US-1800 driver problems?

G

Greg_L

Banned
Like the title says, I'm using an US-1800 right now. I loved my trusty old Firepod, worked great for ten solid years of blistering abuse, but lately I'm on a, uh what is this thing, Dell laptop that has no firewire card port thing. Anyway, I like the US-1800 just fine, but sometimes the playback or tracking freezes for second and I have to start all over or punch in from the skip. It's annoying. So what I do when this starts happening is just reinstall the drivers. Takes only a few minutes and is a minor inconvenience, but it fixes it for a while until it happens again. I obviously shouldn't have to do this though.

The computer is some kind of Dell laptop Intel core i3 thing. Windows 7.

The US-1800 has been superseded by something else, so I'm not sure what drivers I'm supposed to use.

Any ideas on why this is happening? Any ideas on what I should do or re-do? I'm not super savvy with the inner workings of drivers, interfaces, computers, etc.
 
Hey Greg,
Win 7 32 bit and 64 bit are supported and, as far as I can see, this is the most recent driver. 2.05.

Do you know, is that the version you're using? This might be nothing to do with drivers at all but start there.
If you're on a different version uninstall, unplug interface, restart, then install/plug in.

Tech savvy windows people, is there a real time console or log you can view?
I'd want to see what's spamming the console when the freeze happens.
 
Thanks Steen.

According to my Tascam control panel, I'm using driver 2.05 and firmware version 1.00.

The weird thing is there is no time frame as to when it will act up. Sometimes it will go weeks trouble-free. Sometimes it will act up for days in a row. There's no way to predict when the problems will happen. It's been making mobile recording a dicey proposition. I don't wanna go to a client and have this stupid shit happen in the middle of a session. It hasn't happened yet, knock on wood.

I wonder if this laptop has some background crap going on that interferes with the drivers or something.
 
Dells suck. Just saying. I'm sure you made sure the laptop doesn't have anything running in the background?
 
mjbphotos said:
Dells suck. Just saying. I'm sure you made sure the laptop doesn't have anything running in the background?
Click to expand...

Lol.

Greg_L said:
Thanks Steen.

According to my Tascam control panel, I'm using driver 2.05 and firmware version 1.00.

The weird thing is there is no time frame as to when it will act up. Sometimes it will go weeks trouble-free. Sometimes it will act up for days in a row. There's no way to predict when the problems will happen. It's been making mobile recording a dicey proposition. I don't wanna go to a client and have this stupid shit happen in the middle of a session. It hasn't happened yet, knock on wood.

I wonder if this laptop has some background crap going on that interferes with the drivers or something.
Click to expand...

Hmm. Ok, kinda strange.
There's so many things to look at and try, it's a bit of a guessing game.

There's a bunch of stuff you could try.
Remove all unnecessary USB devices. Phones, USB sticks, printers...anything that's not essential.

Disable wifi/unplug ethernet, and disable or remove any virus software.

Look for scheduled tasks...Things the computer might be doing behind your back?
Google might have to be your friend here 'cos I'm out of touch with windows, but I'm thinking of stuff like scheduled defrag, system restore backups...that kind of thing.

If none of those are relevant I'd need to have a think. Hopefully someone else will chime in by then.

For background programs and services, you could go to start and search for 'msconfig'.
There's a startup tab in there. If you see anything you recognise that you know you can safely untick, do it.
Google stuff, updaters, firefox stuff...Whatever. That'll require a restart to take effect and will stop these things loading up automatically on boot.
A fresh installed windows will have nothing under startup tab - There's nothing system-essential in there.

You can do the same under services but it does have stacks of system-essential stuff, so emphasis on only unticking stuff you recognise and are certain about.
 
mjbphotos said:
Dells suck. Just saying. I'm sure you made sure the laptop doesn't have anything running in the background?
Click to expand...

I have no idea how to check that. It's truly a miracle that I've managed to figure out DAW recording and plug-ins so well. I can fly through an ITB mix like a champ. Once I close the DAW, I'm like an old man whose VCR still blinks 12:00.
 
Steenamaroo said:
There's a bunch of stuff you could try.
Remove all unnecessary USB devices. Phones, USB sticks, printers...anything that's not essential.
Click to expand...
Only the US-1800 and a mouse connected to USB ports.

Disable wifi/unplug ethernet, and disable or remove any virus software.

Look for scheduled tasks...Things the computer might be doing behind your back?
Google might have to be your friend here 'cos I'm out of touch with windows, but I'm thinking of stuff like scheduled defrag, system restore backups...that kind of thing.

If none of those are relevant I'd need to have a think. Hopefully someone else will chime in by then.

For background programs and services, you could go to start and search for 'msconfig'.
There's a startup tab in there. If you see anything you recognise that you know you can safely untick, do it.
Google stuff, updaters, firefox stuff...Whatever. That'll require a restart to take effect and will stop these things loading up automatically on boot.
A fresh installed windows will have nothing under startup tab - There's nothing system-essential in there.

You can do the same under services but it does have stacks of system-essential stuff, so emphasis on only unticking stuff you recognise and are certain about.
Click to expand...

I will try to look into this stuff. Thanks.
 
The only thing I could think of is that the computer has some kind of power saving mode going on. Maybe if the computer thinks it is idle, puts in some kind of suspend mode. I've use that version driver on two different machines with now issues. On the laptop, I make sure there is no sleep mode, USB port never turns off:

How to Fix an Annoying Windows USB Problem | Gizmo's Freeware

see if that might be the problem. It is very subtle, but once the USB is disconnected on the Tascam (maybe others), it is a turn off and turn on the Tascam to get it to reset.

Since it is laptop, power saving settings all over the place is probably screwing you up somewhere. That function is pretty hidden so it gets over looked a lot.
 
DM60 said:
The only thing I could think of is that the computer has some kind of power saving mode going on. Maybe if the computer thinks it is idle, puts in some kind of suspend mode. I've use that version driver on two different machines with now issues. On the laptop, I make sure there is no sleep mode, USB port never turns off:

How to Fix an Annoying Windows USB Problem | Gizmo's Freeware

see if that might be the problem. It is very subtle, but once the USB is disconnected on the Tascam (maybe others), it is a turn off and turn on the Tascam to get it to reset.

Since it is laptop, power saving settings all over the place is probably screwing you up somewhere. That function is pretty hidden so it gets over looked a lot.
Click to expand...

Hey good tip. Thank you. Checked my settings and it was indeed in "disable USB mode". So I changed that. Don't know if that's the fix yet, but it's something. This laptop is never on battery mode, so I don't need anything trying to save power.
 
DM60 said:
The only thing I could think of is that the computer has some kind of power saving mode going on. Maybe if the computer thinks it is idle, puts in some kind of suspend mode. I've use that version driver on two different machines with now issues. On the laptop, I make sure there is no sleep mode, USB port never turns off:

How to Fix an Annoying Windows USB Problem | Gizmo's Freeware

see if that might be the problem. It is very subtle, but once the USB is disconnected on the Tascam (maybe others), it is a turn off and turn on the Tascam to get it to reset.

Since it is laptop, power saving settings all over the place is probably screwing you up somewhere. That function is pretty hidden so it gets over looked a lot.
Click to expand...


Great link - that was happening on my work laptop - USB port going dead. I'd plug a USB stick into it and nothing would happen for 15-20 minutes. Disabled now!
 
Good tips!

I would disable all "power saving" options while recording. You can have two different power settings, one for when it's plugged in and one for when it's running on battery.
 
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