Topic: Madiface not recognized.

Hello, I need help.
Madiface (and Micstasy) is arrived today at my home.
I've try with 2 PC notebook, buy Madiface is not recognized.
I inserte madiface (with breakout box connected) in the pci express card slot but Win dont's see the card.
I've try with a Siemens Fujitsu under WIN Vista and with a HP DV6 series under Win7 64 bit.
With a Mac Book is recognized in 1 second.

Re: Madiface not recognized.

You read this? http://www.rme-audio.de/forum/viewtopic.php?id=7348

best regards
Knut

Re: Madiface not recognized.

Yes, but never  yellow warning symbol. Card is not detected. I can install drivers, windows don't see the card.

Re: Madiface not recognized.

The ExpressCard slot of your notebook is probably broken or not detected (missing drivers).

best regard
Knut

Re: Madiface not recognized.

roll

Re: Madiface not recognized.

Can you test it with an 3rd party ExpressCard (FireWire, USB ...)?

best regards
Knut

7 (edited by GIACOMO-_ 2011-09-14 11:25:03)

Re: Madiface not recognized.

Yes, I've insert a normal express card (firewire), and it recognized.

Maybe is energy safe ? Power menagement ? I can try.

Im in allarm because I've buy a DELL Vostro 3750 (will arriving 24th September).:( Im worring, troubling, I hope that with Dell it working.

8

Re: Madiface not recognized.

Dell? Don't get me started.... fryingpan

Regards
Matthias Carstens
RME

Re: Madiface not recognized.

Start, start. :-)

Dont work, Dell ?:-O

Re: Madiface not recognized.

I've disable power save card reader on bios and work in the HP notebook. In two HP (xp AND 7) working very well.

I'm waiting my Dell.

Re: Madiface not recognized.

MC has very bad experience with his dell notebook(s). You can search the forum for the postings.

best regards
Knut

12 (edited by GIACOMO-_ 2011-09-15 12:11:31)

Re: Madiface not recognized.

Ok, today is arrived my DELL. (fast shipping).

Madiface is recognized, drivers install ok, dialog setting is ok but when I open totalmix freeze, death sistem, mouse blocked. I can only power off the notebook.

ed:

I've disable power saving in win7, but BIOS don't has power settings.

Any suggestion ?

Re: Madiface not recognized.

return it?

Regards,
Jeff Petersen
Synthax Inc.

Re: Madiface not recognized.

Hi Giacomo,
Have you optimized Windows 7 since you received the laptop back from Dell?
If it is Dell's original OS install there are probably all kinds of backs software running.
Sometimes have their own custom power management utilities running.
With your  system locking up and slowing down USB devices i.e., mouse and or track pad then there is probably some driver or software conflict happening.
The first thing I would try is to go device manager and disable your display adapter.
This will load the generic Standard VGA driver instead of the proprietary driver of the video card.
If the behavior goes away or improves then it could video driver related.

Other devices I would try disabling are the both the Wired and WIFI network adapters, card reader and bluetooth.

Thanks Chris

Chris Ludwig
North East USA Sales | Synthax/RME
www.facebook.com/RMEAmericas
Twitter @RMEAmericas

Re: Madiface not recognized.

DELL dont return and refound professional user, but only domestic user. Tomorrow im waiting a Dell technical assistent at my house for "repair" laptop. roll

Maybe he change notherboard or express card slot.

HeadScratch

Bad story. Very bad story.

Re: Madiface not recognized.

ChrisLudwig wrote:

Hi Giacomo,
Have you optimized Windows 7 since you received the laptop back from Dell?
If it is Dell's original OS install there are probably all kinds of backs software running.
Sometimes have their own custom power management utilities running.
With your  system locking up and slowing down USB devices i.e., mouse and or track pad then there is probably some driver or software conflict happening.
The first thing I would try is to go device manager and disable your display adapter.
This will load the generic Standard VGA driver instead of the proprietary driver of the video card.
If the behavior goes away or improves then it could video driver related.

Other devices I would try disabling are the both the Wired and WIFI network adapters, card reader and bluetooth.

Thanks Chris

Hi Chris, I've try to disable from bios, many device as webcam, mic, etc...

