Fix to my Macbook Pro Problems!

[playthemdrums]

Hey everyone, I recently bought the 15" i7 Macbook Pro and had nothing but problems with the laptop.

I was running MBP Fw800 -> External Drive Fw400 -> Digi003R

Kept getting drop outs, buffer errors and CPU spikes/errors.

After going through every ounce of troubleshooting without a fix (and even calling Avid - who just told me everything was ok and took my $40) i bought a new drive which seemed to help somewhat but did not completely clear up my problems. I was still getting DAE errors.

I figured that this may be down to daisy chaining, so i took my 15" back and payed a little extra for the 17" i5. I also bought a Raidon Expresscard 2 x Esata.

I'm now running my Lacie D2 on Esata and have my Digi 003R+ running from the Fw800 port of the MBP.

Problems are gone - thanks to seperating the drive and interface to different buses.

Buffer error only comes up when I'm using excessive plugins. Would also like to add that I have not noticed much of a difference in performance either.

Apple made a major mistake by dropping the expresscard port from those 15" laptops. So much for being "pro". And it maybe a good idea if Avid warn people that daisy-chaining on a MBP can be problematic.

[Ticker]

ptd - Glad to hear you made it to a point of success, sorry to hear that the only apparent solution was to swap computers. I share your sentiments about the latest MBPs (but glad I have mine, still light years above what I had previously). Anyhow, congratulations on resolving the challenge - at least now you can get back to focusing on creative work (that's why we put ourselves through this madness in the first place, isn't it?)...

[soundboy35]

Maybe you guys can shed some light here. I have the last gen MBP with FW800 and 400 ports.
I'm getting all kinds of CPU errors and Firewire bus errors with my 003R. Some say to daisy chain, and others not.
I've tried both methods and I don't see a huge difference. I'm not running huge sessions either.
Ticker, I see you have a FW express card. Does that make a big difference? I may have to get one so the 003 can have it's own bus.
One of the DTS guys suggested a SIIG FW400 express card.

Any thoughts?

[Ticker]

soundboy35 - I don't have any experience with the previous gen MBP like you have. However my previous laptop was the 17" Powerbook G4 - like yours, it also had a combination of FW400 and FW800 ports. My standard studio hookup was to dedicate the FW400 port to the 002 interface and use the FW800 port for external drives. Just prior to buying the new MBP I did a test daisy chain - Powerbook > audio drive > Digi 002 - to make sure it would work. The old Powerbook did fine with that configuration too. So I bought the new MBP thinking it would be a walk in the park - not so.

Feel free to check out my previous posts for more detail; long story short, I gave up on daisy chaining, got the express card adapter and it has worked out very well for me.

I know that Avid recommends the SIIG card you mention. I was originally going to go with that one, however I encountered some uncertainty from the sales staff of a local store as to whether it was approved for Macs - they seemed to think it was PC only (this may be completely incorrect, but it kept me from making the purchase straightaway). I purchased a different brand adapter, Mac approved (don't remember the brand) - this particular card added 2 ports, one FW 800, one FW400. With the 002 connected to the FW400 port of this adapter I still kept getting communication errors, so I returned that adapter.

Then I read some great things about the Sonnet Tango card on the OWC website, called and talked to one of their techs and he vouched for it's performance. It has performed exactly as described.

I've dedicated the MBP FW port to the 002 (via FW800 to FW400 adapter cable, then I have 2 more FW800 ports via the Tango card and these ports are dedicated to the drives - one port for audio drive and it's backup, the other port for sample drive. All drives are Glyph.

I hope that's helpful...

[soundboy35]

Thanks for getting back. I tried the daisy chaining thing and it still causes errors even in small sessions when playing, zooming, etc.

I bought the SIIG 2 port FW400 card today and not one bit of difference. Sessions freeze, and a lot of -6085 & -6086 errors. I think I've tried every possible config as far as buffer settings, 1 processor, 2 processors, etc.
Maybe the 003 is bad? Who knows?? There's no Digitest for these.

Really not sure where to go from here. Maybe the Sonnet card is better, but I have to say this is really a PITA, especially coming from HD! I sold off my PCI-X HD system to start using the laptop setup, and this is not working out all so far. Tried PT 7.4.2, 8.0. 8.0.3 and it's all the same crap. Definitely takes the Pro out of Pro Tools.

I'm hoping it's not the "clamshell" mode (which is what I first wrote in about)
because I want to be able to use my external monitor. Haven't tried just the MBP screen with the SIIG card...will do and report back.

Glad you're up and running

[Ticker]

If I read your last post correctly it sounds like you're still running PT LE 8.0.3. If so, I'd definitely recommend upgrading to 8.0.4 - 8.0.3 had a lot of "issues" and it'd be good to take those bugs out of the equation.

Once you've done that, you might try connecting the 003 direct to your laptop, disconnect your external drives and record a test session direct to your system drive. Recording to the system drive is, of course, not the recommended method and I'd never do it for real work, however there's no harm in doing so for testing purposes.

In my case it helped me establish that my MBP could in fact communicate well with the 002 - just needed it's own dedicated port to do so - and then I could focus more specifically on optimizing connectivity to my hard drives (via express card, as previously mentioned).

Good luck.

[soundboy35]

I actually went back to 7.4.2, since I was having the same problems. -6085, -6086, -6093's I figured the problems were not the software (?), and I like working in 7

I also have an Mbox2 which I'm testing at the moment, and seems to be running better, but I also removed the external monitor/clamshell mode out of the equation.

What abut running the MBP FW800 to the 003 via a 800-400 cable. The problem seems to be the 003 as far as I can tell. Hopefully not he cable!

I'll try recording to the OS drive and then test this out. I just got the 003 and would like to have use of all the inputs, but if they don't fly on the laptop, it's no good to me.

Tried RTD'ing 8 tracks from Addictive Drums the other night and nothing but problems.

[soundboy35]

Problem is still not resolved. A few less errors but again scrolling up and down with the mouse is causing hardware interrupts, and send the session into a SWOD.

DTS: The SIIG FW400 card didn't seem to make any difference, but I'll try again.