Spoke with Jeff at Syntax and he suggested cleaning the contacts on the PCI card and blowing out the port. Did both and issue remains. I switched both ADAT links over to ADAT 3&4 and they are steady as a rock. So problem solved for now but it looks like my ADAT 1 port is ill. The one thing that did change from last night is the fact the that opening the clock no longer settles down blinking ADAT 1 in port.
The only other thing I see is that the card is sharing IRQ 16 with a USB port. Nothing shows up in device mangler as a conflict - but some of my USB ports are kind of flakey and drop out now and then. Thus I am thinking of trying to get the RME card to go to another IRQ.
LB