Power Computing Powerwave Sound troubleshooting |
October, 13, 2003 11:16 PM |
mbp11 |
I can't believe it, but I installed OSX on my Power Computing Powerwave upgraded with a Sonnet 700Mhz G4 PCI card. My first few attempts ended with a dead machine, it never started from the 10.2 boot CD, but I managed to reset PRAM and massage it and get it running again. One week ago I gave it another try with the throttle slowed down and verbose mode running, and the installer ran and installed it on an extra 8 gig SCSI drive I have in the internal SCSI chain. It is amazing, I can't believe it. I am now getting used to all of the little idiosyncrocies, and the one problem that popped up is that the sound out is disabled. Can't play CDs in any of the internal or external CD ROMs attached, no sound output from the Powerwave (I have an external speaker system) and it is bugging me. Actually, iTunes started to play for a few moments, then stuttered and stopped. I ask it to play an mp3 and it sits there and doesn't play. Ask iTunes to play a CD ROM and it rushes through the tracks in a few seconds and stops. Very annoying. Any suggestions on how to troubleshoot this? My unix skills are about limited to fsck. There is no problem with sound booting the computer back to 9.1, 8.1, or 8.5. Powerwave G4 700 Sonnet PCI 1 gb memory Mac Radeon PCI card for video Javelin PCI card for video one free PCI slot for a USB card, nothing plugged in there yet. Internal CD ROM, internal Yamaha CD burner three internal hard drives in the internal and external SCSI bus, all terminated properly. many, many fans internally. Don't ask what I have outside the machine. Mike Peterson |
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E: Power Computing Powerwave Sound troubleshooting |
October, 31, 2003 11:35 AM |
mbp11 |
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Arrrgghhh! This is driving me nuts! Powerwave is running 10.2.6 perfectly, stable as a rock. Found all sorts of programs to replace the ones I used to use under 8.1-8.6- 9.1, but external audio CDs don't play (directly into external speakers), iTunes does not play, freeware CD controllers don't work on internal or external audio CDs, and what is more..... sometimes the error sounds come on play from the computer, and sound through the external speakers, and sometimes they don't. When I start iTunes after reinstalling it again, it will play raggedly for 4-5 seconds, and then stall and will not play any further and nothing thereafter. No movement on the indicator at the top. I reinstalled software again, checked and compared files from another computer I have that is running 10.2.6 perfectly, and all files are present, there is nothing missing. Being able to play music is the one thing that is making it perfect. I am about ready to gut the machine and move to a beige g3 or g4 or something... Mike Peterson computer dummy |
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E: Power Computing Powerwave Sound troubleshooting |
October, 27, 2003 4:49 PM |
gpopiela |
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I have a PowerWave with a G4 card and am running 10.2.8. I have no audio input but have always had audio out. Always play iTunes Radio. If I need input audio, could always go USB. Been running X since beta and works great. I have an Adaptec Firewire/USB 2.0 card that works great except Apple doesnt support USB 2.0 yet, maybe in Panther. |
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RE: Power Computing Powerwave Sound troubleshootin |
October, 18, 2003 6:46 AM |
msobel |
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I have a power center with sound problems too. No add-on sound cards. I was reading the thread and noticed that some machines work fine. I have no sound out at all from OS X. However, when I first tried xpostfacto I loaded up OS X on a 3 gig "test" drive and the sound seemed to work but very slowly at first, then seemed to work OK. When I went to load OS X on an 8 gig HD I loaded up the L2 cache utility. The new "load" did not have any sound. Sometimes I get a beep then nothing. The audio out in the sound control panel is grayed out. Any suggestions, and if there is a usb out what is it called and where can it be bought. Thanks for the suggestions. |
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E: Power Computing Powerwave Sound troubleshooting |
October, 17, 2003 12:57 PM |
mbp11 |
