Hello!

I have an ACER Aspire 5520G laptop with AMD Turion 64 x2 Processor, 3GB RAM, NVidia GeForce 8400M G graphics card and a Ricoh OHCI Compliant (R5C832) Firewire Controller. It comes with Vista OS but I dual boot in XP Professional SP3 for audio work.

I have bought from DV247 a Konnekt Live audio interface which I received today. I have spent more than 8 hours trying to make it work but still no luck. No sound coming out of it at all. Furthermore, Nuendo with the TC Near ASIO drivers and Soundforge with the TC Near WDM drivers, both almost freeze when I open them and no sound is coming in or out of them.

I run the latest TC Near software and firmware (2.20). I have tried also the kb955408 Microsoft hotfix but nothing happened. I still get no sound from the Konnekt and whichever audio program I open, it freezes (but Task Manager doesn't show high CPU usage). The same thing happens in both partitions (Vista and XP SP3).

I spent many hours searching the internet and it seems that the culprit might be the Ricoh firewire controller. Is it? Or is the hardware faulty? Should I send it back to the shop? If I bought a PCMIA firewire card with a TI chipset, would the problem be 100% solved? And if yes, which firewire card (express 54) would you recommend me? What would you do in my place?

Sorry for the long post, but I tried to be as accurate and informative as possible despite my frustration and desperation.

Thank you very much in advance for your help!

TC Electronic (http://tcsupport.custhelp.com) recommend three specific cards for use with their Firewire-based Powercore, all based around a Via VT6306 chip, but say that their customers have also had success with adaptors using Via's VT6307 chip, as well as providing several other customer suggestions (with no guarantees).

I suspect the same is true of their of their more recent audio interfaces, so you may be unlucky with the Ricoh controller in your laptop.

However, I have heard of other Konnekt users having no problems with a Richoh controller, and Focusrite specifically recommend this make for their Firewire products, so it doesn't seem to be a cut and dried situation.

I suggest you contact TC (or visit a TC-specific forum) and ask for their recommendation for a PCI Express adaptor - they must have been asked this question many times and therefore be able to provide a concrete answer.

Good luck!


Martin

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YewTreeMagic

Ah, I see you've already posted on the TC Electronic user forum

http://forum.tcelectronic.com/viewtopic.php?pid=23661


Martin

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YewTreeMagic

Thank you for your response!

Which are these three specific cards? Do you have any link?

Another question: I have read somewhere on the net that an express Firewire adapter with the TI chip would not really solve the problems because the express slot is governed by the same Ricoh chip! Is this true?

Martin, could you please tell me which are these specific cards that TC recommends? As I could not locate this info in their support site

...something inside me tells me that I have a faulty hardware. If the hardware was good but there was an incompatibility with my laptop, wouldn't I get some sound and some readings on the TC Near mixer along with pops and clicks? I get no sound at all and nothing on the mixer. Furthermore, the mouse pointer turns to hourglass every few seconds when I take it over the TC Near Control Panel.

...
My DPC readings after leaving my laptop idle for 45 minutes:

I' ll try to find and buy a TI or VIA chipser firewire express card.
Some questions:
- my slot is expresscard/54. Would an expresscard/34 fit into my slot? Or would I need an adaptor?
- should the card be Firewire 400 or 800?

Hi ElGreco - only just noticed your subsequent posts.

I managed to track down the link I mentioned, although it's for PCI Firewire cards:

http://tcsupport.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/tcsupport.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.ph p?p_faqid=1715&p_created=1118135514&p_sid=YLksR_zj&p_accessibility=0&p_redirect=&p_lva=239 0&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPTEmcF9zb3J0X2J5PSZwX2dyaWRzb3J0PSZwX3Jvd19jbnQ9MTgsMTgmcF9wcm9kcz0yJnBfY2F 0cz0wJnBfcHY9MS4yJnBfY3Y9JnBfc2VhcmNoX3R5cGU9YW5zd2Vycy5zZWFyY2hfbmwmcF9wYWdlPTEmcF9zZWFyY 2hfdGV4dD12aWE*&p_li=&p_topview=1

When I entered PCI Express into the interactive support pages I got ten pages of results, but you may be able to track down a specific recommendation there.

By the way, a Firewire 400 port should be fine.


Martin

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YewTreeMagic