And power management in WIN7 set all at "never" and "express card" set at "never" too.

I can try to disable video card drivers; is an itegrated intel video card.

Laptop is blocked, but I extract madiface it working perfcley. With madiface not work. Blocked.

Re: Madiface not recognized.

What about other Expresscards?


Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

Re: Madiface not recognized.

I dont't know, Idon't have another expressrd,  tomorrow I will write some news.

I've set display card at 16bit color and deactivate background programs at startup (from administrator panel) but still dont' working.

Re: Madiface not recognized.

Yesterday you said you had a FW Expresscard....


Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

Re: Madiface not recognized.

Madiface is compatible with WIN7 ?  Exist a WIN7 notebook wich work with Madiface ? Is a question of fortune ?

Re: Madiface not recognized.

HI Giacomo,
From one of your earlier emails you mentioned trying the MADIface on your HP and Samsung. It is unclear from your statement if the MADIface worked fine on those systems. If it did then the issue is purely with your Dell.
You need to confirm that your Dell's express slot works perfectly with other express card devices to rule out there being something wrong with the MADIface express card.
Perhaps the Dell technician will have some device to check this with. There could very well be a compatibility issue with MADIface and possibly other Pro Audio devices. You are the only person I know using that particular Model.

If it turns out that the issue is just with the DELL then you will be able return even if they say you can't. Kick and scream loud enough and they will. In the US you can simply contact your credit card company and have them do it as long as it is within 30 to 45 days of the purchase. Dell should at least be able to exchange the model of another that may work.

Thanks Chris

Chris Ludwig
North East USA Sales | Synthax/RME
www.facebook.com/RMEAmericas
Twitter @RMEAmericas

Re: Madiface not recognized.

ChrisLudwig wrote:

HI Giacomo,
From one of your earlier emails you mentioned trying the MADIface on your HP and Samsung. It is unclear from your statement if the MADIface worked fine on those systems. If it did then the issue is purely with your Dell.
You need to confirm that your Dell's express slot works perfectly with other express card devices to rule out there being something wrong with the MADIface express card.
Perhaps the Dell technician will have some device to check this with. There could very well be a compatibility issue with MADIface and possibly other Pro Audio devices. You are the only person I know using that particular Model.

If it turns out that the issue is just with the DELL then you will be able return even if they say you can't. Kick and scream loud enough and they will. In the US you can simply contact your credit card company and have them do it as long as it is within 30 to 45 days of the purchase. Dell should at least be able to exchange the model of another that may work.

Thanks Chris

NEWS.

I've try a Fujitsu Siemens AMILO PA 3553 with Vista 32 (AMD Turion) and working!
Not freeze, but I must checking it with Samplitube while recording, with 8 tracks.
Tonight I leave Amilo, Madiface and Micstasy power on for testing realiability. If tomorrow morning is not freeze I will test a recording with 8 tracks (micstasy), 8 mic at 192 khz.

Dell engineers will arrive monday, but I not trust wich he can resolve replacing motherbord. Maybe I can try Win XP 64 (dualboot), but I dont know if is a software problem or and hardware problem.

AMILO share IRQ with USB port and onboard soundcard, my DELL share IRQ with many PCI slot. If I deactivate some PCI BUS (in DELL) Madiface is not detect, even if disable another bus. (not the Madiface bus).
Seem that the Siemen's IRQ sharing its more intelligent that DELL.

When Madiface is connect to AMILO the green led is always stable. If is conntect to DELL led blink.

Mistery. HeadScratch

23 (edited by GIACOMO-_ 2011-09-18 18:55:35)

Re: Madiface not recognized.

Mixer working, I've see micstasy channel mic, but Samplitude (and Sonar) not comunicate with it. I've try ASIO and MME, but software don't received micstasy --> madiface signal.

Re: Madiface not recognized.

Ok, Madiface firmware update! Working in AMILO Win Vista 32bit. Samplitude recording.

Re: Madiface not recognized.

And my DELL ? sad

Re: Madiface not recognized.

30 min ago I've try to install Madiface driver in an HP DV6 series, under Win7 64 bit. Working, but WIN7 not is immediate as Vista or XP. Vista (in AMILO) keep madiface power always, while Win7 power Madiface's led after booting.

