• Registered: 2012-05-01
  • Posts: 2

Topic: New Fireface UFX installation - no sound on Windows Server 2008 R2 x64

Hi, I've just purchased a new Fireface UFX for my workstation. I run Windows Server 2008 R2 x64 because I've got 4 physical AMD x64 dual-core Opteron processors -- Windows 7 x64 only permits use of 2 physical processors. I've got 32 GB of system RAM, lots of hard drive space. The motherboard is a Uniwide 3546 (yes, I know they're out of business) with the following controller chips: NVIDIA® nForceTM Professional 2200, AMD-8132TM PCI-X 2.0 Tunnel, NVIDIA® nForceTM Professional 2050 (3546VA-01), Winbond Super I/O chip. My USB connection to the Fireface UFX is via Sonnet Allegro USB2-E PCIe card. I have a few USB devices hooked up to the card, all low or controllable data rates like keyboard, mouse and flash card reader.

The first thing I did, after unpacking the Fireface UFX was to download and install the latest drivers (V1.019 dated 01/17/2012) and the latest Flash update tools (UFX: 352/148/341 dated 02/06/2012). I plugged the USB cable into the UFX, and installed the drivers properly. The Device Manager showed RME Fireface UFX under Sound, Video and game Controllers. I updated the Fireface firmware with the Flash update tool, no problems there either. I then power cycled the Fireface, restarted my computer, and started testing.

I attached cables to outputs 1 & 2 -- they go to my active/powered Alesis M1 mk2 monitors. I've got headphones plugged into outputs 9/10.

As a sanity check I set my default audio output device to "Speakers/RME Fireface UFX." I got no sound output from the right-click TEST function in the Windows Sound/Playback panel for "Speakers/RME Fireface UFX." In fact, the really strange thing is that the Test playback did not run to completion. I had to select STOP TEST to terminate the test. The little sound level meters in the Windows Sound/Playback panel didn't show any signal level.

I thought this was very odd. Next step, plug a music device into AN 1 on the back of the UFX and check if I can hear anything on the speakers. I popped up TotalMix and assigned AN 1 to MAIN, and lovely music came out of my speakers. This confirms that my speakers are working and that the Fireface UFX was mixing/routing and otherwise correctly manipulating the audio.

So I downloaded ASIO Test Signal Generator (from http://www.tropicalcoder.com/ASIOTestSigGen.htm) and tried using it to generate some sounds to ASIO Fireface USB, and I set it to output to AN 1/AN 2. The log file from that software says, in part:

-----------------------------------
Using: Analog 1 (1) / Analog 2 (1)
dwBufferSizeBytes: 4096
OK - we are now playing silence.
Going to sleep for 500 ms to see if count_buffers_played increments
dwCountBuffers: 0
Hmmm... No buffers played. Now what are we going to do?
-----------------------------------------------------------

This seems to indicate that ASIO data is NOT being sent to the UFX.

Has anyone got suggestions for what I should do next?

Is there something terribly simple that I've missed? If you want to tell me to RTFM I will, but I have done some of that already. I admit I haven't read the whole thing but I do think I've read everything to do with installation and configuration and everything seems to be done correctly. That normally means I've done something really blindingly stupid. :-)

Any pointers to other threads that deal with this issue, or offline help, will also be appreciated.

Thank you for your attention.

Sincerely,

--michael

2 Reply by MC

  • MC
  • MC
  • Administrator
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  • From: Germany/Thailand
  • Registered: 2007-04-06
  • Posts: 25,600

Re: New Fireface UFX installation - no sound on Windows Server 2008 R2 x64

If you can set the analog outs 1/2 as Speaker main outputs in Windows control panel, then play something with the Media Player, check what sample rate is currently set in the card's settings dialog and check if you see level meters in TotalMix.

Also you can use DIGICheck to check ASIO input function.

In the end your system might just be incompatible, as it is really unusual, and you are right, there is not so much one can do wrong. The test sounds not playing is already a bad sign of interrupted USB bus communication.

Regards
Matthias Carstens
RME

MC's Website

  • From: Stockholm, Sweden
  • Registered: 2007-10-22
  • Posts: 84

Re: New Fireface UFX installation - no sound on Windows Server 2008 R2 x64

Have you installed the service "Windows Audio"? I remember from using Server 2008 as a workstation, I had to install a couple of services to get it working like Vista.

Mats Helgesson
http://www.livingsound.se

MatsHelgesson's Website

  • Registered: 2012-05-01
  • Posts: 2

Re: New Fireface UFX installation - no sound on Windows Server 2008 R2 x64

Mats, I checked, and Windows Audio is installed and running.

Thanks Matthias for your response. I loaded up DIGICheck, and ASIO input seems to be working with DIGIcheck. I hooked up the same audio input (Yamaha Tenori-on) to AN1/2 and DIGICheck shows metered input signal bouncing along in perfect synchronization with the Tenori-on's sound routing through the UFX and coming out of my speakers.

I did also try using a Windows audio recorder. For example, Audacity is unable to record anything from AN 1/2; when I start recording it sits at 0:00 and does not appear to get any input samples at all. (Yes, I closed DIGICheck before trying that, and I'm running the absolute latest version of Audacity.)

Is it important to report that I was replacing my MOTU 828mk3 Hybrid with the UFX, and that I haven't yet gone in to completely remove all the MOTU drivers and software?

It feels like the installation is ALMOST good and that there might be a simple solution to my problem that will unlock all the goodness of RME audio for me. Every other USB device (DVD-rom drive, external hard drive, even the MOTU 828mk3 Hybrid) that I've hooked up to this same USB controller has worked flawlessly. I can't believe that it's a hardware issue.

I've got great hardware/software/firmware debugging skills (13 years at RIM from the very beginning in 1985) so I could dig right down to the driver level to figure this out if I got some pointers on what to look for. I can even install the complete MS development environment and step through the code if that's what it takes!

--michael