DIGI 002 Rack / Windows 7 x64 - Firewire bus NOT present

[Zergei72]

I have a add-on pci firewire card on a eMachines / Acer ET1870 desktop pc .
Somehow there's no trace of firewire / 1394 - bus in dev management .
I've even tried installing the legacy driver - the install succeeds, but there's still no sign of firewire - bus .

I've checked in Speccy for the firewire - bus, but it's not there either .

I know the card is working for I grabbed it out of another pc, that is running Windows 11 and the card works in that pc as it should .

I'd like to get my DIGI002 rack installed and working .

Some help, Thank You .

- Z -

[Top Jimmy]

If it’s really a PCI card, did you try a different slot? Anything in the BIOS for enabling legacy PCI support? Did you install the manufacturer’s specific driver?

[The Weed]

Does it have a Texas Instruments chip? Those were the only chips Digidesign/Avid recommended. I had a SIIG card with a TI chip and my 002 worked well.

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by Zergei72

I have a add-on pci firewire card on a eMachines / Acer ET1870 desktop pc.

Hopefully you mean PCIe not PCI card. Don’t know about this exact model of PC, you *might* have a single PCI slot and several PCIe slots… or they might all be PCIe

What *exact* card? Make/model. If it came out of a Windows 11 computer it very likely will be PCIe.

Having a card inserted in a correct slot, even without driver should cause some PCI or PCIe device to show up in the Device Manager control panel. Otherwise that card or slot is likely dead.

If the computer insides are dusty vacuum and/or blow all that out. Try reseating the board, try different slots.

If you are running Pro Tools: Low-end configs of ET1870 may be under-spec to run modern versions of Pro Tools. Hopefully you have looked at the requirements of what version you want to run and have a Pro Tools version compatible with Windows 7.

[albee1952]

Doing a google search for this PC shows it to be seriously underpowered and under-spec'd for Pro Tools use. Unless yours is loaded with upgrades, a Core 2 Duo and 2GB of RAM is barely enough to run Windows 7 alone, never mind adding a power-hungry program like Pro Tools.

Then, there's the 002 itself; are you POSITIVE it is working? Are you aware of the dreaded "power harness" issue that hits nearly every unit? If the unit makes more than 3 clicks on powerup, that's one indication of a harness or PSU failure(but not the only symptom).

[albee1952]

Next, the software installation must be done in a certain way(especially on Windows 7), so tossing in a Pro Tools disk and hitting "Setup" is very likely to not work(even if everything else is fine and dandy).

Which exact version of Pro Tools do you have? LE8 was a bust on Windows 7 due to.....firewire drivers. PT9, 10 or 11 might work(but the newer the version, the more computer power is needed).

[Zergei72]

Case Closed !!!

I put the pcie card in a different slot and also this time I connected the "molex" power cable to the card . (It did not need that last one with the other pc) .

I have run Pro Tools 12 (on Windows 10 x64) on this computer and it worked actually very well for the purpose I used it for ; rec max 16 tracks of audio with no inserts during the tracking time . I also did some multitrack drum - tracking with a friend, who played / recorded guitar at the same time through an amp simulator - plugin ... and if I recall we were dealing with a very small latency ... not noticeable at all ; and the setup was pretty stable .

I've now installed Windows XP (so that the OS won't be such a burden itself) on this pc and it's running Pro Tools v8.0.5 LE .

as a quickie ... is it possible with Pro Tools 8 to rec enable / arm (mix -) groups as it's possible on more recent versions of Pro Tools ?

Thank You to all of You for your help around here .

- Z -