Both laptops (Siemens AMILO and HP) are with AMD Turion CPU and both share same IRQ with same USB ports.

DELL share IRQ express card with many PCI slot of the chipset (Intel).

This my experiences.

Re: Madiface not recognized.

I've try DELL 3750 under WIN XP 32 Bit. Same problem. Freeze after 3 second.

Never Intel chipset. Maybe Dell change my laptop, and maybe the 3555 with AMD working.

DELL 3555

Stay tuned!

Re: Madiface not recognized.

Dell has sold. I've buy a Fujitsu Lifebook A530. It work with Madiface, when  recognize it. Once a week. When is recognize working very well, but happens very rarely.

Ok, I've sold also Fujitsu.

And Madiface.

cool

Welcome RME HDSPe MADI pci-express !!!!

My opinion: Madiface is not compatibile with modern notebook.
Nightmare is ended.

Re: Madiface not recognized.

ChrisLudwig wrote:

HI Giacomo,
From one of your earlier emails you mentioned trying the MADIface on your HP and Samsung. It is unclear from your statement if the MADIface worked fine on those systems. If it did then the issue is purely with your Dell.
You need to confirm that your Dell's express slot works perfectly with other express card devices to rule out there being something wrong with the MADIface express card.
Perhaps the Dell technician will have some device to check this with. There could very well be a compatibility issue with MADIface and possibly other Pro Audio devices. You are the only person I know using that particular Model.

If it turns out that the issue is just with the DELL then you will be able return even if they say you can't. Kick and scream loud enough and they will. In the US you can simply contact your credit card company and have them do it as long as it is within 30 to 45 days of the purchase. Dell should at least be able to exchange the model of another that may work.

Thanks Chris

I think it was me reporting on HP and Samsung. HP elitebooks worked fine (intel vpro software/drivers had to be removed), but fan noise was really a problem to me. Samsung 600b5b didn't work (computer didn't react anymore until the madiface was removed), though fan noise was good here... I haven't seen a BIOS update on the web for the samsung so far, so I guess they still have these problems.
I am still in search for a notebook compatible with the madiface (and it should have a high resolution, non glare screen). It would be really helpfull if RME could share their experiences here. Maybe I will try lenovo, but some of them seem to have fan issues, too. There is also a new Fujitsu, however, without dedicated graphics card. Is this still considered to be a problem with Intel HD 3000 graphics?

Ulrich

Re: Madiface not recognized.

Hi Ulrich and others,

I picked up a cheap 2nd-hand Lenovo T520 and it works well with the Madiface. I just recorded my school's annual music concert with it (only 8 channel's via a Micstacy, so not sure about larger i/o requirements. I'll try to test this out when I get a chance). What is great is that I could also control the preamp's gain using the RME MidiRemote program, and with the Madi card installed in the Micstacy, I could also send 8 channels back out through the Micstacy's adat ports for the fold-back and PA speakers, each with separate sub-mixes, using TotalMix.

A Madiface setup is an incredibly flexible system when you find a suitable laptop. DPC latency with this particular Lenovo is pretty good (I get one smallish spike every 70 seconds without fail, but it still remains within the green safe region). I did no involved OS tweaking and have not even done a clean OS install, so the Lenovo utilities & bloatware that come with this laptop do not seem to do any harm. I will soon be installing a tiny mSata as my OS boot-drive and will then do a clean OS install, so it will be interesting to see if that makes a difference, however I suspect not much. I have also heard good reports about the Lenovo T420. These Lenovo's both use the newer Intel chipsets and have the necessary express-card slot.

As regards graphics cards, my T520 uses only the on-board Intel HD 3000 graphics, no discrete graphics card. For audio use, I think this is absolutely fine. Discrete graphics cards for simple audio recording are often overkill and a possible source of problems, as the 3rd-party drivers can be the cause of DPC spikes leading to audio glitches. The Lenovo's can be configured with high-res screens, however mine is a lowly 1366x768. As I did not configure it nor buy new I had no choice, but if this is important to you, they are available with high res non-glare screens.

