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fortepiano 17 October 2005

To the Collective:

After many weeks of researching the various audio interfaces with firewire; I decided that the Yamaha i88x and the PreSonus Firepod would be good for me. I read the installation book at least three times and proceeded to install the software as instructed. The first message I received was: “Disable the mLAN Driver, then quit all running applications. Turn off the power to or unplug all mLAN drivers.”

I never installed anything from Yamaha before. How could this be? So, I continued with the Installation Wizard and when the moment of truth arrived to turn on the new Yamaha, “Found New Hardware appeared.” Oh what joy………… only to be dashed by the new message:
“The 1394 adapter card has not been found. Check the card and start the mLAN again.”

My set-up:
MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum, nForce3 Ultra
AMD 64 3200, 1 Gig Corsair memory
(2) Seagate Barracuda HDDs non Raid
The 1394 is onboard and VIA OHCI compliant host. Disabled for now.
New Adaptec FireWire 3-port I/O---Yamaha suggested

When I turned on the i88x the device was recognized as new hardware along with the Windows sound (devise connected) of an ascending, perfect fifth interval.

I also checked the Windows devise manager which says the 1394 is working properly.
After uninstalling the software per Yamaha directions and the reinstalling with the latest i88x updates; it just has to work…Not SO….New Messages:

“There is a problem installing the hardware. Windows cannot load the devise driver for this hardware. The devise may be corrupted or missing. (Code 39)
Failed to load the mLAN bus driver.” SWEET!

I called Yamaha about 10 times in the past three days. Not much help there, but there is
some information at http://www.mLAN.com.. The people at Yamaha were nice but not readily available or helpful.

If anyone has some ideas I am all ears. PreSonus says their firepod should work fine on my DAW? Does anyone have any experience with this?

Thanks in advance,

Walt Lewis

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Comments

anonymous Thu, 10/20/2005 - 13:26

Windows XP (Home & Pro) w/SP2...

XP ServicePack2 could be the source of your trouble.
Micro$oft messed up the Firewire support in SP2.

SP2 downgraded its default to s100 from s400/s800.

Right Click 'My Computer' select properties from the drop-menu
The General Tab of the System Properties window will tell you if you have SP2 (You probably do!).

If you do have it try the following:

Unplug all Firewire devices

run the SP2 update and registry edit found here -
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/885222/en-us

"SYMPTOMS
After you update your computer to Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2), the performance of your 1394a or 1394b FireWire devices may be greatly decreased. "

After updating Shutdown then restart. Re-run driver install for the Presonus then the Yam.

anonymous Thu, 10/20/2005 - 14:17

It sounds like you hotplugged your the i88x (turned it on while the computer was on).

You should have done this:
1. Everything powered off.
2. Plug the i88x into the PC via Firewire cable
3. Turn i88x on
4. Turn PC on

You may have either damaged the i88x Firewire port or the PC Firewire port... let's hope it was the latter, if any. If it's the PC Firewire port that's damaged, you can get a new PCI Firewire card for cheap ($20 or so).

I'd try KyroJoe's suggestion first and keep your fingers crossed.

anonymous Thu, 10/20/2005 - 18:26

Don't worry about the "hotplugging"!
1394 / iLINK and USB are both designed FOR hotplugging and, unless there's a short in your cable, hotplugging won't damage the host adapter or device.

Just follow the Microsoft KB article above and then your installation instructions that came with the Presonus and Yamaha and it should be OK. I believe you will also have to put the Presonus on your on-board 1394 and the Yam on the Adaptec.

ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS... unplug the POWER CABLE from the computer and WAIT at least 8 seconds BEFORE installing a PCI card on the motherboard!! Pushing the power off button is not enough as the power supply is still feeding power (usually to the CPU, clock and BIOS and "wake on event devices"). Failing to unplug the power cable before adding the card will usually damage the card and your computer too!

fortepiano Thu, 10/20/2005 - 21:39

RE: Firewire and Yamaha i88x

Thank you so much for replying.

Yes, I have SP2 and will download the update. Thanks

I was very careful to follow Yamaha's directions and waited until I was instructed during the set-up to:

" Turn on the i88x and plug the firewire into your computer 1394 port"

" Found new hardware would then appear......."

I do not have the PreSonus Firepod yet. Friday I am going to a local vendor who just got the Firepod in. He is willing to load the Firepod onto my DAW, since he knows I will buy it from him if it works.

One problem though. My boss wants to know why we can't use the Korg D1200, that we own, to make a CD. I tried to explain about the better converters, preamps, and editing but he was not really listening. “How much more will it cost" was the issue. Well this too shall pass I hope.

Thank you all very much for the input. I appreciate any help.

Walt
AKA Fortepiano

anonymous Fri, 10/21/2005 - 09:53

I hear ya xian!

"Reports have come to our attention of isolated problems when hot-plugging IEEE
1394 (aka “FireWire”) devices. Hot-plugging refers to making 1394/FireWire
connections when one or more of the devices is turned on (including the computer).
There are rare occurrences when, after hot-plugging, either the FireWire peripheral or
the host computers FireWire port are rendered permanently inoperable. While M-Audio
products adhere rigidly to the FireWire industry standard and pass stringent internal
testing, the possibility remains that hot-plugging your M-Audio FireWire interface to
some computers may result in the this type of problem.
We strongly encourage you to protect your equipment by refraining from hotplugging
any bus-powered FireWire device, including the M-Audio family of
FireWire products."

Reads more like a legal disclaimer than anything else. If they've really conformed to the IEEE 1394 spec then
it is hotpluggable. What they are saying is that it is a bus-powered device (a Firepod & i88x are not)
and since they can't test it on every machine out there, something might be strange with some other manufacturer's hardware and anomalous problems have been reported.

http://www.pcworld.com/howto/article/0,aid,14371,00.asp
"Like USB devices, 1394 devices are hot-pluggable, meaning you can add them to your PC without rebooting. When a device is plugged in, it immediately broadcasts its unique identification number to other devices on the network and becomes part of that network."

KJ
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Kyro Studios

anonymous Fri, 10/21/2005 - 13:36

xian wrote: Gotcha Kyro, I guess I should have checked if the i88x was bus-powered before I posted. Haha, my bad.

That's what really bugs me about some manufacturers.
You shouldn't HAVE TO check if something is this or that - that's what marking your product with an IEEE XX spec number is all about.

The mark is to say "this product conforms to the spec". Why bother to even mark it with the spec number if you're going to change the spec??

Manufacturers that want to "kind of conform" should get IEEE to issue a new sub-spec. For example: for a non-hot-pluggable 1394 device they could get 1394-D (D... for Dumb idea)!

Also having been frustrated by this SP2 problem myself previously, I sometimes wonder why device manufacturers don't put a web check for the latest updated and required drivers into their install software. Why not check for this Microsoft SP2 problem, fix it, and add the correct Registry setting for your hardware right from your install software??

KJ
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Kyro Studios

anonymous Fri, 10/21/2005 - 15:01

KyroJoe wrote: Manufacturers that want to "kind of conform" should get IEEE to issue a new sub-spec. For example: for a non-hot-pluggable 1394 device they could get 1394-D (D... for Dumb idea)!

No kidding hey? They managed to tack a suffix onto the Firewire 800 (1394b) to distinquish from Firewire 400 (1394a). You'd think they could invent a standard spec for whether or not the connection is powered or not.

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