Ableton Forum

Problem with m-audio firewire 410 and my acer laptop.

The light on the firewire 410 keeps flashing blue, i suspect thats a sign to show that there is no signal going into the hardware from the firewire port?? is this correct?

With firewire should there be an option in the bios to turn on / off the firewire connection? As I do not have this and I think this could be my problem.

XP is meant to show the installing new hardware window once i connect up the firewire 410, but this does not happen.

Any ideas?

thanks very much

I just installed FW 410 to IBM thinkpat running xp. This happened to me too. Make sure the power button is pressed in and the fw 410 program is running on your computer. The manual indicates the blue light will flash if it detects a connection to the computer.

You have to open teh cd folder in your control panel and find the file to install it. It won't automatically install.

Marc

it blinks even if the firewire cable is not connected, so that cant be right.

Download a copy of manual from m-audio and see the details for installing. Basically, youhave to: Install the driver FIRST! and then Hook up fw 410. They are very strict about this working order!

Marc

thanks for help marc, i still cant seem to get it workin. Im wondering if you could try something for.

disconnect the firewire cable and power on the 410, with nothing connected into it, lemme know wot the blue power led does. Cos if it aint blinking like mine there may be a problem with my box.

Its really confusing as it says it flashes when there it feels there is a connection to a running computer, but it is flashing even with nothing installed.

I wouldnt be surprised if it is a hardware problem it always happens to me, got the worse luck.

sounds scary - i'm waiting for my first laptop - an acer travelmate 803 - to turn up next weekend (once i signed the credit agreement for it - buy now pay 2005!lol) and i'm very interested in that firewire 410 as well - but i've heard nuthin but trouble with it... maybe its just early days on the drivers yet.

its interesting with the usb 2 ports on the acer... apparently thats got a higher bandwidth than firewire (just 80 meg more) and i'm considering getting a usb2 external harddrive...and there are a few usb2 audio interface options...but most are usb1 still... but i guess with the bandwidth there shouldnt be much problems - i hope

It trys to load its drivers each time it is powered up. If you turn it on not connected to anything you should get fast blinking. This means the drivers haven't loaded.

Slow blinking means the drivers have loaded, it is connected to power but it is turned off (its button out). When you press the button on you should get all the leds on the front flashing once one after the other and the blue light staying on. This means that its all loaded and ready to go.

Hope this helps.

Nick

I have a similar problem. My FW410 arrived today and I cannot get the computer to recognize it.

From the FW410 Manual:

Note: When the FireWire 410 is powered OFF, the blue POWER LED will flash if it senses a valid FireWire connection to a running
computer. When the LED is flashing, the unit is in “low-power” mode, and will allow a FireWire peripheral connected to the
FireWire 410 to continue to function. You must turn the FireWire 410 ON (blue POWER LED glows steadily) for the unit to function.

My device flashes whether I've got it plugged in to anything or not. No other lights on the device ever turn on at all. The speed of flashing doesn't change whether the device is plugged into the computer, on or off. For a few seconds when I first plug in the power cord the blue light is steady, then blinks and that is its sole state.

Why doesn't the power button on this device seem to do anything? I can't imagine anyone wanting this device to blink incessantly even when the device and the computer are powered down. Strange.

How can I be sure my firewire port on my computer is working?