• Registered: 2010-11-27
  • Posts: 53

Re: Problems with Fireface 800 & Sony Vaio laptop win7 / i5 / 64bit

Hmm, I couldn't install the driver.. I get an error message saying something like "The NVIDIA installation program couldn't find any drivers that are compatible with your current hardware. The installation program will be cancelled."

On top of the screen it says Windows Vista 64 bit. But on the link (see above) it said that the driver was for both Vista and win7.. I don't know if that has got to do with anything though. In the cab file there were 10 exe files, and it was the setup.exe that didn't work. I guess that's the one I have to install right? Other setup files are: NvCplSetup.exe, nviewsetup.exe, UpdatusSetup.exe and dbInstaller.exe.

I'm still confused wether I downloaded the correct driver or not, but if you say so I trust you. What's the PhysX drivers you're talking about? I don't know much about computer graphics, and even less about drivers for it..

  • Registered: 2010-11-27
  • Posts: 53

Re: Problems with Fireface 800 & Sony Vaio laptop win7 / i5 / 64bit

Allright, so I read about PhysX and I guess that the problem doesn't lye there, but rather:

"Notebooks supporting Hybrid Power technology with Intel chipsets are not supported by this release.
The following Sony VAIO notebooks are supported: Sony VAIO F Series with NVIDIA GeForce 310M, NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M and NVIDIA GeForce GT 425M. Other Sony VAIO notebooks are not supported at this time (please contact Sony for driver support)."

That just sucks. I just have to work with the stamina switch on for a while longer then.. sad

  • Registered: 2008-06-21
  • Posts: 22

Re: Problems with Fireface 800 & Sony Vaio laptop win7 / i5 / 64bit

Resurrecting an old thread, but just wanted to share my experience with a Vaio and say a big thanks to Timur whose advise in this thread really helped...

I have a Sony Vaio Z51 and had been trying to weeks to get it to work with FF400, disabling everything, looking for different drivers etc, really amazingly frustrating and time consuming, but nothing, always crackles and mixture of high DPC spikes...  I was just about to get rid of the laptop and look for other options

The 2 things that really made a difference that I wanted to share...

1. Change from rioch driver to the regular windows IEEE1394 driver (non legacy)
2. I ran PowerMiizer Manager which reported that the registry settings for PowerMizer were incomplete, so pressed delete then recreated them.. (also using speed instead of stamina on the Vaio)

And now, it all works well, low buffer setting on the FF400 giving me a low 5ms latency, consistent DPC latency (around 350), no spikes, clean audio...

  • Registered: 2010-11-27
  • Posts: 53

Re: Problems with Fireface 800 & Sony Vaio laptop win7 / i5 / 64bit

Now, that's interesting. I've allready given up on this, so I'm always working with the stamina button and occational high spikes and image freezes.. Which really sucks. I will try these things tonight when I get to the studio! Thank you.

  • Registered: 2008-06-21
  • Posts: 22

Re: Problems with Fireface 800 & Sony Vaio laptop win7 / i5 / 64bit

hi mrpony,

how did u get on? I'm interested to know if it helped sort your problems?

  • Registered: 2010-11-27
  • Posts: 53

Re: Problems with Fireface 800 & Sony Vaio laptop win7 / i5 / 64bit

Thank you very much for your concern Wheelie, nice of you to ask!
I had to change my plans, so I couldn't go to the studio. And I haven't had time to do this until now. So I'll try it tonight. I'll get back with the results!

  • Registered: 2010-11-27
  • Posts: 53

Re: Problems with Fireface 800 & Sony Vaio laptop win7 / i5 / 64bit

Nope, no luck. I've tried different settings (fixed performance mode) in Powermizer manager but I get spikes around 2000ms anyway. I've tried all the settings with the same result. I've tried it both with the FF800 and the internal soundcard (FF800 disconnected). 4:th sentence beginning with "I've": I've also tried to delete the settings and recreated them, but nothing. At one or two points, I enabled the overheat slowdown override but I don't get any good vibes from that so I disabled it again.

