Ableton Forum

Ok, new firebox running on toshiba satellite a100 here, 7200rpm hdd. And there are a couple of problems.

One is a nasty high pitched whining clicky sound on the main outputs. It only happens when the laptop is running off mains, *and* the mixer is plugged into the firebox inputs 3/4 (plugging it into input 1/2 this somehow doesn't happen, but that's a waste of good preamps). If anyone's got any hints here that would be appreciated but it's a minor problem compared to the other one.

The other one - I get a half second glitch in audio every couple of minutes. I'm not overloading the CPU. I have already

• * got the latest presonus drivers
  * disabled wireless and firewire networking
  * ensured speedstep is turned off (I think - it seems to be called 'dynamic cpu' or something)
  * optimised performance for background tasks
  * set the buffer size to 192, (4ms at 48khz - there was a thread about this somewhere)

has anyone tried the firewire patch for winxp sp2 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/885222? and if so, what do you set "sidspeed" to?
what else could be wrong? have I got a faulty box?

any help would be really appreciated...

Try higher buffer size.
OR
Do you use complex warp mode?do you use stereo files?

I have a presonus FireBox with no problems but i am on mac pb g4 1.5Ghz

i will try a higher buffer. but stereo and complex warp shouldn't be an issue, it's a core duo 1.6Ghz.

nope, bigger buffer size didn't help.

any more ideas? i get a really big dropout (almost a second) every couple of minutes.

I tried a Firebox with my HP laptop, it would insert silence every measure or so. I saw the MS fix, didn't want to tweak my registry every time I installed a firewire device. Something about Firewire port types 200, 400 and 1000, SP2 screws up the port type and you have to change it to type 1000.

I mucked with it for a week and exchanged it for an Edirol UA-101, no problems.

Sorry, audio boxes are a crapshoot with laptops, sometimes they just don't work. Good unit though.

Tried the MS fix, still doesn't work. I'm going to contact support - will post the outcome here...

About your nasty whinning sound, it happens to me when I unplug the firewire cable when the sound card is being used. I have a 4pin to 6pin cable and the 4pin is not very solid, if I lift my laptop, it can go off... I don't know if it helps. I'm not experiencing any other problems with this soundcard, it's better in LIVE than with my previous U46DJ soundcard by far.

ciw - what version of Live are you running? perhaps there is a new release with bug fixes you can bump up to?

as far as getting noise on the mains, maybe look into power conditioning... in the US you can get a Furman SS-3LT.

Sales Dude McBoob wrote:ciw - what version of Live are you running? perhaps there is a new release with bug fixes you can bump up to?

5.2.

Thank for the power conditioning point - I'll look at that when I don't get the dropouts any more, but there's not much point until then

ok, so after a week tech support haven't emailed me back.

i thought some people here said they had good tech support!

I tried someone elses firebox, same problem, so it's my machine/software/possibly the firewire cable that's wrong.

any more ideas people?

ok, apparently they just had problems with email and i just had a very helpful phone call from them.

they couldn't help though. after disabling loads of services, the length of dropouts decreased a lot, but they still happened.

It only happens when the laptop is running off mains

I think I know what your problem is.

The Earth Prong is causing this problem.
I had the same problem with my Toshiba A100 a few months ago.
I ordered my Satellite laptop from germany and it came with a european 3 prong plug. So I used it in a European plug adaptor with my Motu 828Mk2 soundcard without any problem, until I decided to use my flatmate's Dell powercord one day (no the actual charger but the cable that looks a bit like a kettle chord).
And then I had this annoying hissing. I thought that the sound card or the computer were in big trouble only to realise that the problem came from the cable.
I removed the earth wire from the earth prong and all my problem were solved.
The reason why I had no problem with the european plug + adaptor is that the earth is probably not corrected directly through those adaptors.

Anyways. I hope my little story helped you.

But, I don't take any responsibility if anybody hurt themselves playing with electricity. I would recommend to be extremely careful when you mess with it + also to use a surge protection plug at any time.

mrweasel wrote: I had the same problem with my Toshiba A100 a few months ago.

Wow, another A100 user.

I was considering doing something like you described, but the dropouts still remain my primary problem.

Have you got your A100 running smoothly with no dropouts? I couldn't make it happen on the firebox - swiched to an emu 1616, still had dropouts (and some other annoying problems). Going to try an echo audiofire 4 when it comes out in the uk. But i'm starting to wonder if the problem is with the toshiba. I really have performed all the audio optimisations you're meant to (I think - obviously there could be something I missed but I do think I've done it all). So if you're running everything smoothly on an A100, please let me know - if nothing else it will reassure me I didn't waste 750 quid!!

Thanks,

Crispin

I dont have any dropout problems at all.
My girlfriend also has a very similar A100 laptop config and she doesn t have any audio dropout problems (even with her regular 5200rpm hard drive)
My config is Centrino Duo + 1024Mb Ram + 128Mb ATI Graphics Card + 100G Hard drive @7200rpm.

Haven t tried a firebox though, but all the other sound cards I ve used ran smoothly.

reassure me I didn't waste 750 quid

Did u pay €750 for yours with a 7200rpm hd?

mrweasel wrote: My config is Centrino Duo + 1024Mb Ram + 128Mb ATI Graphics Card + 100G Hard drive @7200rpm.

Ah - maybe this is my problem - I have intel shared graphics (can't remember the exact name, I'm not at home at the moment. However, I do know it isn't the chipset that presonus tell you to avoid).

Did u pay €750 for yours with a 7200rpm hd?

No, 750 ukp (about 1100 euros) with a 5400 drive - upgraded the drive afterwards. And this is another funny point, i'm wondering whether I should have bothered because the disk benchmark really doesn't run much faster

Anyway thanks for the reply mr weasel, good to identify another a100 user