Firepod distortion

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drumsbreathe

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I recently acquired a firepod and unfortunately, I am having some issues. The first thing I did with the firepod was to plug in a mic and a set of phones and check all the pres and gain knobs. Everything was fine. I first tried some recording on a dell laptop(fairly fast) and what occured was that any signal monitored through the computer, wheter it be a live mic or an already recorded signal, or even an imported mp3, any signal from the computer and out of the firepod became DISTORTED. I spoke with tech support at presonus, and while they were checking out a system info file from the dell laptop, I went over to a friends and tried the firepod on his desktop. Everything worked flawlessly. Presonus hadn't found anything in my system file, and when I informed them that the firepod had preformed well on my buddys computer, they were happy that the distortion was not "caused" by the firepod and didn't offer any more help at that time. I then got a hold of an older toshiba laptop, and despite the toshiba lack of ram and slow processor, everything was working fairly well. On boxing day I went out and bought an HP laptop with 1gb of ram, I figured this would be a significant upgrade from the toshibas 256mb, but I was faced with more DISTORTION!!!
I've tried for many hours to troubleshoot this myself, and would greatly appreciate any assistance available.
Cheers, Happy New Year
 
This sucks! Hopefully presonus tech support will be able to help me!
 
Get a new firewire card. One with a Texas Instruments chip on it. Also, what are your computer specs? Are you using a RAID drive setup? Oh, and are you using SP2 on Windows XP?
 
This computer is an HP pentium M740 1.73ghz 2mb l2 cache, 1024mb memory. XP sp2. I beleive it's the RAID setup, because I succesfully installed the microsoft patch(should only work for computers with specified chipsets). Instead of using the stock firewire port, I am currently using a PCIMCIA firewire card, 2 ports, both firewire, only one being used(firepod), as suggested by presonus tech support. This card works flawlessly on an older toshiba laptop(as does the firepod). I'm lost!
Cheers,
 
drumsbreathe said:
I beleive it's the RAID setup
Click to expand...
I've never heard of a laptop computer with RAID. It would have to be pretty big to fit 2 hard drives in it.
 
I thought he was refering to this as it appears on the presonus website

" Q: I am getting pops/clicks/dropouts on playback.
A: If you are experiencing pops/clicks in audio and/or dropouts on either the Firepod or Firebox, and your computer uses one of the following Intel® Express chipsets - Intel® 955X, 945, 925, 915, or Mobile Intel® 915/910, go to the following link and download/install the RAID/AHCI Software - Intel® Matrix Storage Manager update [IATA51.EXE] (4373KB). "

Pardon my confusion and thanks for your continuing help.
Cheers
 
Hi there. You've probably already tried this but have you installed the newest drivers from Presonus's website? I am also running a Firepod on a HP laptop (pavilion) I got for x-mas and I was having some click/pop/noise issues until I downloaded the current driver and things work perfect now. If you're using HP's built-in firewire, the chipset shouldn't be of issue because I have a functional stock setup here. Other than that, I'd say you might have a squirrelly firewire card or you may just need to update the card driver or a combination of all of the above.
 
The drivers for the card, and the firepod are up to date. What pavilion are you using? Mines a dv4270ca. Are using a card or the hp's firewire port. If using the hp's port, is it a 4pin, do you use a converter, or a 6pin to 4 pin cable?
 
I have a ZV6000 and I am running the firepod through the built-in 4pin firewire connector. I had to wait for a response from tech support that this is an acceptable workaround but Presounus was prompt in replying to my email and addressing my questions. OF course, I had to purchase a generic 6 pin to 4 pin adapter cable but maybe you could try that and see if it works. So YES, you can run it off the 4 pin connector as long as you get the right cable to adapt it down from the Firepod.
 
IT WORKED!!!! Finally I can get some tracking done. I guess the PCIMCIA slot has something funky going on. But who cares IT WORKS!!!
I unforntunately now have a new issue. My monitors buzz when the power cable is connected to the laptop. The buzz is present with the laptop as far from the monitors as possible. I have tried plugging the monitors and the laptop in different outlets in different combinations. But at least it works.
Thanks for everyones help.
Cheers
 
Buzz

Mine does exactly the same thing (with the Firepod) - I just record with battery power in my studio now.

Jay
 
the buzz is probably from a ground loop. you might just have to plug your laptop into a different wall outlet. the combination of monitors, firepod and laptop can get weird ground hums. so just fool around with plugging them into different outlets until its minimized. or just record with the laptop running on battery.
 
Also make sure that you are using balanced cables going to your monitors. That is what fixed the problem for me.
 
Yes, balanced cables are a must with the Firepod as it's not grounded.
 
I had the exact same problem with my Firepod. I bought a brand new 64 bit presario and it clicked and popped like someone was making popcorn in it. I took it back and traded it up to the MOTU 896HD and never looked back.
 
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