The only bummer with the T520 is the position of the ExpressCard slot, which is on the right hand side, closest to the front of the laptop. As a right-hander used to moving my mouse in this region it is a little frustrating, but hardly a showstopper. Anyway, the Lenovo's may be worth a look. I chanced upon a good 2nd-hand model that was effectively brand-new, and tried it out knowing I could on-sell it quickly if it was not suitable. Luckily it has been fine so far.

Kind regards,
George

Re: Madiface not recognized.

Thanks for reporting, George.

What about the fan noise? Of course this is highly subjective, but maybe you can comment on this a little bit? Thanks a lot!

Regards,
Ulrich

Re: Madiface not recognized.

Hi Ulrich
i have a Lenovo T410 with Nvidia Grafics running with Madiface. There were some nasty DPC spikes, but I could get rid of them by disabling the NVidia Powermizer.
Fan noise can sometimes be a bit loud (I don't know why sometimes the fan is running at high speed, but IMO there would be no need), but there is a program called tpfc thinkpad fancontrol you can run additionally. That program takes care of the fan noise.
At first I was disappointed about the position of the Expresscardslot on the front right corner, but then I got a firewire cable with a 90 degree angle and I did some velcro taping on the top and the bottom of the laptop, and now I can fix the expresscard with velcro.

Georg

Re: Madiface not recognized.

Hi again guys,

Ulrich, I haven't found the fan noise to be an issue at all. I did read about some fan noise complaints on the Lenovo forums, however this was apparently rectified with later bios revisions on the T520. As my laptop arrived with the latest bios, I am not sure what the noise was like before this. All I can say is that the Lenovo is much quieter than my old Asus laptop and the fan noise has no impact on my recordings (especially given that with a Madi setup, the laptop is generally a fair distance from the mics). Up close, I can barely hear the fan running. It may ramp up with a larger CPU load, however these newer models with faster processors may not require increased fan speeds until a much higher threshold is reached, as they are not taxed to the same extent as older models. Not sure about this though.

Thanks for your report Georg. The T420 is basically the newer revision of your laptop and as I mentioned seems like a good modern candidate for a Madiface setup. As I feared, the discrete graphics card drivers do still sometimes cause DPC spiking and possible audio glitches. The angled 90 degree firewire cable sounds like a great idea, as does the simple velcro fastening. It is a shame that the ExpressCard standard is so mechanically hopeless, however that is an issue with the standard itself, and RME simply have to work within the standard. Time to find a right angled firewire cable!!

Kind regards,
George

Re: Madiface not recognized.

With recent notebook risk is very high. Check it before buying. Or buy an old model.

35 (edited by Ulrich 2012-08-28 22:16:26)

Re: Madiface not recognized.

Now I tried a Fujitsu E782, i7 (ivy), Win7 64 pro.

Madiface is not recognized at all. RME's LED is on, but that's all. Nothing is showing up in the device manager. Instead, I can see that the system load immediately increases significantly after the MADIface has been put into the slot (EDIT: resource manager showing that system interrupts take away more than 10% CPU power), and this doesn't stop after removal of the MADIface.

Fujitsu support recommended to get latest card firmware: I have latest firmware (11).

I also tried to change BIOS options, but there are only very few related to this, and no effect. EDIT: I also tried deactivating all kinds of power management.

My old Dell XP laptop works fine with the MADIface. I quickly tried a further, very cheap HP (AMD, Win7 64 pro) which was just lying around here: Same behaviour as the Fujitsu. Last year I also had problems with Samsung. HP (intel) worked but was too noisy, Lenovo probably works as well, as others stated here.

For me it just looks like that there are HUGE problems with quite a lot of today's laptops in conjunction with the MADIface. (EDIT: I tried all the same also with Expresscard/Digiface: same results). What does RME know about this? Can you please share your experiences here?

Ulrich

PS: In the meantime I persuaded the device manager to recognize the MADIface. Basically it works now, but there is still this strange behaviour that while the MADIface is inserted system interrupts are taking away more than 10% of CPU power of this really powerful quadcore. This is not a normal behaviour.

Re: Madiface not recognized.

How did you "persuade" the device manager?

Re: Madiface not recognized.

