Are you a G5/Firewire audio user?

muthafunka · Post by **muthafunka** » Fri Jun 03, 2005 2:03 pm

Doing a little research here, having audio dropouts when connecting/disconnecting Firewire HD/iPod to G5 Firewire ports when using RME Fireface to play audio ie iTunes, Quicktime. If I switch to built-in soundcard the problem disappears and after some research it seems the 3 G5 Firewire ports (2x400, 1x800) are all on the same bus, which sucks a**. The machine is still very new and before I go drop on a Firewire card to try and split the card from the drives I want to see if anyone else can verify this, if it's not generally happening then I'll try the repair route.

My specs

G5 2x2.5 (X.4.1-but happpened in X.3.9 too)
3.5Gb RAM
RME Fireface

Cheers

tribalogical · Post by **tribalogical** » Fri Jun 03, 2005 4:13 pm

Hi mf,

Same here... also on a newer G5. Strange issues when hot plugging/unplugging external FW devices while my 01X (FW) is live. But, I get similar issues on my powerbook with an M-Audio Ozonic (a device which can fry a port if you hot-plug it). Same problem in the architecture, perhaps?

Anyway, most everything I'm reading says, hot-plugging FW with "regular" devices is usually OK. Not so when it comes to audio devices, or when having FW audio devices sharing the bus, because of their higher demand on the bus and its power...

Most of what I'm seeing suggests powering off to add or remove devices sharing the bus with an audio FW device.

You might try that once, as an experiment, see if it makes a difference? Power off, connect your drive/iPod, power back on...

And I wholeheartedly agree, 2x4+1x8 on a single bus sux big time......

but otherwise, wow..... are we fast, or what?

peace,
tribalogical

muthafunka · Post by **muthafunka** » Sat Jun 04, 2005 3:32 am

Bump-le-bump, are we really the only two using G5 and Firewire interface?

btw Triba, I'm not hot-plugging at all, all devices are powered down at connect and trashed/power down at disconnect. Going to try calling Apple today

muthafunka · Post by **muthafunka** » Sun Jun 05, 2005 11:35 am

FYI just installed a LaCie Firewire 800 card, put the Fireface onto that and there are no longer audio dropouts. I wrest the case for crappy Firewire on G5s.

kenn michael · Post by **kenn michael** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 9:34 am

i run a G5 and a Fireface800. i didn't have any dropout problems when i had everything (tons of harddrives included) connected to the g5... i did however buy a firewire pci card to run the fireface just in case i wanted to stack more firefaces. everything's been great with the RME unit.

muthafunka · Post by **muthafunka** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 11:36 am

Hi kenn, no probs here when everything's connected, the issue is audio dropping out when a new device is added or one unmounted/powered off while the FF800 is in use by iT, QT etc

tribalogical · Post by **tribalogical** » Thu Aug 18, 2005 11:51 pm

side note, not necessarily related...

barefeats.com has been long parading the awful results of the G5's FW800 bus in their tests... basically, whatever architecture is in there doesn't work nearly as well as it should. They actually get slower results with FW800 on a G5 than on a G4.... roughly half, actually... (using RAID over FW800 to test the throughput.)

This under-performance could relate back to the problems you were having on the bus when "stacking" devices.....

Anyway, clearly, a good firewire card is a requisite solution in certain cases..... uh, like yours....

peace,
tribalogical

andrewlogan · Post by **andrewlogan** » Fri Aug 19, 2005 12:51 am

I get that with my Edirol FA-101. I think it's a bus overload, here's a fix that I found, buy a sonnet firewire 800/400 nub, it's about $15 and it will let you plug in your interface into your FW800 port. You still might get a click when you plug in other devices, but not nearly as bad.

marky · Post by **marky** » Fri Aug 19, 2005 2:51 am

G5 and MOTU 828 FW400 interface and a Lacie D2 hard drive hanging off the one FW bus... not a single problems in 6 months of use I'm happy to say.

futurestore · Post by **futurestore** » Wed Sep 14, 2005 11:05 pm

my advice.

Never HOT PLUG firewire devices on the mac.

Trust me. Just don't!

peace!

blakbeltjonez · Post by **blakbeltjonez** » Thu Sep 15, 2005 4:52 am

futurestore wrote:my advice.

Never HOT PLUG firewire devices on the mac.

Trust me. Just don't!

peace!

yep - Apple's little "problem" that's been lurking just under the radar for a long time, if yuo take the time to do a search you'll find it..... 99 times out of 100 things work out fine but that one time you hot plug a drive it'll fuck up your program in a big way. i have an older iMac with a dead FW port from hot plugging. i suspect you can also have an intermittently working FW port which is even worse than a totally dead one - a flaky port can corrupt FW drives, sometimes to the point of no return. saw this on an older TiBook which managed to corrupt 3 different drives before i kind of figured it out. hot swapping should be avoided if at all possible.

the Fireface manual specifically advises against using additional FW devices on the same buss as the Fireface (found this out after having my Fireface go nuts for no apparant reason one day), thier advice is as you found out, Mutha - get an internal FW card to connect you rother devices. most of the time the Fireface tolerates another drive for a while, and then it seems to randomly light up like a fucking Christmas tree and won't pass any audio until the offending device is removed and the G5 rebooted.

MOTU's don't seem to mind additional drives at all - one G5 i was working last year had 3 or 4 on the same buss, never a problem.

inis · Post by **inis** » Thu Sep 15, 2005 7:37 am

G5 with multiple Lacie's and M-Audio Audiophile. No problems. Just because they are all powered off the same bus, does that really mean the bus isnt capable of powering all of them at once? I would see the difference between one powerful one and two less powerful ones. But then again i know shit about this kind of thing.

hambone1 · Post by **hambone1** » Thu Sep 15, 2005 8:22 am

G5 with Ozonic powered by Firewire bus, and 2 LaCie 250GB Firewire 800 external drives using LaCie PCI Firewire 800 card.

I sometimes use the Ozonic on my Powerbook, but use a LaCie PCMCIA Firewire 800 card for the drives.

Everything works as advertised. I see no need to ever hotplug anything, apart from my iPod. It takes a minute to power down and reconfigure.

Can't risk frying anything 'cept eggs and chicken!

mlektra · Post by **mlektra** » Thu Nov 15, 2007 2:54 am

My PowerPC G5 1.8 Ghz / 3.5 Gig RAM / 320 External FW HD with Presonus Firebox. Had problems when i bought it. MANY clicks and pops. At that time i had 1.5 gig of RAM. I bought recently additional 2 gig. Much better .... but still audio dropouts. But happens only when severe CPU usage. But happens anyways..

Bought a firewire PCI card (sonnet allegros FW400). Tried to connect the Firebox on it and my hardrive on the mac's. The sound is worst than ever.

I dont know what to do. I want to be able to run my Live's audio projects without having audio dropouts. Is there a way (apart having to buy the new mac pro ?)

Are you a G5/Firewire audio user?

Are you a G5/Firewire audio user?

FIREWIRE

Re: FIREWIRE