problems with m-audio fast track pro driver

[ubie]

hey all, i have a question about drivers?????
i am using an inspiron 6000 for video,audio, web design and animation and i have not had any problems with my computer that i couldn't handle on my own untill last week. i found that when i played a cd i would get muffled skipped and or plain old yucky sounds when using my m-audio fast track pro sound card. This however, did not occur when using the cheap sigma tel c-major sound card that came with the computer. I thought it could possibly be a result of new microsoft upgrades and a new driver could solve the problem. I decided then to uninstall the old driver and anything else that had to do with my sound card and start a new. Her in lies the problem: when i try to run the driver program it simply shows the animation graph going to the end like most programs but that's it, the start up executive program does not go any further. So for some reason my computer is blocking this executive program from running on my computer b ut i can't figure it out. I have tried running this program from the internet, from another drive, without firewall, deleting certain programs that could effect the m-audio but nothing seems to work. so if anyone can help, this would be apreciated since them-audio guys seem to be on vacation right now....

[itsplayed]

Look to see if your USB hub is sharing an IRQ. Make sure the Fast Track Pro is the only device connected to the USB hub. The audio device must be connected directly to the motherboard....no extension hubs.

[ubie]

hey thanyou "itsplayed", for replying but i'm not sure what to do about the information?? this is what the computer tells me about conflicts:
I/O Port 0x00000000-0x00000CF7 PCI bus
I/O Port 0x00000000-0x00000CF7 Direct memory access controller

I/O Port 0x000003C0-0x000003DF Mobile Intel(R) 915GM/PM Express PCI Express Root Port - 2591
I/O Port 0x000003C0-0x000003DF ATI MOBILITY RADEON X300

I/O Port 0x000010C0-0x000010DF Intel(R) 82801FB/FBM SMBus Controller - 266A
I/O Port 0x000010C0-0x000010DF System board

IRQ 16 Mobile Intel(R) 915GM/PM Express PCI Express Root Port - 2591
IRQ 16 ATI MOBILITY RADEON X300
IRQ 16 Intel(R) 82801FB/FBM USB Universal Host Controller - 2658
IRQ 16 Intel(R) 82801FB/FBM USB2 Enhanced Host Controller - 265C
IRQ 16 SigmaTel C-Major Audio

IRQ 17 Intel(R) 82801FB/FBM USB Universal Host Controller - 2659
IRQ 17 SDA Standard Compliant SD Host Controller
IRQ 17 Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2200BG Network Connection
IRQ 17 Conexant D110 MDC V.9x Modem

Memory Address 0xD0000000-0xD7FFFFFF Mobile Intel(R) 915GM/PM Express PCI Express Root Port - 2591
Memory Address 0xD0000000-0xD7FFFFFF ATI MOBILITY RADEON X300

IRQ 18 Intel(R) 82801FB/FBM USB Universal Host Controller - 265A
IRQ 18 Broadcom 440x 10/100 Integrated Controller
IRQ 18 OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller

IRQ 19 Intel(R) 82801FB/FBM USB Universal Host Controller - 265B
IRQ 19 Ricoh R/RL/5C476(II) or Compatible CardBus Controller

Memory Address 0xA0000-0xBFFFF PCI bus
Memory Address 0xA0000-0xBFFFF Mobile Intel(R) 915GM/PM Express PCI Express Root Port - 2591
Memory Address 0xA0000-0xBFFFF ATI MOBILITY RADEON X300

I/O Port 0x000003B0-0x000003BB Mobile Intel(R) 915GM/PM Express PCI Express Root Port - 2591
I/O Port 0x000003B0-0x000003BB ATI MOBILITY RADEON X300
now if this helps you help me that would be very wonderful..thanks again for anything you can do

[itsplayed]

:eek: ....too much sharing going on and way too many devices. Notebooks can be a nightmare to configure properly. Anyway, trying to get that USB hub on it's own IRQ may prove to be difficult. Your best shot is trying to find the USB port that is sharing IRQ19 with the cardbus controller and using that for the Fast track. It's not ideal, but I'd say it's better than the alternatives.

[ubie]

thanks again for the help but although i do feel this will help with the sound quality when i play cd's i still haven't been able to figure out why my computer is blocking the driver program from loading on my computer so i can access the m-audio fast track pro. this is the main concern right now because before i removed the old driver to replace it with a new one i had no problem working in nuend, ableton live or any of my audio programs. i was only unable to burn cd's or import cd's using the m-audio. so if there is a known program or something that microsoft or dell may place on computers that would block the m-audio driver from installing, i would love to know. thanks again anyone who may be of help....

[itsplayed]

Well if it was my notebook, I'd disable all devices that I won't be using from within the BIOS, reformat/partition the drive and install a retail version of XP professional on it(no 'recovery' disk). I say this to you only after looking at the IRQ assignments.
What do the rest of the IRQ handouts look like? In the Device Manager open the 'View' menu and select 'resources by connection', there......expand the IRQ tree.
M-Audio mentions something about maybe needing to extract the driver files, which may be why it fails to auto execute.

[MrHope]

It's tricky with IRQ's because some of them are dynamically shared. I forget which ones, but it is normal. I unfortunately would have to agree that you may want to reinstall windows with just the minimum programs and drivers that you need. However, maybe somebody else has seen this type of error before and knows how to deal with it.

