynn.

Presuming we're talking about the same issue, it looks like RME can't/won't do much about this I'm afraid.

You could try getting HP to do something about it, but the big corps are hard to move.

Edit: BTW - I've decided to keep the card ready for my next laptop upgrade or in the hopes that Dell do something about the issue. Meanwhile, I'll use my Virus Ti's audio outputs for live sets.

the issues lie with the laptops not the rme card,
this is an extremely common issue with todays laptops.
this is no different than trying to add an Express card to firewire to get the Fireface to work.

oddly the RME Madiface/DSP for Multiface work far more often than a firewire card.
in part due to vendor ID and how well RME is diligent in their work.

todays laptops are designed for power saving (more of the green garbage) and to give long battey life
also designed to be as cheap as possible.
in this wonderful power saving ideal they tend to under power everything as they never expected you to actually use a laptop as a workstation.

the next round of laptops wont even have express slot. they are quickly disappearing. going the way of firewire

so with that said the Sonnet will not fare any better as its also a Express slot. the issue is the slot on the laptop.
Scott
ADK

Agreed - RME obviously know about the potential compatibility problems, but are still saying that all new machines will work in their marketing blurb.

I now have a different solution which works well with the Dell. If anyone wants a 2nd hand Expresscard...

Email sent to you PaulO...

So - compatibility is limited to fitting a slot and possibly having the right connector?

I remember my department getting a piece of hardware back under warranty. On opening the box, it seemed that someone had replaced the innards with random circuit boards and had glued some standard connectors to the back. We could only presume they'd decided to use the old circuitry nailed to a piece of wood...

Still - you could argue that since the connectors were there it was "compatible" with the HDMI cable and the TV connected at the other end!

I do understand your general point, but my colleagues are currently finding your definition of "compatible" highly amusing.

)

Agreed with you Purusha, so amusing !

I would like to thank RME for its understanding about the uncompatibility problem of the express card with some laptops (and they admit knowing it). I spent a lot of money to pursue with my RME Multiface II - one of the best audio interface to me - on my new laptop and I find myself unable to work. After spending money, it's time losing money !

Erm, "warned" me about what and when? Should I know you from somewhere?

My "Toyota" is actually working brilliantly using the new system I've invested in than-you very much!

in some therad about laptops pretty certain.

so what did you buy that works so great now? please do enlighten us.

Scott

at my age my memory is failing :-) so i could be mistaken...
again what interface did you buy that is working so well?

Yes Purusha, we sacrifice ourselves (our money in fact) to the community ! I like it :-).

To Jcschild, I am going to sell my laptop DELL, is there any laptop surely compatible with the RME express card ?

Many thanks and I prey for not exploding on mines.