Timur Born wrote:

How did you "persuade" the device manager?

Right click in the device manager, search for new devices. Only then the madiface became visible.

Re: Madiface not recognized.

Now I've got a Lenovo T530 here. i7 3520m, Intel HD 4000.
At the moment it looks quite ok. Madiface is immediately recognized. Don't forget to disable power management for PCIe slot in the BIOS!
This laptop is very quiet, only the hard disk coukd be more silent. When the CPU lowers its frequency the fan usually stays completely off.
48 track recording in Sequoia went fine.
DPC latency doesn't look absolutely perfect, but no hick-ups so far.
I don't like the lenovo pre-installed software, it's unclear how much processes are still generated by this stuff...

Re: Madiface not recognized.

Ulrich wrote:

Now I've got a Lenovo T530 here. i7 3520m, Intel HD 4000.
At the moment it looks quite ok. Madiface is immediately recognized. Don't forget to disable power management for PCIe slot in the BIOS!
This laptop is very quiet, only the hard disk coukd be more silent. When the CPU lowers its frequency the fan usually stays completely off.
48 track recording in Sequoia went fine.
DPC latency doesn't look absolutely perfect, but no hick-ups so far.
I don't like the lenovo pre-installed software, it's unclear how much processes are still generated by this stuff...

Have you tried running in "High Performance" mode and set the min/max CPU to 100%?  This might get the DPC's down further by disabling Speedstep,etc.

Also, for an Audio PC - especially one that's expected to handle MADI I/O - I'd ALWAYS do a fresh OS Installation - Bar none.

Glad to hear you got it working! cool

MADIface-XT+ARC / 3x HDSP MADI / ADI648
2x SSL Alphalink MADI AX
2x Multiface / 2x Digiface /2x ADI8

Re: Madiface not recognized.

Randyman... wrote:
Ulrich wrote:

Now I've got a Lenovo T530 here. i7 3520m, Intel HD 4000.
At the moment it looks quite ok. Madiface is immediately recognized. Don't forget to disable power management for PCIe slot in the BIOS!
This laptop is very quiet, only the hard disk coukd be more silent. When the CPU lowers its frequency the fan usually stays completely off.
48 track recording in Sequoia went fine.
DPC latency doesn't look absolutely perfect, but no hick-ups so far.
I don't like the lenovo pre-installed software, it's unclear how much processes are still generated by this stuff...

Have you tried running in "High Performance" mode and set the min/max CPU to 100%?  This might get the DPC's down further by disabling Speedstep,etc.

Also, for an Audio PC - especially one that's expected to handle MADI I/O - I'd ALWAYS do a fresh OS Installation - Bar none.

Glad to hear you got it working! cool

Thanks for your comment.

I really want to benefit from CPU power saving as I hate a noisy laptop in front of me during a recording session. So in the first place disabling speedstep is not an option for me.

Re: Madiface not recognized.

"High Performance" and CPU 100/100 doesn't disable CPU clock changes anyway, because it still utilizes processor C-states. You can turn that off completely by turning ON "Processor Idle Disable" or uninstalling the processor drivers. But that would leave your CPU running a full speed permanently with no power-saving whatsoever, which results in maximum temperature and fans running at full speed all the time.

The better option is to use a combination of customized power profile and third party software Throttlestop (to disable C1E state which does not seem controllable from power profiles alone and some BIOS don't offer to switch it off either).

42 (edited by Ulrich 2012-11-01 17:36:18)

Re: Madiface not recognized.

Ulrich wrote:

Now I've got a Lenovo T530 here. i7 3520m, Intel HD 4000.
At the moment it looks quite ok. Madiface is immediately recognized. Don't forget to disable power management for PCIe slot in the BIOS!
This laptop is very quiet, only the hard disk coukd be more silent. When the CPU lowers its frequency the fan usually stays completely off.
48 track recording in Sequoia went fine.
DPC latency doesn't look absolutely perfect, but no hick-ups so far.
I don't like the lenovo pre-installed software, it's unclear how much processes are still generated by this stuff...

In the meantime I have done some real-world recordings, in conjunction with MADIface as well as with Digiface/Expresscard. Everything went extremely well... so I'm glad I finally found a solution. T530 recommended here...

