ADAT Edit PCI Problems solved......I think...:)

[sonusman]

So after being on hold twice for over 20 mins each time with the good old people at Alesis, I might have solved my famous ADAT Edit PCI card problems.

The first call produced the advice of installing the updated driver and software. Ha!!! Didn't do a damn thing. But I thought it was funny that the tech guy admitted that the driver and software that ships with the card don't work. He didn't seem very apologetic about either.....humph!!!

The second call got me someone who almost knew what they where talking about. He suggested enabling DMA on the hard drives. Holy cow!!! I need to do that!?!?!?!?!? here I thought it was already enabled. But appearently, Windows 95 does not enable DMA on the hard drives as a default setting. Can you believe that?!

So I enabled it. Re-booted the system. Tried transferring all 8 tracks at once (something this dumb tech guy said wouldn't be possible with my UDMA 66 7200 rpm, 2MB Buffer hard drive. Ha!!!). Not a single clitch in any of the .wav files on any of the 8 tracks!

So, it looks like the card actually works. But if you are using it, MAKES DAMN SURE THAT YOUR DMA IS ENABLED ON YOUR HARD DRIVES IN WINDOWS 95!!! I don't know if 98 enables it by default, but you may want to check it.


I will let you all know how the editing and transfer backs go. Will have time tomorrow to try it out. But today is my birthday and I have band practice.
Ed

 

[cwillu]

It defaults to off in 98 as well (big surprise, considering the lack of any significant difference between 95 and 98)

Yep, first thing to check if you can't play & record skip free audio is the dma setting. For those who don't know where it is: Settings | Control Panel | System | Devices | Disk Drives | whatever hard drive you have in there | Properties

Hope I haven't beat this to death

William Underwood

 

[sonusman]

You know what was really funny Will? This tech guy suggested it like it probably wouldn't make any difference.

I asked him about the ability to transfer all 8 tracks at once and he said no way. When I suggested that plenty of people who I talk to are running up to 24 tracks on slower drives with less buffer than mine, he didn't have an answer. He just kept insisting that I will need a LVD drive to do this. What, does this guy have stock in a hard drive company that only sells SCSI drives or something?

I am almost thinking that Alesis should have stayed out of the computer marker all together. Hell, they can't even write a stupid NT driver for this card.

Ed

 

[cwillu]

Well, I guess it's no big secret that techies quite often don't really know what they talking about, beyond the simplest of problems (duh, is the computer on?). No offense to any techies around here, there are quite a few knowledgable people on this site... but I think we've all experienced tech support that isn't.

Oh well, life goes merrily on

Will

P.S. 32 24-bit tracks going on a 5400 rpm ide drive: You don't need scsi!!!