MR816CSX Lots of dropouts

Hi there
I’m hoping someone might be able to help. The 816 is dropping out while recording or playback. I tend to do a lot
of stereo recordings in Wavelab 8.5. There is no consistency to the issue. I might be able to record for 15 minutes then all
at once I will get a series of dropouts, maybe 5 or 6 in a row. Other times the audio might only dropout once every few
minutes, or it may begin dropping out right at the start. It also happens during playback. It doesn’t matter what buffer
size is set to, even running the tool for adjusting priority makes no difference. I had this problem in windows 8.1 as well as
windows 10. Drivers are all up to date, using a TI chipset, tried different cables. PC has an ASRock Extreme 6 MB. i7 4770
CPU, 16Gb XMP 1.2 ram. DPC sits around 20, peaks up to 60 or so. Uses a SSD for OS, 2TB WD black for audio software and plugins, a 3TB 7200 RPM drive for audio. NVidia 750TI based video card. Tried disabling background transfer services, tried disabling speedstep, power options are set for max performance, no standby. Suspend is disabled in the bios. All of this said, I have NO ISSUES recording or playing back with a USB interface. Right now it’s a CI2+. I also tried installing the legacy firewire driver and the firewire driver from another site but no luck. After all of this, I did a fresh install of windows 10 and still have the same issues. I had nothing but Wavelab installed. No extras. OS updated with latest.

Do you have a VIA based firewire controller?
I solded my MR816 and UR824 because of a VIA chipset on my motherboard which causes dropouts (only with low latency settings).

No, it’s a TI based PCIe card. The PCIe slot isn’t shared with any other slots according to the mother board manual. I’m only recording at 44.1 16bit. Even with the latency cranked as high (or low) as it goes it still drops out the same. The interface is the only thing on the buss. No other firewire devices plugged in. The card has 3 ports, tried them all.

Pfff that’s to bad, your specs are good, why the dropouts occure is difficult I guess seeing that you already ruled out the windows installation (fresh install).
Have your tried changing video-cards?

I put the 750TI in because I was using the CPU’s video and the dropouts didn’t change with the new card. Same amount, same exact symptoms. The thing that gets me is that if I am playing back through the CI2+ or Windows standard audio output things are fine. As soon as I put the MR into the picture the cursor hesitates when playing back and I get dropouts. It seems like firewire isn’t playing nice with something. Ditto with recording. No issues unless using the MR. Sometime this week I am going to take the MR out of the rack and hook it to a laptop with an expresscard firewire adapter. I want to see if it still gives me grief. I don’t know what else to do.

Ok, try to change firewire cables, these are prone to misbehave. Check also your clocking source (should be internal).
It’s probably a whole lot of work, but the main thing is to keep working systematically and rule out all possible causes.

Probably best idea to check with your laptop.

PS: are you sure that DPC checker support windows 10?

Have you seen this video? Could be some help…

Taken form this thread: A must-watch for users with real-time issues! - Cubase - Steinberg Forums

After all of my digging this is what I find. Maybe someone from Steinberg or someone successfully using a PCI-e firewire interface can chime in to this as well. From everything I am reading, firewire silicon seems to have a native PCI interface only. To make it work in a PCI-e slot there needs to be a buffer/translator chip to go from the PCI to the PCI-e buss. Most of these buffer chips don’t seem capable of supporting the continuous needed data transfer rate the audio requires. New motherboards no longer have PCI slots, I don’t want to go backwards here. From what I can find, there seems to be only 1 firewire chip at this point that natively supports PCI-e and from what I read from other audio guys posts, it doesn’t work very well. I will try and verify my findings by:

  1. Using a different USB interface I will record at 192Khz, 24 bit at lower buffer settings and see if I can do it for an hour on my existing PC. Latency is latency. If I can do that then I will be sure it’s a firewire problem but not the cable. I have used several new cables, used but known good cables etc.

  2. Connect the MR up to an older i7 PC that I used to use with Cubase 6 with built in firewire that worked flawlessly. If it works under all versions of Windows (it had latency of 65 peaking around 100) I will be pretty sure about the PCI-e issue and I will know for sure the MR is fine and the cable is good.

Another thing I did.
I installed Windows 7 on the new PC and the MR STILL had dropouts. I use this latency monitor:

My latency in Windows any flavor sits around 20, peaks around 60. This PC should have no issues.
If anyone has been successful running a PCI-e firewire card in a PC without a PCI buss with no lagging or dropouts please chime in and let me know which card you are using. I would be a happy guy. What makes this search so much of a pain is that half of the time they don’t even tell you which firewire chip they use on the card and almost NEVER tell you which buffer chip is on there. Either way, any buffer chip will introduce lag. PCI being parallel, PCI-e being serial, having to use a shift register in the buffer. I’d be surprised if they could get 30mbs sustained.

Well I really feel for you as I sold all my MR816X a while ago because of problems with FW (I have a VIA chipset), after a while I also sold my UR824 which also began giving troubles, now happy with my cards, still have FW card (focusrite safire pro 26) which I use as an ADAT extender on my Audient ID14.

I wish thunderbolt was a standard on PC platform as this format looks promising.

I know this rant is not a big help for you…just sharing my experience and frustation.

Have you tried disabling the wireless network connection. I had issues with that several years ago and when I started disabling the network connections, my dropouts disappeared.

I did. I looked it up and found out it was an issue so I shut it off in the bios. A lot of users had the same issue with all brands of firewire interfaces. A lot of users reported that drivers below a certain revision worked fine but for many revisions after (intel 218v) they had a lot of dropouts. They also reported that the latest driver finally solved the issue but it still didn’t solve my problem.

So… I recorded about 2 hours of audio over USB at 192K 24 bit using a Tascam UH-7000. Had not a single dropout. I guess the last step will be for me to test this thing on the old PC in Windows 7. A setup that I know worked fine in the past. I guess if it does work I will know the MR is fine. I might also sell it. Too bad. Surprising that Yamaha, a company who makes products that I respect when it comes to live audio… M7CL, PM5D, etc., can’t solve this problem. Maybe if I were the only one having this issue but it is clear that I am NOT the only one.

I was having problems with my Yamaha n12, which is the mixing board version of the MR816. After a lot of back and forth with Yamaha (Steinberg) support, we determined it was the power supply. It was fluctuating enough to cause wink outs and static. Occasionally it would just reset the sample rate. Maybe try a new PS?

Just tried to put my new DAW online last weekend. W10Pro/64; Giga X99SLI/5820, 3xSamsungSSDs, 16gigs. I installed a SIIG NN-E20012-S2 firewire card w/ a TI chipset. I get no audio at all! The computer sees and controls my MRs (they change sample rate when I change the control panel) and Cubase sees them, and even allows me to assign control room outputs and the meters in Cubase move; but no audio comes out. Nada! Neither program or headphones has any signal at all. I have no IRQ conflicts, I’ve moved the card to a different slot; I’ve checked for latency (its well within range) and by the looks of the computer’s control and audio panels, it should be working. But no… Any ideas? Steinberg’s tech support has not responded to my request for help.

Wanted to report that I’ve solved my no audio problem by changing the firewire card to a Siig 38012S3. Will stress test after I return from a trip, but it looks promising.

After switching to the USB interface I can have dropbox AND onedrive syncing while surfing the web with 3 pages open and getting my email with outlook all while recording a stereo 44.1 16 bit audio and NO DROPOUTS. Well, I guess that about sums it up.
Oh well. Anyone in the market for a fully functional MR816CSX in great shape? Just don’t try a PCIe firewire card. It works perfectly with a PCI card.