Re: Madiface not recognized.

Hi Ulrich,

Glad to hear that your T530 is operating so well. I just completed a recording yesterday using my T520 in combination with a Madiface/Micstacy setup, and all went fine as usual. As long as you turn off/disable your WiFi adapter whilst recording and have disabled the PCI ExpressCard power settings in the BIOS you shouldn't have a problem. A lot of people spend a lot of time trying to lower their DPC latency values to the lowest possible numbers, however mildly fluctuating low numbers that reside comfortably within the bottom (green portion) of the DPC range (and that never spike into the yellow) are generally absolutely fine for recording purposes.

If you really want to test your system out, do some test recordings at your preferred latency settings and channel counts, and use that as your reference point for when things start to fall apart. The DawBench website also has useful benchmark sessions so that you can really test out how your system operates under a heavy load.

As Randyman suggested, I would probably do a fresh OS install. I used a spare OEM W7 Pro disk, and plugged in the Lenovo W7 authorisation code (that usually resides within the battery compartment) and went from there. The Lenovo website has all the drivers you need, categorized within the T530 support pages. I would simply install the essential drivers and leave out any of the Lenovo bloatware that you don't need. If your laptop came pre-installed with Microsoft Office, etc... you can download the installer directly from Microsoft if you have got your Product Key Card. A fresh install using a legit installer DVD also means that you do not have to use the Lenovo Backup and Recovery utility, as this sets up a separate recovery partition by default on your hard-drive, which is really a waste of valuable HD space.

For any others reading along, I can also highly recommend the Lenovo T520/530 laptops for DAW use. They may not look as sexy as a Mac, but they perform admirably, at a decent price-point, with low fan noise and no DPC or ExpressCard power issues.

Kind regards,
George

44

Re: Madiface not recognized.

Ulrich - and others:

We have a new experimental version of the MADIface firmware, which is supposed to solve the power management issues. As we don't have such critical computers to test we have to rely on your feedback. With firmware 20 the BIOS option should be set to factory default, means on! Please try and report here.

https://archiv.rme-audio.de/download/fu … spe_20.zip

Regards
Matthias Carstens
RME

Re: Madiface not recognized.

Hi Matthias,
thanks for still contributing new drivers to this technology - it proved to be able to run very smoothly, I hope I can work with he madiface still for a long time.
At the moment I am too short of time, I hope others will test the new firmware. It would have been interesting to test the samsung notebook with the new firmware, but now I am on lenovo...
It is always possible to install an old firmware over a new one, right?
Christmas greetings,
Ulrich

46

Re: Madiface not recognized.

Correct, so the test that your Lenovo now accepts the MADIface with the BIOS option disabled takes only minutes. I am not expecting a full-blown test over all functions or such.

Regards
Matthias Carstens
RME

Re: Madiface not recognized.

GIACOMO-_ wrote:

Hello, I need help.
Madiface (and Micstasy) is arrived today at my home.
I've try with 2 PC notebook, buy Madiface is not recognized.
I inserte madiface (with breakout box connected) in the pci express card slot but Win dont's see the card.
I've try with a Siemens Fujitsu under WIN Vista and with a HP DV6 series under Win7 64 bit.
With a Mac Book is recognized in 1 second.

Hello Giacomo,

Nice to see you here too, nice setup you purchased ;-)

RME Madiface XT
iMac 21.5-inch, Late 2012 - 2,7 GHz Intel Core i5
Logic X
Pro Tools 11.1.2

Re: Madiface not recognized.

Hi Gaston! :-) Thank you, but unfortunately I had to sell Madiface because it didn't don't work.

Re: Madiface not recognized.

GIACOMO-_ wrote:

Hi Gaston! :-) Thank you, but unfortunately I had to sell Madiface because it didn't don't work.

Madi face does not work???

What is your current setup?

RME Madiface XT
iMac 21.5-inch, Late 2012 - 2,7 GHz Intel Core i5
Logic X
Pro Tools 11.1.2

Re: Madiface not recognized.

Read the first post, actually I've the HDSPe MADI in a PC desktop/rack.