Ok, so now I tried another thing I've tried before that did'nt work (that Timur came up with earlier in this thread). I opened up the nVidia settings and paused the rotating 3D-symbol, and all of the sudden it works! No spikes what so ever. As fast as I close the settings window the spikes come back. I know now not to take out anything in advance, so I will not shout happily yet, but it's kinda swell that it works. I'm not in the studio now, so I'm only trying this with the internal soundcard, without an external monitor, but it use to be the same results as with the FF800.. I get ONE spike when I start up Cubase, but other than that it seems to work. Can't wait to try this when recording with my real setup.

Timur, did you ever continue with this trick or did you "put it on the shelf"? IF this works with my real setup and heavier CPU loads, it'll be cool. I guess I could live with opening the nVidia settings each time I start the computer, allthough it's extremely weird.

  • Registered: 2008-01-01
  • Posts: 3,025

Re: Problems with Fireface 800 & Sony Vaio laptop win7 / i5 / 64bit

Here is what I wrote in September 2011 on the Nvidia forum:

"The NVidia control panel workaround has nothing to do with the 2D/3D mode. If you read my original posts on page 23 you will notice that it's an *additional* workaround to fixing 2D/3D mode via Powermizer Manager. You can fix the GPU at full power 3D and may still need the workaround, it all depends on the card/driver combination.

Also there are other way to achieve this, like the Media Player Classic/VLC drawing I described on page 23, but using NVidia control panel is the least awkward of the awkward workarounds. Especially because you can have it run minimized and still benefit from the effect.

Personally I prefer the Registry entry I listed earlier, and/or using the Microsoft published v261 driver (which uses the very same Registry entry, but it seems to have slightly different effects on different driver/gpu versions).

Overall it's a mess and I am glad that I don't have to deal with it anymore since Apple changed to ATI. I offered plenty of help, logs, analysis, workarounds and whatnot over the course of 2.5 years. But NVidia still could neither fix the drivers nor even got back to me after I provided the logs they asked me for. Because of these ongoing issues the professional audio niche has moved away from NVidia lately. Laptop users are not so lucky unless they buy a new laptop."

You may notice that I mention a "Registry entry" I came up with. Add this to your Registry and restart:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\ Class\{4D36E968-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\0000]
"RmPowerFeature"=dword:00000050

If this doesn't help, try a value of 40 instead of 50 and also try to combine the registry hack with PowerMizer Manager to fix the 2d/3d mode.

  • Registered: 2010-11-27
  • Posts: 53

Re: Problems with Fireface 800 & Sony Vaio laptop win7 / i5 / 64bit

I knew I shouldn't have taken out anything in advance, which I didn't.

The solution with the nVidia control panel worked with the internal sound card (which it's workable when you just want to bring your laptop to other places and mix a bit), but not very well with the FF800. I didn't get any spikes, but the fan started to work extremely much and underneath the laptop it got really HOT. Not a very stable solution.. Also, the CPU (asio level) in Cubase fluxuated a lot, which it didn't do with the internal card (and doesn't with the stamina button).

Yeah, I got angry, red spikes as fast as I turned off Cubase, allthough I had the 3D thing on pause!

Would adding the entry to the registry help at all or would I get the exact same problems?

60 Reply by Timur Born (edited by Timur Born 2012-03-02 10:06:23)

  • Registered: 2008-01-01
  • Posts: 3,025

Re: Problems with Fireface 800 & Sony Vaio laptop win7 / i5 / 64bit

The Registry entry does a whole different thing compared to the Control Panel trick. The CP trick keeps the driver/GPU from saving power, the Registry entry tells the driver/GPU to save power "differently".

At the moment the best way to deal with NVidia mobile drivers is first to try the Registry entry (first 50, then 40) with current NVidia drivers. And if that does not work then try the v261 Quadro driver via modified INF file (which will include the Registry entry, too, that's where I found it after a lot of searching for differences with other drivers).