• Registered: 2012-01-13
  • Posts: 5

Topic: PCI+Multiface 2 random start up issue (red host+midi leds light on)

Hi there,
it's been a month that i am experiencing a random (horribly painful) issue :  when launching my workstation (Win 7 64 bits + HDSPe PCI rev 1.1 + MFII box + UAD 2 solo),

   1. if i'm a lucky boy red Host led (under digital state on front panel of the MFII box) AND Midi leds (IN and OUT) lights off as soon as i enter my windows session, so i can work for hours with the stability i was looking for buying German RME products !

   2. if i'm not under the star red Host led AND Midi leds (IN and OUT) lights off ... when they want ! Either few seconds later, or even many loooong minutes later.
   During this time Mixer and Set up panels are not accessible (Error #4 as far as i can remember) and of course no playback possible. 
   If speakers plugged : i can hear a littlle plop sound when the leds lights off. And then i can work normally. 

Note that my workstation (fresh install, not connected to the internet) was fully fonctionnal with this setup since 5 months, so :

   1. i tried different flavors of firewire cables
   2. i do run last version of driver 3.27 (i had much hope with this one) and fut 1.8
   3. my pci card : HDSPe PCI rev 1.1 S/N 22695635 & my MF2 box : S/N 22605360
   4. no errors or yellow mark in windows device manager
   5. red host led is constantly on during workstation boot up time
   6. i tried powering up the MFII box (red host led is constantly on. Last time i shut computer down while red host + midi leds were on, they kept shining even when computer was off. Due to the power plug still connected i guess)
   7. i tried different PCI slots
   8. i tried to update windows (SP1 and lots of KBXXXXXX, no success)
   9. of course when the problem occured a month ago, i did nothing special on my workstation (no update ...) before it happened

Any suggestions? Because i do not know what to do next...
In my humble opinion, it seems to be hardware related.
No fun sad really !
The box or the PCI card?
Both? Damned!
I'd like to try a new PCI card, but it's not free !
Please suggest something,

Best regards,
Geoffroy.

  • From: Karlsruhe
  • Registered: 2011-12-16
  • Posts: 9

Re: PCI+Multiface 2 random start up issue (red host+midi leds light on)

Hi Geoffrey,

i'm having a very similar problem. Sadly, noone seems to have an answer. I believe if something is indeed broken, it should be the PCI card (I'm guessing yours is PCI Express ?) I thought it might be the contacts of the card, but I cleaned them and the problem actually got worse. So either my cable is too long - this is the only thing I could test but haven't yet due to lack of another cable. Or the card is really broken, or incompatible with my motherboard which sadly seems more and more probable to me.

I'd be very thankful if the RME people could take a stand as to what we're dealing with here, 'cause I don't have any idea what to do next and don't want to spend lots of money not knowig if it helps or not.

regards,
mo

SlowMo's Website

  • Registered: 2012-01-13
  • Posts: 5

Re: PCI+Multiface 2 random start up issue (red host+midi leds light on)

Yep this is a PCiExpress Card.
Thanks for your post.
I sent the same "thread" to RME support and they answered to first test my multifaceII + PciExpress Card in another computer, but i can't for the moment.
So the next answer was to send them back my Multiface. Without having an idea of what would be the costs ...
So i am stuck with my almost functionnal RME system.

Quite desabused indeed.
I thought i did first choice but ...

  • Registered: 2012-01-13
  • Posts: 5

Re: PCI+Multiface 2 random start up issue (red host+midi leds light on)

Here is an extract of the dialog with RME support where the word "damage" was actually mentionned:

" > what would be the costs?
That would depend on the actual damage... "

Too bad (for me) I guess.

