Focusrite Saffire PRO 24 DSP with Firewire Expresscard

Hi all.
Interested in your thoughts…
 
I have a HP laptop running XP Pro that I use when I do recordings on the go.
 
Here are the system specs..
 
HP DV4 1049tx
Intel Core 2 Duo 2.53 GHz CPU
4gb ram
320gb 7200rpm hdd
Sonar 8.5 Producer
 
This laptop is purely used and fully optimised for audio. As such, all devices not required are disabled etc. It runs like a beast. I have been using a Tascam US-144 USB 2.0 interface which has been working perfectly with this set up. I record at 24 bit 96 KHz with the latency set at 2.7ms. Never had any dropouts.
 
Anyway…i'm using this setup more and more so was keen to buy a better quality interface. I bought a Focusrite Saffire PRO 24 DSP online. I obviously want no problems so I read their firewire compatibilty document and one of the expresscards they recommend and have tested is the SIIG NN-EC2012-S1 card which has a TI chipset. I promptly ordered one of these cards online too. (there is no onboard firewire on my laptop)
 
The interface was shipped before the expresscard and it arrived yesterday. Eager to test it out, I slotted in an existing firewire expresscard that I have. It's cheap and uses a VIA chipset. (I literally bought it for $5 off ebay) Been handy for using firewire hard drives etc. Anyway! This set up (perhaps not surprisingly) has been very unimpressive. Setting the latency to around 2.7ms is a definite no go. Despite the CPU being at 10% the audio is glitchy and drops out. As well as an ASIO buffer size setting, the Saffire has a Firewire Driver Latency setting. If I want glitch free audio this has to be set to 'Very Long' and the ASIO buffer size to about 640.
 
I'm pretty sure that the quality TI firewire card will turn up in a couple days and solve my problems. BUT just keen to see who here is using a focusrite interface successfully with a firewire expresscard?
 
If the TI card doesn't do a better job that this cheapy then I'm kinda screwed!
 
Cheers,
 
Jerry

The thing about Laptops that many don't realize is that the chipset responsible for the Express card slot is the limiting factor.

Even if you have a Ti chipset Firewire card there are no guarantees

Hi guys. Thanks for your comments.

I seem to have solved the issue! I read a tip on a forum that said if you're using firewire audio with a laptop go to System Properties > Device Manager > Batteries > Microsoft ACPI-Compliant Control Method Battery > and Disable. I gave it a go and am now getting glitch free audio running my exisiting projects through my cheap VIA expresscard. All with the firewire driver latency set to short and a buffer size of 256. Very happy.

You're right eratu, I am very impressed with the interface. Just finsihed mucking around with it for a few hours. Sounds great.

Out of interest I gave the DPC latency checker a go. On idle it reported and absolute max of 78 after sitting there for a few minutes. Playing back a decent size project didnt make it go much higher. Before I disabled the Microsoft ACPI-Compliant Control Method Battery, you could see a big yellow spike jumping up every now and then.



 

The SIIG firewire express card (with TI chipset) turned up a couple of days ago. I haven't been able to get it to work at all with the Saphire! Can't even play back an MP3. My laptop recognises it fine. I connected a firewire hard drive to it and it transfers data fine too. But with the Saphire, the firewire light flashes every couple of seconds and mix control struggles to load. As soon as I put the cheap VIA based card back in, the FW light stays solid and things work fine again.

I uninstalled/reinstalled the drivers etc but nothing seems to make the FW light stop flashing and audio play. There are no spikes with DPC latency checker.

It's nice that I have the other card working but as it's cheap the ports are pretty loose etc. Always worried the cable will fall out.

It's a shame cause the SIIG is an expensive little card with excellent build quality. Was thinking it might give me a little performance boost too but not to be.

My laptop must prefer the VIA chipset which is interesting. Maybe I should look for a better built VIA based card?

Any ideas on getting the SIIG card to work eratu?

Cheers,

Jerry

jerryfloyd


The SIIG firewire express card (with TI chipset) turned up a couple of days ago. I haven't been able to get it to work at all with the Saphire! Can't even play back an MP3. My laptop recognises it fine. I connected a firewire hard drive to it and it transfers data fine too. But with the Saphire, the firewire light flashes every couple of seconds and mix control struggles to load. As soon as I put the cheap VIA based card back in, the FW light stays solid and things work fine again.

I uninstalled/reinstalled the drivers etc but nothing seems to make the FW light stop flashing and audio play. There are no spikes with DPC latency checker.

It's nice that I have the other card working but as it's cheap the ports are pretty loose etc. Always worried the cable will fall out.

It's a shame cause the SIIG is an expensive little card with excellent build quality. Was thinking it might give me a little performance boost too but not to be.

My laptop must prefer the VIA chipset which is interesting. Maybe I should look for a better built VIA based card?

Any ideas on getting the SIIG card to work eratu?

Cheers,

Jerry

Hi Jerry,

Bummed to hear you're having problems. That SIIG card is probably the same model I have (if it's the firewire 400 version, not 800 version), and it works great for me (and a lot of other people). I actually already had one from another laptop, and my ADK laptop came with the exact same model as well, so you have one of the best firewire cards as far as I know. I see you're using Win XP Pro, and I'm using Win 7 Pro, so I'm wondering if there's a driver issue -- either with the SIIG or with the Saffire on XP that might be causing the issue.

