FIXED: 2 motu 896's not locking...

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

Hola everybody,

There's been a huge number of complaints and threads on all sorts of forums
and newsgroups regarding huge-time problems when trying to run two Motu
firewire interfaces in sync (whether that combo be 896+896, 896+896HD,
896+828, etc).

My exact problem was that the devices would sync together without any
applications open. I could open the Motu Firewire control panel and adjust
sample rates and other options without a problem, but as soon as i would
launch an application i would receive Motu Firewire ASIO Driver errors, and
the driver would not load. I attempted Daisy Chaining, running them in
parallel (each device into their own port), and setting different 896's as
the sync source. Nothing worked. (The weird thing is that if i power only on
of the 896's on, everything would run fine. The error was specific to
running the two units WITH an application.)

The Solution!...

Windows XP's SP2 is the cause of the problem. I read somewhere in an
unrelated thread about the 896 that Service Pack 2 (SP2) was to blame for
intermittent clicks and pops. I reformated my OS/Program drive and
reinstalled the old version of XP with SP1. Installed the 896's one at a
time exactly as described in the manual, then installed Nuendo 2. Worked
like a charm.

My system specs:
Intel 2.4C (hyperthreading) overclocked to 2.9gHz
Intel 875 chipset
Asus P4C800 Deluxe MotherBoard
1 gig DDR 400mHz ra
2 WD 80gig IDE drives
Lacie FW 800 firewire PCI card
2 MOTU 896 (not the HD version) running parallel into Lacie PCI (firewire
400 -> 800 cables needed).
Steinberg Nuendo 2

As far as the OS X (mac) users, i haven't heard any fixes yet.

Also if there are any other MOTU users running dual 896's (MAC or PC) please
spec out your system with OS and service pack, and let everyone know if
you've had this problem and how ya fixed it. (MOTU's tech support is
entirely useless, so at least the users can try to figure out what the
problem is.)

Later!

Roach