sound card: not doing... something

[Chris_A]

I have a MOTU PCI-324 card, in an XP computer, that has been great and reliable for quite some time. Suddenly, though, something isn't working right. And I'm apparently not savvy enough with this stuff to figure it out on my own.

The short version is: The card is no longer sending data to my rack unit (and/or it's not properly processing data from my audio programs). It's still communicating in some way with the rack unit -- if I turn off my computer, the unit's red lights will start flashing to indicate no signal from soundcard, like normal, and once the computer is on, the unit settles into its normal standby mode. (Thus I can be pretty confident the culprit isn't a bad cable.)

But playing a file in any of my audio programs, from Windows Media Player on up, gets me nothing. The meters on the rack unit don't budge.

The card is still being recognized by Windows, it's still the default device in all my programs, etc. Anybody have a clue what might be up, or what I can do to try diagnosing the issue?

Thanks! I've got a very important work project sitting in front of me -- I'm desperate!

Chris A

 

[slowmotion]

Tried re-installing it? XP is a pain with drivers sometimes. Remove the driver, turn your pc off, remove the card, turn your pc back on and run it with no card (just for one reboot), turn it off, reinstall card and let XP find it afresh. For some reason I've had better luck re-installing stuff if, after removing the device and drivers, I give it one "clean" boot before shutting down and installing the hardware. Seems dumb but works (that's not to say it will work but try it)

 

[Chris_A]

Thanks for the response. Reinstalling is definitely my next step if I can't figure out what's up.

But if the driver were faulty, wouldn't that keep the card from working at all? As I said, the outboard unit seems to know the card is there. Also, if I try to open the card settings interface in Windows while an audio file is playing, I get a message saying "sorry, the card is in use right now" (which is normal behavior and which would seem to indicate the card is functioning in some way).

 

[slowmotion]

Thanks for the response. Reinstalling is definitely my next step if I can't figure out what's up.

But if the driver were faulty, wouldn't that keep the card from working at all? As I said, the outboard unit seems to know the card is there. Also, if I try to open the card settings interface in Windows while an audio file is playing, I get a message saying "sorry, the card is in use right now" (which is normal behavior and which would seem to indicate the card is functioning in some way).

Certainly weird, have you installed anything else recently that might be conflicting (PCI conflicts do weird crap)?

Sounds silly, but in the past I had a card that was REALLY weird. It would work fine for weeks, then for no reason it would set itself to a digital output and never want to change back to analogue. Reinstalling it didn't work at all. No conflicts. I racked my brains for weeks about it, but then discovered (by chance) that it decided to work again if the PC was off at the wall for a while, like it was some weird stored value or capacitor charge funkiness forcing it to stick, and once it discharged, it worked again fine. Really bizarre (oddly enough it only decided to die on me when I needed it haha).

The card should be getter power from the motherboard, which might be why your rack probably can tell it exists or not... maybe.

From what I read, you can't play a wav (internal source) or record from external sources - but do you see movement on an input or output meter when you do?

 

[Chris_A]

Nope, no meters moving on my gear. (But the meters in software such as Cool Edit are showing action, of course.)

Hmm. I'm starting to suspect the card is fried somehow. But I'm gonna do as you suggested and refit the card and reinstall the drivers. Grumble grumble... Getting into my computer is such a pain the way my desk is set up.

Thanks for your responses and I'll pop in post-Thanksgiving to provide any updates for the future Googlers of the world.

Chris

 

[Steenamaroo]

if you can, try a different pci slot when you're changing it over....

as far as i know, the pc will see it as a whole new device and start from scratch wanting drivers etc,,,,whereas if you put it in the same slot, it 'remembers it',.,,,,,and often 'remembers' whatever the problem was too....


hope that helps.