I wish I had some extra trick up my sleeve for you, but as you know, laptop pro audio is a tricky business with a thousand factors. Besides contacting Focusrite (which may or may not be a waste of time on an issue like this), I'd try a completely clean re-install of all drivers by uninstalling and reinstalling, and possibly cleaning your registry. That may require some more homework on your part, I can't help with specific entries that might need to be scrubbed.

If that doesn't do it, I'd *personally* move on to plan B, which is a completely fresh OS install, with all the normal caveats of carefully backing up your data. Or, even better yet, plan C, I'd take this chance to move to Win 7, to be quite frank.

That's a big decision, though, since you've already got a basically working system right now with the VIA card. So I would NOT recommend this necessarily for anyone except for the masochistic type who wants to put themselves through a lot of testing, tweaking (and sometimes torture). Again, this is just what I would personally do, and have done many times for my laptop DAW experiments in the last several months. But only do that if you do it the right way and are committed. Otherwise, I'd suggest plan D, which is to get rid of the SIIG and try another card or just live with the VIA you currently have. :(

If you go with plan C, Win 7, this is what I'd personally do. I'm not recommending this, just stating what I would literally do:

1) I would go buy a new laptop hard drive.

2) I would go buy Win 7

3) I would lovingly remove the existing hard drive with your working XP Pro config and keep it very, very safe, to revert back to if all else fails.

4) I would install the new hard drive.

5) I would install an imaging tool like BootIt Next Generation by TeraByte Unlimited on the new hard right before the OS, then I could partition the hard drive how I want to before installation and also make drive images along the way, without having to boot up into the OS itself. This is an advanced step but I do it for situations like this where there is a lot of potential for driver issues.

6) I would install Win 7, taking snapshot images along the way with BootIt NG. I'd first get Windows up and running, trying to use mostly Win 7 default drivers, except for the tricky ones like graphics card. I'd be monitoring the DPC after every driver install to see if the new driver is one that behaves badly, then revert back if it does, or disable it.

7) Once I have a clean, mostly generic Win 7 install with clean DPC, I'd insert the SIIG, and let Win 7 use its own driver.

8) And then I'd install the Saffire.

9) Then install Sonar, etc.

That's what I'd do. :) But then again, that requires spending more money and a lot more time. If THAT all doesn't work, then I'd consider reverting back to the original hard drive, and perhaps returning the SIIG firewire card or going to plan D or E, or F... :) Some people might call that insane, and I'd have to agree, but it's worked for me with some laptops.

In the end, though, no laptop I've done that with comes close to the ADK laptop I have, which has extremely good DPC latency and superb low-latency performance, yes, with that SIIG card and with that Saffire device.

As always, best of luck! I hope it works out!

NoKey


Sounds like the urban legend of the Texas Instrument Firewire Chipset being the Holy Grail is indeed a myth that has caused needless toil and expense to some.

Hi NoKey,

TI chipsets do indeed help in most cases. I've tested tons of firewire cards and motherboards equipped with firewire in my years, and without a doubt, TI chipset-based cards end up giving the fewest problems on both laptops and desktops. But that's not to say it's the solution to everyone's situation, so I'm with you there on that point. No one said it was the magical bullet, and any myths perpetuated by people out there about TI just show how people often don't take into account how complex DAWs are.

A DAW's ecosystem is very complex, so even with the very best, most highly-rated firewire card on earth, you can still have issues with various other components or drivers in your machine. So TI is not the Holy Grail, I'll agree with you there, but let's not draw universal conclusions and assume that just because there are some people that have issues and they also happen to have TI cards, that doesn't mean that TI cards don't help the majority of people that use them.

It was a good choice for Jerry to purchase that SIIG card, which is known to help a lot of people and if he has the 400 version of the chip, then that's the very card that ships with top DAW laptops and I can personally say it works great with his audio interface in Win 7, on at least two laptops I've personally tested. That's not to say it WILL work with his specific laptop model, given that there are so many other factors, and no one said it would DEFINITELY and magically solve his problems. But it's a very reasonable recommendation for people to make.

Hi Jerry,

As for being "worth your while" I can't possibly say. I've got a family and they're my number 1, for example, so "worth *my* while" may be very different than "worth *your* while." Life is short. If you really need Win 7 like I did (I needed the benefits of extra memory, x64, etc... plus I had purchased new parts/systems so I might as well get Win 7 to work), it has been worth it for me. But I have no idea what specific obstacles you'll run into with your laptop that might ultimately be a waste of time. All I can say is best of luck either way!

On laptops there is a chipset dedicated to running the Express cArd some peripherals like SD card slots as well as firewire if its installed.

The problem is that no matter what express card you install any data passing through it is going to be handled by the Express card chipset as well as in the OP's case the Firewire express Card itself. This becomes a bit of a a craps shoot and there are no guarantees.
 
Till recently I was running a DELL XPS 1710M laptop with the dreaded Ricoh chipset yet it all ran fine incuding the onboard firewire.