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Alesis io|26 - Disappearing Randomly

Posted: Tue Oct 16, 2007 3:21 am
by spira
I recently purchased an Alesis IO|26 for recording and live performance.

Overall, I have been satisfied with the experience, but I have been dealing with some issues that may or may not be related to the device.

Here is my setup:

Sony Vaio VGN-FS850P/W (Intel 915GM chipset)
2 GB RAM
Windows XP Professional (up-to-date)
Ableton Live 6
Alesis io|26 (Latest drivers: 3.0.56.2; firmware 1.6)
Edirol PCR-M50 USB Midi Controller

Description of the problems:

At first, everything usually works properly with decent latency and no issues. But then the interface will start disappearing randomly. Live will inform me the interface cannot be found, and then disable the audio engine.
Usually, I can fix the issue by unplugging the firewire cable, and then reinserting it after a couple of seconds. I can then go to the preferences window and reselect the io|26 as the audio device.
This will often happen multiple times throughout a session, with no obvious relation to what I might be doing in live.
I do not know if this is a driver issue, a system resource issue, or something else. What I do know is having your interface disappear and all audio stop mid-performance is very frustrating.

As I said, my testing is in progress right now. I have a fresh image of XP Professional with nothing installed except Live and the drivers for the interface and my midi controller.

If anyone has any suggestions or recommendations, it would be greatly appreciated. I am technically literate, but this is my first experience with a firewire audio interface. I'm hoping to rule out the io|26 as the culprit, as I really feel it is an excellent piece of hardware.

I'm hoping the issue isn't with the interface itself, as I have been extremely satisfied with the quality and form-factor of the io|26.

Posted: Tue Oct 16, 2007 9:59 pm
by [nis]
How exactly is the Alesis interface powered? Through the firewire cable or by an external power supply (wall wart etc)?

Best regards,
Nico

Using External AC Adapter

Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2007 1:37 pm
by spira
Thank you for responding.

The io|26 is being powered by the external AC adapter (wall wart). My laptop (Sony Vaio) only has the smaller 4-pin Firewire port (Sony calles it i.Link).
For this reason, the device will not power off the Firewire port alone. I am using a cable that is 6-pin on the end connected to the io|26 and 4-pin on the end connected to my computer.
I have wondered if using the 4-pin connection would have any effect on the device, but it doesn’t seem like it should. I plan to install the io|26 on my desktop, which has 6-pin Firewire connections, and rule out that possibility.
I need to do some additional experimenation using another application besideds Live, as well as on a different system. Unfortunately my time is too limited to put the alesis into action; I have a show tonight, so I will be going back to my old method of running my computer’s headphone out into a mixer...
Any other help/suggestions/troubleshooting ideas would be greatly appreciated.