edirol fa 101 with pcmcia

[AMAZIGH]

Hi All,


this is my computer configuration:

Dell latitude C640 laptop
pentium 4M @2.20ghz
1 gig of ram
40 gig hard drive 5200 rpm
La Cie Combo pcmcia fire wire400(1394a)/usb2
Edirol fa 101.
SONAR 4 demo version

2 weeks ago I bought an edirol fa 101 and up to now I coudn't make it work.

the drivers installation went and they load fine, the configuration is fine but when I turn it on I hear pops and crackels and then when I start Sonar4 demo version that I downloaded from cakewalk the whole thing freezez.

sometimes I can get it to work for a few bars with drops outs here and there but then the recording meters go dead. leaving a sort of pulse that shows in the meter, but no signal going in.

I called Edirol and they told me that may be it's because my computer was not designed with a native fire wire port.
I however read on the box of the fa 101 that they rcommend the use of a pcmcia card with a TEXAS INSTRUMENT chipset otherwise the card will not function properly.
I think that my pcmcia uses an ALI CHIPSET.
would you think that this may be the problem?

could anyone help me with this .

I bought this card for my birthday and it is making it the worse BD I ever had.

Again excuse me if I am posting in the wrong place I promiss to get better.

My thanks to all.

AMAZIGH

 

[crankz1]

Navigate to (in XP) Control panel > System > Hardware tab > Device Manager ...
Expand the listing for IEEE 1394 Bus host controllers .... It should say "Texas Instruments OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller" if your PCMCIA FireWire adapter card uses the TI chipset.
If not you could look into one like this one.

As far as the PCMCIA slot itself .....
Expand the listing for PCMCIA adapters .... if it's a TI controller it should say something like "Texas Instruments PCI-1410 CardBus Controller"
Though I'm not sure if the PCMCIA controller itself would be more of an issue than the IEEE 1394 (FireWire) controller in regard to the Edirol compatibility.
Hopefully it's just the chipset, that the CardBus you have (La Cie Combo), is causing the issues. As it's not a possibility to change the PCMCIA's chipset. That would require changing laptops.

Here's hoping that a TI based FireWire CardBus will do the trick for you, provided the La Cie isn't TI based. Of course this means more $$ into a new CardBus, but still cheaper than a new laptop.

Unfortunately I don't have an Edirol or a Dell or Sonar, but I do have a lessor HP laptop (700MHz PIII) and a MOTU 828mkII. I use a PCMCIA adapter also. However, it is TI based as well as the PCMCIA controller in my laptop. I also use an external FireWire hard drive for the audio data. All works well for me. Lets hope you can achieve the same.