I'm not entirely sure, I've checked my update history and looked up the KB info for the updates and don't see anything that relates to firewire and nothing else has changed on my system hardware wise.

3.069 and older never worked for me with the standard FW driver even in Win7, I've always had to use the legacy one.

but I'm not complaining!

btw I don't know if it was fixed but when I downloaded the drivers (straight after I received the thread update email for FW drivers) I noticed the link pointed to the older ones and the filename wasn't updated on your site, I just changed the direct URL to the zip file to get the latest ones.

Yes that's what I'm about to do, I just wanted to first check there wasn't some FW updates from Microsoft that slipped.

Also.. would a Firewire 800 controller help?

I mean, would that not use another driver from Microsoft and still be backward compatible?

Oops, sorry, had hardly any sleep.

Basically, if I'm playing back in my DAW or just a Youtube clip in browser.. after a while it SOUNDS like a looped audio clip, ie: a loop length of a sample of a few milliseconds.

I meant to say the issue I have SOUNDS like the wav file example. 

It's almost as though the buffer of the driver is looping and is only 1ms or so in length.

I have to then close my DAW or app (depends on what was playing back audio) and restart the application and then it's okay for another few minutes.

Yes, that's what I do, except:

a) I have to reboot my system every morning after first booting to get to the advanced boot option menu and disable driver signing for every startup.

b) if I forgot then I sometimes have to reconfigure some of my audio apps because when it boots up without the signing disabled then the soudncard is not detected and it screws with some of the 'default soundcard' settings in apps I use.

c) Running Windows with driver signing disabled is also a bit of a security risk.

It's just odd that some firewire interfaces seem to have no problems with the new, non-legacy firewire driver in Windows 7 and 8.

I guess it's time to look for a PCI-E based solution as it's clear to me that Firewire is starting to be phased out by Microsoft and Apple.

Thanks anyway.

RME,  What are my options?

The FF400 works 100% with the Thesycon Bus Driver v1.29.2 which I obtained here: http://www.qimaging.com/support/downloads/ (scroll down)

It doesn't work with the stock FW driver in Win7/8 on VIA or TI chipset controllers.

I had the same problem on my older machine.

But clearly it does depend on which FW bus driver I use.

I am using High Performance and have disabled all CPU scaling/power saving options.  Although the Thesycon and Legacy fw drivers don't seem to care what power options I use and those drivers work 100%.

I don't see a list of known-to-work cards on RME's website so this means I'd have to play Firewire Roulette and import cards for a lot of money which I probably won't be able to return.  Practically everyone list SIIG Texas Instruments cards as being perfectly stable and fine. 

The only reason I'm making a fuss about this is that I'm not willing to keep on rebooting my machine with driver signing disabled because it's a PITA and other reasons (messes up my settings etc).  I can keep using the Thesycon bus driver but I'm not entirely sure how legal this is, as Thesyco don't sell drivers to the general public, I'm using one from another manufacturer's camera driver.

That and, it's a $1000 bit of audio kit that I love using and I want to use it properly without hacks and workarounds.

Same problem with 3.070

Damn, I thought the XIO2213A was one of the good ones.  I was trying to find the XIO2213B (B being the newer revision) but I can't source it here.

I honestly can't fathom how firewire is such a sick joke in Windows.  Some controller cards work with some devices, some don't.  This doesn't seem to be exclusive to RME though, as I've read complaints from a lot of different markets, audio/video/camera/scanners.. so many people seem to need the legacy driver since Vista onwards.

For the meantime, the Thesycon driver is working okay but it's not a practical solution, it's a hack.

I've put my FF400 up for sale, unless something radically improves then I'm going to look at a PCIe device, since firewire's future seems uncertain, at least in Windows.  I've no interest in buying a Mac.

Guys, please support this thread of mine:
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/For … 158a771e1d

The user, GuruprasadSubbarayan has offered to help and is requesting you perform a trace on your firewire device, the method is very straight forward and doesn't take long, so please help.  Hopefully something will be done.  Hopefully he'll be able to shed some light.  So please assist with a trace and voice your concern about firewire in Windows 8.