I'm also experiencing this exact same problem on my Dell Vostro 1500 notebook, which has a Ricoh firewire 400 controller, in Windows XP Pro SP3.

Using the coaxial spdif out on the FF400 to my external DAC, every so often the sound changes to a distorted buzzing noise when using the following programs. I can faintly hear the intended sound but it's just severely distorted. I normally use DDS to upsample to 96 kHz, but the problem also happens when DDS is off (44 kHz playback). This also happens when the buffer size is set to maximum 1024 samples or any other lower setting.

- Media Player Classic (upsampled to 96 kHz with FFDShow)
- WinAmp upsampled to 96 kHz with Otochan ASIO plugin (also happens at regular 44 kHz without Otochan)
- foobar2k with Secret Rabbit Code set to 96 kHz (also happens at regular 44 kHz without SRC)
- General Youtube browsing with IE or Firefox (sample rate will be converted to 96kHz if another application playing at 96 kHz is run first)
- Games like World of Goo and Quake Live

I've configured XP to minimise DPC as much as possible (by disabling unnecessary services, setting priority to background tasks, disabling the MS ACPI battery and other devices in Device Manager, disabling WLAN, disabling unncessary start up programs, and other "tweaks" I've searched on this forum, but none of these fix the problem.

I've tried everything I can to fix it myself, but I have a feeling it's a firmware or driver issue with Fireface 400 since many others who have the same problem (even on a Mac like the OP) haven't fixed this. I hope a firmware update will be released soon.

Rensel, I can tell you from personal experience that is not firmware or RME drivers problem.
First thing you must do is to set your laptop audio interface as the primary sound card for the OS, in your case, XP. The only time that I had that super beep was when I changed my firewire pci interface from one pci slot to another and the configuration went to a default Fireface 400 set as default audio interface. As soon as you send the FF400 away from OS defaults, I think that that beep will end.

(Pedro, se te conseguires orientar com isto ? na boa, se n?o, ca?a-me no msn na mesma. Abra?o)

Cheers.

I'm currently using the fireface 400 on a different laptop, my friend's Vaio VGN-SZ270 containing a TI PCI8412 controller, and I'll let you know the results after I test it out for a day. So far it's working much better than on my Dell Vostro 1500. Two hours in and I haven't heard a pop or skip yet while playing music with foobar2k with SRC at 96 kHz. So it actually may be my crappy Vostro 1500 with the Ricoh controller that's causing the distortion, if everything works out well on the Vaio. I'll post an update tomorrow.

I'm now convinced that the distortion is caused by the high DPC latency in the Vostro 1500; the Fireface 400 isn't at fault since it works perfectly on the Vaio SZ. In order for playback/recording to be glitch/pop-free on the Vaio using a 96 or 128 buffer size, however, it needed to be tweaked using the methods I mentioned previously and intelppm had to be disabled, causing the CPU and fan (increasing noise) to run at full speed all the time. The sound glitches and DPC rises significantly only when downloading at high speeds or removing/inserting the power plug.

This is the dpc result of the vaio sz after it's been tweaked, which has XP SP3 similar to the Vostro 1500. The Vostro 1500 ranges at 300 to 500 ?s using the same tweaks.

To everyone else who has the same problem, check your dpc latencies. If you don't have similar low, stable results as what's in the screenshot after doing all the tweaks, nothing can be done other than replacing hardware.

tem cerca de 1 ano e meio...2 anos...
ja trabalhei num pc com a ff40...e deu sem problemas

tal como no mac...sempre funcionou na perfeicao...

n percebo mm o pk deste piiiiiiiiiiiiii...tira-te mm o animo td kd tas com ideias e a trabalhar na musica, pk tenho ke desligar td...desligar o logic e voltar a ligar...

n acredito ke seja do mac em si...pk sempre deu...2 anos a bombar cm deve ser e agora variou...

deve ser kk definicao que n estou a ver...

tanto n e do mac ke tenho outro mac mais fraco so com 1 giga de memoria ram (o com ke trabalho tem 4gb e ? 2.1ghz) e o outro ? um  2.0ghz com 1 giga de ram...e da na boa no mac fraco lolol...

sera alguma conflito entre a placa da audio 8dj k uso para tocar so com o traktor?

ja tou mm a deitar fumo da cabe?a pk n chego a conclusao nenhuma...nem tou a ver solucao pra isto...e aki entre nos ja que ninguem nos entende...os gajos da rme, tb n dao suporte nenhum...ja lhes enviei alguns mails...e nc me responderam...

abra?os

Quanto aos mails que mandaste ? malta da RME, a melhor maneira para chegar a eles ? por aqui no forum. Eles andam aqui todos os dias. Eles n?o te d?o ajuda, porque n?o ? stress da placa. Se fosse, daqui a 2 dias tinhas um firmware novo.
A s?rio, h? muitos posts a falarem desse problema e ? sempre derivado a algum software ou m? configura??o que causa o beep.
Tenta fazer o b?sico no mac que ? ir ao utilit?rio do disco e fazer reparar permiss?es.
Outra cena, se queres que a malta se debruce sobre o assunto, s? espec?fico no teu setup. S? assim ? que as cabe?as podem funcionar e tentar resolver o problema.

Cheers!

moi j'avais des beep courts de niveaux differents et qui arrivaient de manière aléatoire. j'ai changé la prise , j'ai branché le cablé firewire dans la seconde prise donc ... et pareil au niveau de l'ordinateur. j'ai mis les pilotes à jour, j'ai redémarré l'ordinateur. et pour l'instant le probleme a disparu.

je parle d'un probleme de beep  court et non d'un son long comme beeeeeeeep

Hi,
I'm using the FF400 (FW 1.70) with an Vaio S13M1E, Win 7 32bit and Ricoh FW. I also have this saw-sound once in a while and cannot figure out why it happens. I use the latest rme drivers (3.047) and the legacy FW-driver and optimized my system for audio like deactivation WLAN and configured my onw powermanagement profile for best performance. I just can say everything works fine also with 96 samples without glitches/clicks and then after some hours, sometimes after a few minutes, sometimes not, I got this saw noise and there is no other way than to disconnect FW400 to get this noise stopped. Reconnecting the FW400 doesn't work, the red host light remains on. Also turning of and on the FF400 has no effect. When I click on the rme symbol in the tray I sometimes get the message from the rme driver "This driver version requires at least Firmware revision 2.77"... 2.77 is only for FF800. Only way is to reboot.
I already flashed the latest Firmware for FF400 again, reinstalled FW driver and rme driver....
It happend/happens in Cubase Studio 4.5 but also with Windows Media Player.
Biggest problem is, that I need my Laptop live on stage and also for live recordings. In my last recording job I missed the first song because of this, stupid. On stage I'm working with Ableton 8 and until now I was lucky but I'm afraid of using it on stage in the future.
The rme support didn't respond yet....it's now 2 weeks ago.
Any tips for me?
Thanks!

Same VERY high saw noise here. Several people are having this same issue and RME obviously doesn't care enough about their customers AND their health. When you purchase gear that expensive you want it to be safe and working. I am getting nothing but trouble and i don't want to end up with a trauma. I am 100 % with you to participate on that report. If RME doesn't solve this problem people are going to know all over the internet.