[xencage]

I'm also using the m-audio fast trac with a dell 6400. So far things seem ok when I disable Sigm Tel and reboot - Though I don't know if this is what I should actually do since the sigma tel shows up as a codec?? :confused:

What I'd really like to do is create seperate boot up "profiles" or "user" ? :confused:
- one for audio production, minimal drivers, etc, and one where I can boot up like normal with all the garbage in the sys tray, ect.

I've messed around a bit with the msconfig , but I can't seem to find a way to save a specific configuration for boot up options. Creating a new user profile dosent work for enableing and disabeling devices,and loading devices, ect.

Anyone have any suggestions or links I can visit??
:)

Thanks
km

[ubie]

Although i have never done this personnaly, i have read a lot of articles and forums where people have partitioned their hard drive in which windows runs under and used a certain percentage of the drive only for internet, word processing and or other high computer processing programs. then using the other partition to run your audio, visual type programs with all the neccesary settings. The problem is that this would mean that you would have to do a clean install and that may be more time consuming then you want. But if you do decide there is a place when you clean install within the windows program that allows you to manually choose how much of the drive percentage wise you want to partition. i hope this helps and if you want a second third etc voice just google this idea, it is well documented.

[geNisYde]

:(

OK, i installed the drivers first and the installation screen came up and i followed all the instructions, then i pugged in the Fast Track Pro and the little message at the bottome popped up at the bottom and said "Your new hardware is installed and ready to use", so i check my audio properties and it does not show up, and when i double-click the icon in the systemn tray, it says that its not connected, yet the power light comes on and my laptop (Toshiba Satellite A105-S4344) recognizes that it is plugged in. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling, but no luck. I installed it and it works fine on my Compaq desktop, but i need it for my laptop and it doesnt work. Do i need a differnet driver, or new piece of hardware, or maybe switch something inside my laptop?

[Rotter3]

I had the same problem as alot of people on here -- no ability to record, 'not connected' for a message in control panel, No driver listed in the 'About' audio section of the control panel..Even though I'd tried dl'ing the latest drivers from m-audio and disabling my built-in soundcard (this was unnecessary in the end)

I fixed it by Right clicking on My Computer > Properties > Hardware > Device Manager
finding the Sound, video and game controllers section and right clicking on usb audio and picking update driver. I said No to letting windows contact their update server and install from a specific location, then picked don't search. I was then given a list of 2 options, one of which said 'm-audio fast track pro', so I picked that, hit next, and everything works now!

[gratemuzik]

I am having a different problem with similar hardware. Dell Inspiron 6000 M - Audio Fasttrack pro and when recording a Roland synth in through the ASIO in Sony Acid Pro 5 software the pops, crackles, skips and misses are driving me crazy. Is a slot USB hub the answer?

Some help would be appreciated.

Thx

[itsplayed]

I am having a different problem with similar hardware. Dell Inspiron 6000 M - Audio Fasttrack pro and when recording a Roland synth in through the ASIO in Sony Acid Pro 5 software the pops, crackles, skips and misses are driving me crazy. Is a slot USB hub the answer?

Some help would be appreciated.

Thx

Are you using any other USB devices along with the Fast Track?
You also want to check your system for IRQ sharing.

[gratemuzik]

There are a few sharing issues and even after disabling the drivers that the fasttrack was sharing irq's with it got a little better but it was still popping and cracking. The MIDI works fine and I can watch shows on utube and dvd's using the fasttrack pro's outputs, but any analog input through the device (wether being mic, drum machine, keyboards, etc.) skips and misses and sounds real bad.

I am recording into Acid pro and also have FL studio 6, Cakewalk Pro Audio, and Ableton Live 5 with the problem occurring in all of the so I know it isn't any of the programs(after trying out all of the aforementioned and more).

Thanks for the previous suggestion, but no dice. Has anyone dealt with anything similar?

Thanx.

[itsplayed]

I'm not quite sure what you meant by disabling drivers that the Fast Track was sharing IRQ's with. If you check your IRQ assignments do you see your USB hub sharing an IRQ?
Are you using any other USB devices on the same hub as the Fast Track?
Have you tweaked the system for DAW use, using the resource center found here as well as those found at www.musicxp.net (http://www.musicxp.net)?
Have you set the Processor Scheduling for Background Services?
Have you killed all visual enhancements?
Have you tried disabling any LAN device?
Have you tried disabling Hyperthreading?
Have you disabled any 'cool and quiet' fan feature in the BIOS?
What operating system are you running with?

[projectfusion]

I have come across a bizzare problem. I was running M-Audio, Fast Track Pro with Ableton Live as a traditional DJ setup for few weeks. From Fast Track Pro, I connected 1/2 rca to one channel of the mixer and 3/4 rca to the other channel of the mixer. So basically its a traditonal dj setup using Live, Fast track pro and my mixer. Then yesterday i started the pc and i dont get any sound from channel 3/4. I have tested the card on a different software but still no luck. I have been told by Fast Track Pro support team that it is an IRQ conflict. What could be the problem? I have tried disabling the onboard souncard on my laptop but still no luck. Today it started working all of a sudden for few mintues then i turned Fast Track Pro and laptop off and then tried to get it working but again its not working. By the way i have tried plugging in Fast Track Pro in every USB posrt.