• Registered: 2010-12-03
  • Posts: 4

Topic: FF800 Windows 7 Boot Problem

I have recently installed Windows 7 (Pro, 32-bit).  Everything is working well, except for a strange boot up problem that seems to be related to the FF800. I have the latest FF800 firmware and drivers installed.

When Windows starts, the speaker icon has a red x on it and the following error notice pops up:

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Failed to connect to a windows service

Windows could not connect to the System Event Notification Service service. The problem prevents standard users from logging on to the system.
As an administrative user, you can review the System Event log for details about why the system didn't respond.

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If I mouseover the speaker icon, I get a pop up that says "The audio service is not running."

At that point, if I click the speaker icon, a troubleshooter pops up to start the audio. It runs for a while and then lets me select from the following choices:

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[] Speakers   RME Fireface 800
    No jack information available

[] Analog 9+10  RME Fireface 800
    No jack information available

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(When I initially installed the drivers, I selected 9+10 as the outputs for general Windows audio. I believe that "Speakers" here is referring to outputs 1+2)

I can click either one of those options and the troubleshooter runs for a few more seconds and then announces that the audio is fixed, and it is, but only for this session.

When I reboot, this whole process repeats.

It isn't a super-critical hardship because Windows fixes the problem every time. It is a little annoying though. Do you have any insights on what might be causing the problem? (Yes, I looked at the System Event Log, or what I believed was the System Event Log. Nothing there makes any sense to me...!)

Thanks!

  • Jeff
  • Jeff
  • Moderator
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  • From: USA
  • Registered: 2007-05-21
  • Posts: 4,667

Re: FF800 Windows 7 Boot Problem

Never heard this one before. It might help to know if it works as expected under a different user account.

Regards,
Jeff Petersen
Synthax Inc.

Jeff's Website

  • Registered: 2010-12-03
  • Posts: 4

Re: FF800 Windows 7 Boot Problem

Thanks for the reply, Jeff. You may not remember helping me get my FF repaired awhile back, but thanks again for your help on that.

I don't know what you mean about how it might work under a different user account. There is only one account on my system?

Anyway, I got some more details from the troubleshooter. The Windows Audio service was not starting on bootup. I checked--all of its settings were correct and all of its dependencies were starting fine. So, something was preventing it from starting but I don't know what. I discovered that I could start my audio services after bootup by pulling up services.msc and starting that service, rather than use the troubleshooter.

I did some random and pointless attempts at a fix, including a motherboard CMOS reset at one point.

As of this moment, I'm still getting the "Failed to connect to a Windows Service" message, but now the audio seems to be running correctly at bootup! I hope that continues. This suggests to me that the RME driver or software may not be the heart of the problem (more likely a victim of it).

If there are any other services that are affected by this, I haven't identified them yet. Since everything seems to be working (despite the error message), I don't know if I want to screw around with the system too much more!

Thanks again.

  • Registered: 2010-12-03
  • Posts: 4

Re: FF800 Windows 7 Boot Problem

Sigh. As soon as I made a little change to my system (installed a VST), the problem returned--error message, Windows Audio service refusing to start, then I have to kickstart it myself after boot. I wish I could tell if this is related to the RME driver or not, but I'm still guessing no. Going to go find a Windows tech forum and see if someone will help me troubleshoot this.

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

Re: FF800 Windows 7 Boot Problem

Does it matter which sound interface is set as Windows default output/input (onboard vs. Fireface)?

  • Registered: 2010-12-03
  • Posts: 4

Re: FF800 Windows 7 Boot Problem

Oh, what a long, strange trip this has been.

I've dealt with a lot of computer problems since I built my first PC (a rockin' 286!) years ago but this one is the weirdest. 

Because of its randomness, I'm 98% sure its some hardware thing.

The short answer to your question, Timur, is "I don't know," because I never enabled the motherboard audio.

Anyways, I disconnected ALL external stuff to see if I could track down a driver issue that might be causing the error. The "couldn't connect to a service" persisted with everything disconnected. So, it just can't be the RME driver because it was never engaged.

Then I suddenly started getting a BSOD, which is nice. I made a Bart's PE to try to boot independently into my system and got the same BSOD. A little research suggested that my MB may be having trouble accessing the drives in AHCI mode, so I switched back to IDE. Voila! I could reboot back to Windows as before. (But why did it suddenly develop that problem?).

Of course, I'm still getting the "couldn't connect to a service" message but for now the audio service is running on boot up and everything else seems perfectly normal.

I figure the best thing to do at this point is keep making music and hope the system fixes that little problem automagically or breaks completely and forces me to do a major upgrade!