PCI-324 and Newer Motherboards

[lpalmer]

Hello all,

I've recently put together a MOTU rig, and learned some valuable things about getting the PCI-324 to work on a newer PC. Here they are-

Number one thing that screws up a LOT of people- Make SURE that you have disabled "plug and play OS" in your BIOS. Also select "reset configuration data" after you have done this. The reason is that your BIOS knows that the PCI-324 will get screwed up if it shares an interrupt, but Windows will go and change it unless you set this option to no.

The PCI-324 will not work with Athlons with DDR memory. It will work fine on intel platforms (make sure the chipset, not just the CPU, is made by intel) even with DDR memory.

Good luck!

[introesp]

thats good clear advice, i thank you on behalf of the forum of PC users.

I actually gave up and sold my PC and bought a Mac...but my 2408mkii works great now.

[xstatic]

Actually, my PCI 324 works great with Plug and Play turned on, and with my Athlon thats uses DDR memory. Not only that, it is working with on board audio enabled, and with an RME sound card installed. As well as a television card, and UAD-1 DSP card which is installed. I am more inclined to believe that the PCI 324 has issues with just certain motherboards (probably the chipset?) But thanks for the suggestions:)

[lpalmer]

What motherboard are you using? I'd love to know. MOTU claims that Athlon/DDR will never work.

[paggre]

I know you are talking about the PCI-324 but I have the PCI-424 working on an Athlon/DDR system.

[xstatic]

I am using an MSI KT3 Ultra 2 with the VIA KT333 chipset, with on board 5.1 audio and RAID. I have learned that I hate MOTU tech support. 2 years ago or so I bought a used 2408 mk2. I was running it on an Athlon system just fine. Then, I upgraded my motherboard and CPU speed, it wouldn't work. Firstly, it took me an hour just to get them to talk to me about my 2408 because it was still registered to the previous owner. It wan;t reported stolen, just still in his name. I don't see what they care, it was even out of warranty. I finally got past that hurdle, spent three hours of time on the phone with them going through things to check, still no luck. They wanted me to pay to ship them my whole tower so they could find out what was wrong. Not only that they said it would take them about 4 weeks. This is a bunch of crap. They should have gone out and bought the MB I am using to see what is wrong so they can release a patch for future problems with other people. So, I decided to buy an RME sound card instead. No probs:) Then I upgraded my motherboard again. No probs with RME, for fun decided to pop the MOTU back in, it works great even withh all the other cards in the tower:) BTW, all 3 motherboards were MSI, and the one it did not work with did not use DDR ram, it was SDram.

Does this mean I will not buy MOTU anymore? No:( They still make really good stuff at a low price, so I will still buy MOTU stuff, but will be very wary about ever having to call tech support.

[stephb]

Used to have PCI-324 working well in P4 Intel MB with DDR.

Upgraded to a Tyan Tiger MPX Dual Athlon MP 2400+ (board uses DDR). Board no longer allows the PC to boot. It simply hangs during the 324 driver installation after new hardware found. Tried with or without sounds card (used to work in Intel MB setup). Still not working. I will try disabling Plug'n play OS to see if it helps.

I wish MOTU would write generic AudioWire->FireWire drivers so we could use a run of the mill FIreWire card to access their hardware. I do not know if this is possible, but it would save a lot of trouble for a lot of us.

I have to agree with the sad state of MOTU's support.

