problems with mackie onyx 1620 firewire card Beeping can someone help

  • Thread starter Thread starter nashunbooking
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nashunbooking

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does anyone know what causes this beep? I thought my computer was doing too much, so I shut it down, next thing I know, I open windows media player and the same churping and beeping while I am listening to regular files. then there are these long beeps that make you want to throw the thing out the window.

I have a toshiba sattelite laptop, cubase sx3 2 gigs of ram, dual core, windows media center.

I would love if you could help. everyone seems to have this problem that I read about having the 1620 mackie board...but everyone thinks its something different as for why it does it.

I have tried disconnecting from the internet, pluggin and unplugging the battery (I hear the plug sometimes causes the problem) and I have downloaded everything current besides the firewire patch for XP service pack 2...which I will do in a minute.

I can't figure it out...and the comp deffinately doesn't appear to be hot.
 
The Mackie is very picky when it comes to the Firewire chipset you use to connect it to your system. I got the beeping to finally go away by buying a PC-Card Firwire Interface which uses at TI chipset (Adaptec AFW-1430A) and disabling my wireless networking adapter when using my 1220 with my Gateway laptop.
 
You may be screwed. I had the problem on my main computer, it was really bad. Then I was told to get a PCI fire wire card. I did that and it worked great for about 1 month, then it started again, so I called them back. I ended up trying another computer, it worked perfectly. After a month I could hear little chirps and then decided I shouldn't have to deal with it so I tried to contact the same tech guy, he had me send him a screen shot of the IRQ settings to make sure the firewire was on it's on channel, it was. I wanted a new firewire card, ASAP, he never responded (I should have tried another tech guy, but I figured it would be a bitch trying to explain the problem to him). Well, after about 5 months, it did the chirp REALLY bad, like did on the first comp, where it lasts for like 3 seconds. If it does it again like that I will make sure I get a new card, but something tells me all the cards may have a little blip in them.

I hope you don't have to get a whole new comp like I did, luckily the friend gave it to me for a reasonable price.

Good luck, sorry I can't really help.
 
no new comps for me, I just bought this one 4 months ago

I will sell this piece of Sh#$t before I sget rid of my computer. I never, ever had problems with the EMU units after I knew what I was doing.
 
nashunbooking said:
I will sell this piece of Sh#$t before I sget rid of my computer. I never, ever had problems with the EMU units after I knew what I was doing.
Click to expand...

Your loss. Its a great board.
 
nashunbooking said:
I will sell this piece of Sh#$t before I sget rid of my computer. I never, ever had problems with the EMU units after I knew what I was doing.
Click to expand...

I would never call that board a piece of shit. maybe you just can't fix that...doesn't mean the board is shit.
 
Piece Of Sh$%t It Is

check the mackie forum web site...I have found tons of posts for people with the same problem.
 
nashunbooking said:
check the mackie forum web site...I have found tons of posts for people with the same problem.
Click to expand...

And?

Of course posts are going to be skewed to the negative side. People who don't have problems proabably don't bother posting there. Doesn't mean that all Onyx owners have problems.

I told you in an earlier post what fixed my problem. Are you just going to keep complaining or actually take other people's advice?

I find it amusing that you would put the E-Mu product on a pedestal in comparisin to the Onyx.
 
I had this problem with my old computer, and Mackie couldn't fix it.

On my old desktop, using the same PCI firewire card, I would have to DISABLE the network adapters in the machine. Now I figured this to be because they were also PCI.
However, that ALWAYS fixed it on that computer.

On this new computer, I'm using the same PCI-firewire card, but have never had the beeping problem. I have no other PCI cards plugged in here, so perhaps that is the reason why.


anyway, sinec you have a laptop - things are different a bit. I'd suggest disabling any and all hardware that you wont be using while recording/mixing/using the onyx with the comp. That means PCMIA, internal wireless/network adapaters, etc. etc.

I even made a seperate hardware profile for my last PC, which is a good thing to do anyway, and in it - you can also disable services you wont use, freeing up a lot of memory/cpu power, etc.

hope that works!
 
It's great when it works, but the problem is too common. If you have the problem it can't be fixed. It'll go away for a bit, but come right back over time, it may be weeks, it may be months.
 
well I nhave bought everything and tried everything on here and the mackie forum

The onyx pre amps may be awesome, but the firewire card just cuts in and out with these loud F%$#%ing beeps. It happens when you record, or when you listen to windows media player.

