MOTU 324 Card incompatible with Hyperthreading!!

trogdor

trogdor

New member
So i was feeling good because I just upgraded my pc to a new Athlon64 3000+ chip with fancy shmancy motherboard and the whole deal, only to find out that my MOTU 2408MKII wouldn't work! I even exchanged the motherboard for one with the Nforce III chipset instead of a VIA one and still nothing...

Turns out the MOTU PCI 324 card is NOT COMPATIBLE with hyperthreading or (in AMD's case) hypertransport technology! It took a while for the MOTU tech support guy to come out directly and tell me that and then try to sell me on the 424 card.

Anyway, Im keeping the PC, wanted to warn everybody who didn't know, and am now unwittingly in the market for a new soundcard. Gonna hawk the 2408 on Ebay, and try to find something with ADAT Lightpipe, 4-8 ins, and maybe firewire since now i'm kind of dissilusioned with the PCI bus.

the m-audio 1814 is at the top of my list right now, anybody using that?

the firepod looks cool...i wouldn't want to go anymore expensive than that...also that layla3g looks like it would fit the bill nicely, tho its pci. any other suggestions? sorry for posting a "which soundcard?" thread, but if it weren't for this damn compatibility issue...
 
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as ive said on this bbs before, its very important before getting a system
to contact the vendor of the sound solution you want to use to ensure compatibilty between the sound solution you want to use and the pc.
whichever way you go next i would suggest you contact the tech support of the vendor in question eg...maudio and ask in advance about compatibility with the chipset in the pc. before getting the sound solution.
what i do is if i'm upgrading or getting a new pc, beforehand i contact the sound solution vendor to ensure compatibility.
for example if i was going with a new pc with firewire support i would
find out the firewire chip in the pc and ask maudio in advance if their firewire solution will work.
maybe also consider contacting rme tech support which are known to be solid sound solutions and see what they say i would suggest.
 
also if you go to nuendo.com - the user forums there are people using a64 and opterons there. just a heads up. i would ask what sound solutions they are using that work well. there are lots of posts there of people using
the fast new processors.
peace,
 
thanks for the advice, manning! too bad i had to find out the hard way...i will double check compatibility with new setup when i decide this time!
 
Are you sure you can't disable that hypertransport in the bios?

Don't know about amd, but with my Asus/Intel setup I can disable Hyperthreading in the mobo bios if I encounter any issues with it
 
totally brilliant BH. you know what, i think you are correct. i think i heard from someone else about that.
kudos to you.
its interesting though that some sound card vendors dont mention their sound cards dont work with HT or do they ?
this begs the question which sound cards work with HT. do your deltas ?
do the rme and lynx ? it would be weird if they didnt as all new computers have this technology in.
 
thanks bulls i'll try that...tho I think that performance would suffer quite a bit without HT on...i could try it just to see if that is actually the problem.

companies should definitely say if their products dont work with HT. I think it's more of a PCI problem...the older motu 324 card that i have doesn't work but i guess the newer 424 card does. strange. i'll try it and let u guys know what i find.
 
The thing is that Hyperthreading is like a second 'virtual' cpu that can be utilised by applications capable of exploiting a multithreading environment, whereas Hypertransport is a faster bus providing bigger bandwidth so thinking about it, it's probably not something you can flick on & off.

I've got hyperthreading turned on, but I don't think GT Pro can make any use of it. Still, it's there just in case and it doesn't affect the delta44
 
be aware folks that also the pci standard is changing.
i have not had time to look into it.
its all just a game to get us to buy stuff all over again.
well actually there IS some honesty about it.
the processors are getting faster, so now has to the rest of the architecture.
but i'll make a prediction. moores law wont hold.
its HEAT that will stop moores law.
i did some atomic physics years ago.
 
Humm... MOTU tech support is suspect at best, and I wouldn't trust anything they claim.
Ever since the 424 has come out, they've basically stopped supporting the 324 in any real fashion, and have started telling people that the only way they can fix their problems is by buying the new 424.
It's a load of BS.

Go to this webpage I've made: http://www.appletonmusic.com/MOTU/

This is THE MOST common problem with the 324. And MOTU just blames it on incompatibility with motherboards and will never offer anyone this solution - instead saying to buy the PCI-424 instead.

If there's any real incompatibility with HyperTransport, I'm betting my lunch money that it's because of this one setting. The 324 can't deal with PCI Post Writes being enabled. There should be some way to disable them it any motherboard, probably even HyperTransport-based ones, unless the architecture is so radically different that it doesn't allow you to turn it off even if you bypass the BIOS.
 
wow bley, thats interesting...it kind of sounded like the guy was giving me the runaround...first he said there was some kind of chip "mod" that they could do to make my 324 chip compatible, and then he changed his story to...no, in fact i would have to "exchange" my chip for a 424...and by exchange he meant not really exchanging it at all, but holding onto my 324 chip "just in case" and paying 300 dollars for a 424 chip...

I'll try what you suggested and let you know, thanks for the advice.
 
manning1 said:
be aware folks that also the pci standard is changing.
i have not had time to look into it.
its all just a game to get us to buy stuff all over again.
Click to expand...


The PCI standard isn't changing at all. I doubt it will EVER change. What is happening is that a whole new interface is being rolled out: PCIe. This is the response to the need for a unified graphics and peripheral bus of greater speed than currently possible. It's not a game at all. If you don't like it, don't buy PCIe stuff - no one's forcing you too. Motherboards will probably still have PCI slots as well for another 5 years or so - and seeing as how they still have to comply to the same standards as when PCI 2.1 was first introduced, there shouldn't be any theoretical problems now or in the near future with wide-scale compatibility.
 
Just to update, I'm selling the MOTU box on ebay and just ordered a new ECHO Layla3G for $419...I'm excited! Should be a week or so and I'll let yall know how she performs. Thanks again for the help.
 
Just to make this clear...

Although others have alluded to this point, I want to reinforce it.

Disclaimer: although I'm a home recording neophyte I'm somewhat of a computer expert (and I work for AMD).

There are only two things that Intel's Hyperthreading and AMD's Hyper Transport have in common:
1) They are vaguely computer-related
2) They have the initials "HT"

Let me put this more directly: they are COMPLETELY DIFFERENT!

Oh, and I doubt very highly that any PCI card would be incompatible with your system because of either technology.

-Mark
 
I used a PCI 324 card and a MOTU 1224 for a while with a P4 3 gig with HT with no problems at all. Just so you know, it's not all hyperthreading
 
bleyrad I thank you so so much... I was having problems with my motu 324 when I installed my new mobo, I followed the instructions on your site and it now runs perfectly.

Thanks alot!!
 
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