Saffire Le PCMCIA Trouble

undergroundtoon

undergroundtoon

New member
WELL I AM STUMPED!!. I have a Toshiba Satellite 1.7ghz 2gb ram. I got a saffire le last week to hook up to this as a portable studio. I have tried 3 different pcmcia cards with no luck. The focusrite flashes on and off (my cpu usage flashes from 0 to 100%) every 3 seconds when plugged into the laptop. I have installed and uninstaled the le driver 3 times. Two of the 3 pcmcia cards were windows recognized and the third had a driver to install. I have run the device manager and my slot is working fine. The card and saffire both give a bink bloom sound(windows rec) when i plug them in or unplug them. I also un installed the driver for that one card that came with one(disk driver).

I set this up on my home pc just fine? I was recording on aduacity in 10 min total time. The saffire is pluged into the wall, So its not like i am using the 6 pin for power. On one of the cards i went and spent $20 on a power convertor (thinking it might help give a little more juice)with no luck. It may work great on my home pc but i already have a Tascam FW 1082 for Home PC recording. Its not like i was buying cheap fire wire cards either the 3 ranged from $40-$80.

I was thinking it was a problem with the 6 pin since the 2 add current(but it works fine on the home pc with 6 pin?). Would a 4 pin card and cable solve my problem(i doubt it) since its plugged in and working on my home pc already? I also tried installing the *firewire cable only* and the *firewire conected to the pcmcia card* in the laptop at the point of the install that says "Plug in your Saffire le now and hit continue". I HAVE HEARD OF PEOPLE SPENDING $10 ON THEIR CARD AND IT WORKS FINE! Maby my card choice is bad thou and help would be appriciated. Thanks. I searched the internet(including the focusrite site) and on here looking for a "RECOMENDED for the SAFFIRE LE" card with no luck. Is their a setting i am missing?
 
update: I went out and got my 4th card today. Its a trendnet. I can open up aduacity and record(kind of) with this card. I open device manager and it says the generic device driver is working properly. I set the audacity prefrences to playback on saffire 3/4 and recording on saffire on 1/2. It records with a decent level. then on playback it sounds worse than any drive thru mic you have ever heard(pure distortion with a hint of my voice). If i try to open up the saffire le control icon i still get a message that their is no firewire connected. IT IS SET UP EXACTLY LIKE MY HOME PC!!!!!!! I dont get it. It Works flawless on my home pc? :(
 
Update: I went to my control pannel and set my computer soun to Saffire le port 1/2 for the mic and Saffire le port 3/4 for the output. I can now here distorted audio thru my monitors!!!!!!! :eek: ARRRR this card reader must be bad. I am ready to take this laptop outside and.............. AHHH Maby i am not the only one. I am pretty sure i downloaded the driver update too(when i first installed it)
http://www.homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?t=199524

I hope this is just something simple like card chipset compatible problem. I dont know if mine is via, ti, etc.
 
Last edited:
Often times when you have multiple cards on board, there can be contention for timing control. While I don't have first hand experience with your type of equipment, if there is a set-up and control panel in the recording software, you might check to see if there's a field that selects the timing master or recording and playback master.
 
I'm sure you've already read this but I'll throw it in anyway (from the saffire le specs page):

**Firewire control chip from TI (Texas Instruments) is recommended CPU/Clock Pentium®, Celeron®, or Pentium® compatible processor 900MHz or higher
**Pentium® 4/2GHz or higher recommended for 192kHz

*Memory (RAM) 256MB or more

In case of using IEEE 1394 interface card such as PCI card or Card bus (PCMCIA), TI (Texas Instruments) made IEEE1394 Host Controller is recommended. Some Card bus (PCMCIA) type interfaces may not work to full interface performance.
 
here is the Toshiba's detailed product specification of my laptop
http://www.csd.toshiba.com/cgi-bin/...BV_EngineID=ccceaddilflkmgdcgfkceghdgngdgnn.0
I have added (2) 1gb sticks of ram to it.

It says under expandability:
1 pc card slot support 1 type II, pcmcia r2.01, PC card16, cardbus

right now the card i have is
http://www.trendnet.com/asp/download_manager/list_subcategory.asp?SUBTYPE_ID=585&SUBMIT=Go
I downloaded the installation guide and data sheet neither tell what chipset it has.

I have tried every local card i can. On all of the box's so far it does not tell the internal chipset of the card. Looks like i am going to need to order a card online. Looking up the ti chipset i found these three cards.
http://www.cooldrives.com/fihiusb20coc.html
http://www.firewiremax.com/duiecaadfeti.html
http://zxpro.com/Modems/IEEE1394.htm

Would you recomend any of these cards, Or do you know of any other cards with the TI chipset?
 
i did a search looking for issues with this and couldn't find anything either except for a note on focusrite's site about how it's supposed to work with any pcmcia card. after having a nightmare experience with trying to get my onyx 1220 to work on my desktop, i found that there were actually terrible compatiblity issues with that unit and certain processors/chip sets. well, the point is, one helpful thing i found out was that there was a firewire compatability issue that came with sp2, where you needed to download a hot fix from microsoft for certain fire wire periperhals, but that it's unlikely to be a problem with newer computers-- is it possible that this might be a problem?
also is there any chance that you just have a defective unit?
 
kojdogg said:
i did a search looking for issues with this and couldn't find anything either except for a note on focusrite's site about how it's supposed to work with any pcmcia card. after having a nightmare experience with trying to get my onyx 1220 to work on my desktop, i found that there were actually terrible compatiblity issues with that unit and certain processors/chip sets. well, the point is, one helpful thing i found out was that there was a firewire compatability issue that came with sp2, where you needed to download a hot fix from microsoft for certain fire wire periperhals, but that it's unlikely to be a problem with newer computers-- is it possible that this might be a problem?
also is there any chance that you just have a defective unit?
Click to expand...
The saffire workes good on 2 other home pc's. the firewire pci card on the laptop workes on other firewire devices with no problem. together they dont work at all thou.

I found some info out on the sp2 firewire fix
http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.asp?m=323485
It says on the forum:
SP2 forces your firewire speed down to 100 Mb/second so that it can be compatible with Firewire 800. Funny how MS thinks 1/8 the speed is compatible.

I downloaded the fix from microsoft
Update for Windows XP (KB885222)
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/results.aspx?pocId=&freetext=firewire&DisplayLang=en

it says:
After you install Windows XP Service Pack 2, some 1394 devices (such as digital cameras that use S400 speed) may not perform as expected. Install this update to help prevent this issue. After you install this update, you will have to restart your computer.

I insalled this update, restarted my computer, loaded the focusrite 1.0 driver(plugged in my firewire when asked). I still get the message" firewire lost please check the connection" and is still does not work. I was hopeing this was the fix, but maby it will help someone else out at least. :D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top