• Registered: 2012-01-08
  • Posts: 35

Topic: My Fireface 800: The princess and the pea.

So, I got my FF800 back yesterday from RME where it was thoroughly checked and found perfectly fit.
Ten minutes with it in a Cubase project, there it was again: RRRRRRRRRRRRR.
Good ol' buffer loop. Sample staccato. The chainsaw. Attack of the 50 foot dentist. The RRRRRRRRRRR.

In the past 5 weeks of my FF800s absence, I've almost forgotten, how tedious and tiring it could be, to get a DAW setup running properly.
But the feeling came back instantly with this unit and I've had it.

The past weeks work went smoothly with other Firewire audio interfaces, that plugged and played brilliantly.
None of them producing any hiccups with my dedicated and properly maintained computer.

Yes, I hear you: Firewire legacy this, buffersize that, disable this, enable that, uninstall this, reinstall that, chipset this, BIOS that, cable this,
power unit that.....send it in for repair. Oh, for :censored sake...you've got to be kidding.
Seriously, how can an audio interface be so choosy and require so much technical attention.

Apparently, none of my computers have ever been good enough for this unit since 2004.
My Fireface 800 has been behaving like the princess and the pea.
And she's for sale.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Acer Aspire 9910, Firewire on board TI, LaCie Firewire expresscard TI, Core Duo 2,4, 4gb RAM, Windows 8 pro, registry clean as whistle,
all notorious tweeks and settings applied, Cubase 7, Nuendo 5, Cubase 6.5, TC Electronic Studiokonnekt 48, Focusrite Saffire 24 pro, DBX 386, TC M350, Drawmer DL241
(Not for sale, none of it)

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

Re: My Fireface 800: The princess and the pea.

What Windows power-profile are you using? The default "Balanced" one or the "High Performance" one? The former causes issues because of PCIe power-saving (turning the link off) features.

Are you using this on Windows 8 or Windows 7?

Can you create a simple Cubase project to possibly reproduce the issue here (Cubase 7 or 6.5?)?

  • Registered: 2013-02-06
  • Posts: 15

Re: My Fireface 800: The princess and the pea.

I guess you are using Win8?
Its the same as here: http://www.rme-audio.de/forum/viewtopic.php?id=16391
I trying to convince RME that there currently IS a problem, and that the standard answers "problem is caused by chipsets (I also bought two!) or Win8 FW drivers" does not satisfy for me, because there fireware-interfaces that are working.

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

Re: My Fireface 800: The princess and the pea.

Well, it's not easy to answer differently. The Fireface are driving Firewire chipsets more to the edge than other interfaces do. And I got two LSI/Agere based plus one TI based Firewire port here, that all work quite flawlessly with _all_ Windows drivers (7, 8, legacy, non legacy), even when aggregating three Firefaces over a single connection.

Especially with TI based Firewire ports it's becoming more and more hit&miss, especially since there are so many different TI chipsets out there and often it's not easy to find out which was built onto a card before buying it.

I suggest using a software called "Astra32" to find out which chipset is used for your FW ports. Open its PCI tree and look at the end of the sub-tree.

  • Registered: 2013-02-06
  • Posts: 15

Re: My Fireface 800: The princess and the pea.

Im using ASUS P9X79 S2011 X79ATX - 16GB  Firewire Interface and FW card with XIO2213A chipset (i asked RME email support which card to buy, they answered a card with TI chipset may help.
Both not working. It would be more interesting which cards are working, and where i can buy them!

I have two wishes: (Maybe we have a luck and a driver developer read this)

First of all it would be nice, if the fireface-hardware has a build int (running) check-sum test which detect those "buffer-repeat" error, (it should detect if no new packets coming over the line) and should mute the channel. (and auto unmute when the problem disappears!)
The problem is the current state can cause hearing damages. This is possible!

Second wish is: There seem to be ways (resetting the driver, or refreshing the page in the browser if the problem results while playing a youtube video etc..) the problem can disappear on software-basis.
It would be nice if a fallback-mechanism would be directly build into the driver! So the problem still can happen -but it would immediately removed.
This is possible, maybe with an extra background process and a extra driver layer.

Software --uses--> Fireface Wrapper Driver --resets-when-broken--> Fireface Driver ---->  Fireface Hardware (detects problems too and mutes audio).....

  • Registered: 2012-01-08
  • Posts: 35

Re: My Fireface 800: The princess and the pea.

Timur Born wrote:

What Windows power-profile are you using? The default "Balanced" one or the "High Performance" one? The former causes issues because of PCIe power-saving (turning the link off) features.

Are you using this on Windows 8 or Windows 7?

Can you create a simple Cubase project to possibly reproduce the issue here (Cubase 7 or 6.5?)?

Thanks, Timur. I know you're a helpful and valuable contributer to this community and I do appreciate your response.

To answer your question, power profile is and has always been on maximum performance.
As well as no powersaving modes, no screensavers, no automated updates, no 3rd party antivirus, no defender, no slumber modes,
no thermal issues, no power surge issues, no WIFI (LAN connection only when required)
My OS is a lean Win8 pro 32bit and operates snappy and stable, so do my DAWs (despite the 4GB RAM limit) AND my new FW TC SK48.

If you wanted to reproduce (or rule out) the problem, you would have to have my unit running at your place with your computers for a while.
So, forgive me that I save my self the trouble of uploading a .cpr., since my other firewire interfaces handle those just fine.
My FF800 just doesn't seem to share my taste in computers, DAWs, music, hairstyle or mouthwash....since 2004.

That said, I've spend way too much time already, hunting the demon in my FF800, so I'm done with it.
My FF800 is nicely wrapped up and good to go on ebay, including the technical thumbs-up (no errors found) by RME.

Finally, the RRRRRRRR is gone.

Best,
Erbs

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

Re: My Fireface 800: The princess and the pea.

No problem. But I am trying to find out whether this is a common problem with the Fireface 800 (and maybe other RME FW interfaces) by reproducing it with my units and then providing RME with as much in-deep information as possible, in order to save others the time and effort. ;-)

When I got the UFX one of the first things I worried about was the digital phones output for cases like yours (buffer loop playing loudly). When the unit freezes/crashes you loose control over the digital output while the analog output of the FF800 still works. Fortunately I never experienced any such unit freezes with neither the UFX nor my other RME interfaces that utilize digital outputs.

I understand your point about the hardware checking the data-stream. Most likely there isn't enough room for such an implementation in the old interfaces. And even in new ones this could be a rather delicate feature to integrate, because there's more to it than just doing some checksums and then automatically turning off (think about deliberate loops, single sample dropouts that change the checksum, etc).

  • cape
  • New member
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  • Registered: 2009-02-17
  • Posts: 3

Re: My Fireface 800: The princess and the pea.

I have this issue as well, and know exactly what you mean about the RRRRRRRRRRR. This is a very ungraceful failure state and a disappointment with this unit. But perhaps it is common issue with audio interfaces.

I have actually purchased a device to address it-- the A-Designs ATTY which has an emergency mute button. But it still could cause damage to hearing or equipment in that ~500ms it takes me to hit that button.

I think it does only happen when sleep has been used so I'll try enabling the other power profile as recommended in this thread. If I find a way to reproduce reliably I will let you know, Timur.

  • Registered: 2012-01-08
  • Posts: 35

Re: My Fireface 800: The princess and the pea.

No cape, it happens regardless of whatever Windows powersetting.
And no again, it is not at all common with comparable audio interfaces in that price range.