  • From: Karlsruhe
  • Registered: 2011-12-16
  • Posts: 9

Re: PCI+Multiface 2 random start up issue (red host+midi leds light on)

Oh well... 0_o

I don't know too much about the similarities and differences of PCI vs. PCI Express, so our problems might not be related after all.
BUT we're using the same OS and are experiencing similar results. I've got a winXP install on the same machine in which the card seemed to work, but I've never really used this OS that much since I installed the card and I don't want to because I got it to be able to change to win7 in the first place. I'll give it a try for troubleshooting though.

so my suspictions for possible causes are:
-win7 64
-hardware incompatibility with mainboard (PCI is becoming more and more obsolete, implementation might not be up to required specs)
-hardware defect on the card

Patterns in the randomness:
-On a fresh boot, when the machine hasn't been on for hours, the propability for non working HDSP is high, if I shut down and boot again though most likely it will work.
-If I enable the onboard sound, problems get worse.

I don't think it's the Multiface because it works as it should, if the card isn't recognised, it's not even present in the device manager, I don't think a faulty Multiface should cause this, not entirely sure though...
I think you should try a different computer (maybe a friend's ...) this is what I 'll do if the issue doesn't miraculously dissolve into thin air.

SlowMo's Website

  • Registered: 2012-01-13
  • Posts: 5

Re: PCI+Multiface 2 random start up issue (red host+midi leds light on)

So here are my last 50 cents.
I had an idea : we are in winter and i have trouble since temperatures get down. My home studio is about at 14°C when i start my system after coming back from work.
It's been 5 or 6 times i start my system ONCE  I HEAT MY SOUND CARD WITH A HAIR DRYER (about a little minute at 25cm and at first heating setting). The surface of the multiface get warm, not much than 30 to 35°C i think.
And that works...
So...

  • From: Karlsruhe
  • Registered: 2011-12-16
  • Posts: 9

Re: PCI+Multiface 2 random start up issue (red host+midi leds light on)

Hi Geoffrey,


yep, that thought occurred to me too. But I never could establish any connection between my room temp and the "randomness". In fact I just came home from a weekend at my girlfriend's, and the thermometer in my room showed barely 12°C, it booted up fine though. IMO anything above 5°C should be just fine. (user manual says 5°-50°C) So maybe there really is a minor problem in your multiface.

In the meantime, I discovered that in my case it's in fact the card that was not being recognized. After disabling "Quick Boot", I can see whether or not the card is being correctly recognized even before the OS loads. Yeah right -WAS not being recognized, because I recently changed one more of those "Auto disable gibberish feature i've never heard of" in the BIOS to disabled (so it deosn't auto disable whatever) and haven't had any non recognized boots since. I can't trust the newly found peace just yet, but i'm holding my fingers crossed. smile


glad to hear that you too have found a workable solution to your problem.
regards, Mo

SlowMo's Website

  • Registered: 2012-01-13
  • Posts: 5

Re: PCI+Multiface 2 random start up issue (red host+midi leds light on)

Ok, I'll keep an eye on your Bios trick too.
And yeah that's the word for our thread : tricky wink
Finger crossed !

Have a nice day.

9 Reply by mr.r (edited by mr.r 2012-02-22 21:36:32)

  • mr.r
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  • Registered: 2008-02-11
  • Posts: 71

Re: PCI+Multiface 2 random start up issue (red host+midi leds light on)

SlowMo wrote:

Hi Geoffrey,


yep, that thought occurred to me too. But I never could establish any connection between my room temp and the "randomness". In fact I just came home from a weekend at my girlfriend's, and the thermometer in my room showed barely 12°C, it booted up fine though. IMO anything above 5°C should be just fine. (user manual says 5°-50°C) So maybe there really is a minor problem in your multiface.

