002R firmware issues?

[bobwil]

I'm running 7.1 with a 002R on a dual 1.25 MDD mac. The system initially crashed about every 10 minutes when I first got it with 6.9.2. Computer tech ran overnight bench test on computer and found no problems with any hardware. I reformatted system drive, installed OS X 10.4.3, installed 6.9.2 and updated to 7.1. System runs much better, but still crashes about once an hour (only in Pro Tools) on average-sometimes more and sometimes less...sometimes with the grey kernel panic screen, but usually the audio gets "stuck" like a cd with a bad scratch. Other times, the mouse will simply freeze. I almost always have to power cycle the 002R to get the system working (along with a hard reset of my frozen computer). I am running Waves gold bundle and Auto-Tune in addition to digi-rack. When I installed Pro Tools, I remember having problems updating the 002R's firmware...it would run for ten minutes and give me a prompt about being unsuccesful in updating firmware. Can't find a firmware installer on the website. What other problem could it be? Am I missing something, guys? Thanks for your help.

Bob Williams
Dual 1.25 MDD G4
OS X 10.4.3
002R
7.1 with Music Production Toolkit

[Slim Shady]

I believe the firmware is a part of a normal PTLE installer, so you might try running your 7.1 installer again and see if you get the firmware message during the process.

Something to be aware of though (and there's another thread going on about this right now) is that the MDD Macs with Firewire 800 ports have a known issue with the firewire bus (even if you're not using the 800 port). There were 2 different versions of the Dual 1.25 G4, so this might not apply to you, but if you do have FW800 ports on your mac and you use firewire drives of any kind, then you should be aware of the following (from the compatibility pages):

FireWire Drives and Power Mac G4 "FW800" Models

The following problem exists with the Digi 002 & Digi 002 Rack and the 2003 Power Mac G4 "FW800" models with FireWire 800 ports:

Recording with the Digi 002 or 002 Rack to a FireWire drive connected to any of the 3 built-in Firewire ports on these computers can result in -6085 errors.
On these computers, Digidesign recommends using a dedicated internal ATA/IDE drive for recording.
The use of a Third Party FireWire PCI card is necessary with FW800 machines with Digi 002 or 002 Rack if the user wishes to either record to or boot from an external FireWire drive. If using FireWire drives with Digi 002 or 002 Rack & the 2003 Power Mac G4 FW800 models, a FireWire PCI adapter card must be used.
This problem only occurs on the 2003 Power Mac G4 FW800 desktop models. All other supported computers can use FireWire drives connected to the built-in FireWire ports.