[jdw]

FYI. I had my MOTU 2408 with the PCI324 working
OK on my PC with an Iwill VD-133 (Via chipset)
motherboard with an 800Mhz P3 and 256M Sdram.
Now, I built a new PC with the new Gigabyte
GA-SINXP1394 motherboard, which is really a
great motherboard (new SiS chipset), but
unfortunately the 2408 now gets clicks in the
audio stream. I talked to MOTU and they told me
that on the newer and faster motherboards, you
need to lower the 2408 buffer setting to 128
or 64. This seems really strange to me and they
could not give me a technical explination as to
why. But in any case, I still get audio clicks
about once every few seconds even at the lowest
setting. I even tried a 2408 MKIII with a PCI424
card and have the same problem. This is a real
shame because the Gigabyte motherboard is very
nice. Looks like I will have to try another one.
MOTU technical spent some time with me on the phone, but did not follow up when they said they
would in the form of Email. I would have liked to try a debug version of the driver to see if they
could diagnose the problem, but they seemed uninterested. I am really baffeled by this. In
any case. Any futher suggestions are welcome.
Here are some stats:
Gigabyte GA-SINXP1394 motherboard
1 Corsiar DDR-400 module
PNY AGP-8X video card
P4-2.5G
Maxtor 200GB ATA/133 disk
52X CDROM.
Serial ATA disabled in the Bios
RAID feature diabled in the bios

Thanks,

Jeff

[Ted]

They still make really good stuff at a low price, so I will still buy MOTU stuff, but will be very wary about ever having to call tech support.

Another good reason to buy from us! We do have a dedicated tech support department here with both Mac and PC techs, and our techs are able to support everything we sell, not just one particular line...so if you have a problem with, say, Sonar and some MOTU hardware you won't have to worry about one company blaming everything on the other and vice versa. Not that we're perfect, but we're pretty good...and a lot of this information is available for free in the Sweet Care section of the website, but it's always nice to be able to talk to a real person.


I wish MOTU would write generic AudioWire->FireWire drivers so we could use a run of the mill FIreWire card to access their hardware. I do not know if this is possible, but it would save a lot of trouble for a lot of us.

I doubt that will happen, since a lot of the hardware that runs the system is actually on the PCI 324/424 card. They do have the 828 and 896 if you're looking for a "straight" Firewire interface, but without the PCI card the 2408-type hardware wouldn't be anything special (or usable).

-Ted

[northwinds]

I have same problem as JDW (Jeff) has.
It was working when I was using Windows ME.
I upgraded to Windows XP Pro, then 2408 mk2 started clicking. Of course I tried to change every buffer sizes. But it did not work.

My spec is

P4 2.5Ghz
Soyo SY-P41 845E Lite (Intel Chip)
512MB DDR PC2100 Memory (Kingston)
Seagate 80GB IDE HD (2MB buffer)
PNY Verto AGP NVIDIA MX200
Windows XP Pro

Did anybody solve these problem?
Or should I buy another motherboad?

[xstatic]

I agree with you Ted about buying Motu hardware from you guys to get access to better support. However, I bought it used for $300 (in perfect shape because I knew where it had been for its whole 1st ownership). But I may be buying more Motu harware in the near future.

[Ted]

We don't have the same type of price-matching guarantee that a lot of places have because of what we do have to offer...these forums are a good example of the service that we offer at no charge to anyone, but especially with computer systems our tech support department is very valuable and something that nobody else (that I'm aware of) can compare to...but we're always willing to do what we can to be competetive, especially on larger packages, so I'd suggest you always call your sales engineer here when you're looking for something...

-Ted

[george_asp]

Hello there!

i have the same problem!
yesterday tried to setup my new Board (from PIII 1000GHZ + Asus Cusl2)
to Pentium D 2.8GHZ, Asus P5B-VM (chipset Intel)

no results! everything works great (Motu Miditimepiece AV) except Motu PCI 324!

I give up , because this is the second Board i tried to set! (the first was an other Asus with VIA chipset (dont try it!)

anyone? ... something? knows anything?

[george_asp]

Make SURE that you have disabled "plug and play OS" in your BIOS. Also select "reset configuration data" after you have done this. ...


You mean "Load Default Settings" to Bios mode? because i cant find the "reset configuration data" where is this option?

thank you..

[Justin]

I'd doublecheck those instructions with either MOTU tech support, or our tech support if you bought the unit here. Those instructions were from 2003, and it's very likely that there may be a different way of handling this now.