In the meantime, I discovered that in my case it's in fact the card that was not being recognized. After disabling "Quick Boot", I can see whether or not the card is being correctly recognized even before the OS loads. Yeah right -WAS not being recognized, because I recently changed one more of those "Auto disable gibberish feature i've never heard of" in the BIOS to disabled (so it deosn't auto disable whatever) and haven't had any non recognized boots since. I can't trust the newly found peace just yet, but i'm holding my fingers crossed. smile


glad to hear that you too have found a workable solution to your problem.
regards, Mo

I have a similar problem and so I'm very curious what BIOS settings have you changed? I would be very thankful for the info.
I did a BIOS reset some time before the problem starts, so I sound reasonable that it's a bios problem too in my case.



best regards

  • From: Karlsruhe
  • Registered: 2011-12-16
  • Posts: 9

Re: PCI+Multiface 2 random start up issue (red host+midi leds light on)

umm well, the setting i had changed (alongside with resetting the BIOS to Failsafe defaults) was "Auto Disable Dram/PCI Frequency", which is supposed to solve certain overclocking problems. However, after having it up and working, I obviously had to start poking around again, (wanted to use S3 sleep state) and it got messed up again. I'm back to where I started. :'(
Maybe will try a BIOS update soon.

SlowMo's Website

11 Reply by mr.r (edited by mr.r 2012-02-23 17:35:54)

  • mr.r
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  • Registered: 2008-02-11
  • Posts: 71

Re: PCI+Multiface 2 random start up issue (red host+midi leds light on)

Thanks, and that's interesting. I played around with the S states too (want a proper suspend to ram mode), but I cant remember if it was at the same time the MF had the first error. But I guess that could be a hint.

Are you sure that you can't change the settings back? Since played the the S states there shouldn't be too much options?

  • From: Karlsruhe
  • Registered: 2011-12-16
  • Posts: 9

Re: PCI+Multiface 2 random start up issue (red host+midi leds light on)

mr.r wrote:

Are you sure that you can't change the settings back? Since played the the S states there shouldn't be too much options?

you should think so, but that's exactly what I did, yet the random startup issue persists. sad

SlowMo's Website

13 Reply by mr.r (edited by mr.r 2012-02-28 18:00:50)

  • mr.r
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  • Registered: 2008-02-11
  • Posts: 71

Re: PCI+Multiface 2 random start up issue (red host+midi leds light on)

I did a complete BIOS reset and a OS reinstallation, I did not have any problem since some days. Hope the problem is fixed here. What mainboard do you have?

  • mr.r
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  • Registered: 2008-02-11
  • Posts: 71

Re: PCI+Multiface 2 random start up issue (red host+midi leds light on)

I had the disconnect again today. just another idea, maybe it's related to the 3.27/3.26 driver? the problem starts not much after I updated the driver from 3.24 to 3.26. slowmo, which driver did you test?
too bad that I don't have the 3.24 driver any more. is there a possibility to download the old 3.24 driver here? I didn't find anything on the RME page.

  • From: Karlsruhe
  • Registered: 2011-12-16
  • Posts: 9

Re: PCI+Multiface 2 random start up issue (red host+midi leds light on)

Well, in my case I'm 100% sure it is a hardware issue, I can see if the card is being recognised or not on the bootup screen, no drivers involved yet. The mainboard is an MSI 785G-E53. (detailed description of my system and problems can be found here )

Old driver - hmm, i'd ask the official rme support, they'll know and will most likely help.

SlowMo's Website

  • From: Karlsruhe
  • Registered: 2011-12-16
  • Posts: 9

Re: PCI+Multiface 2 random start up issue (red host+midi leds light on)

hey mr.r,

which version of the card do you have ? PCI or PCIe? which revision ?
does it get recognised during bootup? (should appear as "Multimedia Device" with the number of the pci-slot it is installed in and the IRQ it has been assigned with). Apparently, there is a power issue with the older PCI-cards (rev1.5 and below) that can cause the card to hang up and in consequence not being recognised in the bios. there's a mod to fix that (usually to be executed by professionals of course) that can be found here unfortunately in german, idk if there's an english version of that site.

if it's not the card, but the multiface that's causing trouble, I suggest trying another cable or powering the MF externally.

SlowMo's Website