I am disgusted I wasted nearly $1200 on something that hasn't worked properly. I am amazed at how many people have this same problem. I wish I had read up more on this before buying it, its disgusting that Mackie would put out a product and not recall at least the firewire option when thousands of people have posted this problem on the mackie website.


by the way I bout the adaptec AFW-1430A


it did not solve the problem.
 
Just a wild idea, but are you aware of the Windows bug that came with Service Pack 2? It screwed up my Mackie Onyx 1640 card so that I thought it was a hardware problem.

Go to the Microsoft site and do a search for "firewire" and then download the patch. When I did that, it reset the firewire transfer rate protocols screwed up by Service Pack 2. The board worked perfectly after that.

Worth a shot... Good luck.
 
yeah. although there are a lot of fixes that work for some people, sometimes there are no fixes it seems. I've (and others) have told mackie of this on countless occasions - no fix by them yet, mainly because they have problems reproducing it. oh well
 
It could be that the problem is a design flaw in the computer itself. This sounds like what would happen if the computer's power supply isn't properly grounded; you'd get all sorts of digital noise (chirps, beeps, etc.) going to the nearest ground---specifically, travelling up the Firewire cable's ground and into the ground on the Mackie. If the Mackie power supply doesn't have a very, very solid ground on the FireWire connector, this could easily bleed into the audio.

WARNING: Be ABSOLUTELY certain that you know what you are doing before attempting what I am about to describe! Using the wrong wire will blow things up at best, injure or kill you at worst. Also, use an outlet tester before you attempt this to make ABSOLUTELY certain that your outlets are ALL wired correctly before doing this. I will not be held responsible for any injuries or loss of life or property arising out of this. You have been warned.

Try this: buy a cheap three-prong extension cord and cut the socket off. Figure out which wire is connected to the ground pin on the plug, then tape up the other two (hot and neutral) wires, leaving only the ground wire exposed. Strip it back as needed.

When the interface starts chirping, plug the power cord into an outlet, then touch the ground from the power cord to the metal shield on the FireWire plug where it plugs into the Mackie. If the problem goes away, make this permanent by building yourself a grounding pigtail and plug it into one of the audio connectors on the Mackie.
 
dgatwood said:
It could be that the problem is a design flaw in the computer itself. This sounds like what would happen if the computer's power supply isn't properly grounded; you'd get all sorts of digital noise (chirps, beeps, etc.) going to the nearest ground---specifically, travelling up the Firewire cable's ground and into the ground on the Mackie. If the Mackie power supply doesn't have a very, very solid ground on the FireWire connector, this could easily bleed into the audio.

WARNING: Be ABSOLUTELY certain that you know what you are doing before attempting what I am about to describe! Using the wrong wire will blow things up at best, injure or kill you at worst. Also, use an outlet tester before you attempt this to make ABSOLUTELY certain that your outlets are ALL wired correctly before doing this. I will not be held responsible for any injuries or loss of life or property arising out of this. You have been warned.

Try this: buy a cheap three-prong extension cord and cut the socket off. Figure out which wire is connected to the ground pin on the plug, then tape up the other two (hot and neutral) wires, leaving only the ground wire exposed. Strip it back as needed.

When the interface starts chirping, plug the power cord into an outlet, then touch the ground from the power cord to the metal shield on the FireWire plug where it plugs into the Mackie. If the problem goes away, make this permanent by building yourself a grounding pigtail and plug it into one of the audio connectors on the Mackie.
Click to expand...

I have experienced that as well. Using a ground lift did make the issue go away.
 
I have service pack 2 hotfix

that didn't work, I tried it so long ago I didn't realize I already had it.

should I try this registry info stuff? I never touched that.

Registry information


After you install this update, if you add a host controller for a new 1394 device to your computer, you must add or modify the SidSpeed entry in the Windows registry for the new 1394 host controller. To do this, follow these steps:1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.
2. Locate and then click the following registry subkey:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\PCI\1394_hc_hw_id\1394_instance_id\Device Parameters
3. If the SidSpeed value does not exist in the right pane after you click the Device Parameters subkey in step 2, create it. To do this, point to New on the Edit menu, click DWORD Value, type SidSpeed, and then press ENTER.
4. Right-click SidSpeed, and then click Modify.
5. In the Value data box, type one of the values that are shown in the following table, and then click OK.Value Speed
0 S100 speed
1 S200 speed
2 S400 speed (default value)
3 S400/S800 speed (Windows XP Service Pack 1 [SP1] value)
Note If you try to use a value that is larger than 3, SidSpeed will use a value of 0 (S100 speed).
 
metal shield?

...metal shield on the FireWire plug where it plugs into the Mackie."

I am not really sure what that is.
 
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