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Thanks for all of your replies. I originally jumped ship from a Powermac 8100 to a powerwave because I was interested in a faster BUS speed (50 rather than 40) and still maintaining nubus slots for a specialized IBM mainframe nubus connecting card that connects to our hospital's information network. I maxed out the PM8100 with a Sonnet G3 500Mhz (it took a long time to coax it to stay running with all of the extensions and such), so I thought that a Stargate (Power Computing) riser card (2 pci, 2 nubus slots) would be my answer, with a faster PCI processor. I was wrong. The Nubus/Stargate system crashes when accessing the nubus card, (but I figured out that with other software, I could hook to the mainframe via the ethernet, so I pulled the Stargate and put in a 3 pci riser card. Mad experiments with macintoshes, a nice hobby). Things are just perfect, almost. But I miss not playing music. The problem with OSX on this powerwave 150 is that iTunes and control of any audio CD ROM inside the machine or on an external scsi bus will not behave. I have tried iTunes 1.1, 2.04, 3.0, and 4.01. The most iTunes will play is 13 seconds, then stops. The playing indicator will not move. CDs played under iTunes will briefly look at each track and then proceed to the bottom and stop. Freeware OSX CD players will recognize the audio CD but will not play the CD ROM drive, even if it external and has sound connections that go to an external audio amplifier. They see it but cannot issue the command to play. So weird. Could some necessary files needed to control iTunes or a audio CD ROM player perhaps not been transferred or placed in the system library or the OS?? Better yet, is there a resource to OSX workings that I can purchase and read about that might help me trouble shoot this? I don't think that a USB audio will help an external CD ROM play an audio CD, although it might help with sound coming from the computer itself.... I miss not having music at my desk. Mike Peterson |
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Sorry about that tebjlc |
October, 16, 2003 11:18 PM |
cjsconfections |
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Sorry I'm a little fried. I have just spent the day getting my system back to normal from the damage done by installing the Revolution card. Thank god for disk warrior. The M-Audio device helper seems to be the culprit on my system. It is not playing nice and giving kernel protection violations. I don't know. It is great for you that the Revolution card works for you. It has been a total disaster for me. Maybe it is my computer. Just like the stock sound works on both in and out on some Macs or sound out but not in for others, my 9600 seems to have issues with sound in. As for 1.2.7, I already tried it. It did not work any better than the other packages from M Audio. My solution is to go back to 9.2 to do my sound recording. I can edit and play just fine in 10. Some time next week I plan to pull one of my hd's with 10.2.whatever and try it on my 8500. This week has been wasted cleaning up the computer mess made by so many hard restarts. (still no word on return from M Audio or MegaMacs) |
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New Revolution 7.1 driver posted/works in10.2.8 |
October, 16, 2003 4:30 PM |
tebjlc |
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First of all,I'm FULLY aware of the definition of "unsupported"; what I (jokingly) meant was that Apple has left us in freefall (as I'm sure anyone here can attest to).. Now, on to the good news... Last night,my Revolution stopped working in 10.28 ;the driver reported that it couldn't find the Revolution in any PCI slot. After reseating the card,reinstalling the driver,repairing permissions,etc . with no improvement,I decided to go back to the M Audio site,and look at the latest drivers for the Revolution; the first Driver in the list ,Revolution 1.2.7 ,was advertised as working with 10.2.8.Downloaded the driver,installed it,and sure enough ...the Revolution is back in the house ! Input and output both work now ! So,if you've just installed 10.2.8 and your Revolution appears not to work..try this before you return the card... Yep,still here in freefall..just consider this forum a giant airbag (yeah,I know I opened a huge door for sarcastic reply,but we're all above that,right ? :-) |
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Revolution and usb sopund in for today |
October, 15, 2003 7:01 PM |
cjsconfections |
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tebjlc- unsupported means that if you have a problem, they won't help you. You are on your own like this forum. We are all running unsupported macs and Apple will not help us. Still trying to get the Revolution card returned (M Audio says it is up to MegaMacs to start and MegaMacs says they need approval from M Audio first). I did get an answer from the author of Amadeus which was one of the programs that I tried to use with the revolution card. He looked over my crash log and said that it was "device helper" that caused the problem. I spoke with customer support at Griffin about their PowerWave and was told that it works with unsupported macs and pci usb cards but to avoid Belkin cards. They had no advice on which chipset to use but said that their usb sound input device pushes the usb bus pretty hard and that while many usb cards work fine for card readers and keyboards, they might not be able to take the PowerWave. Hmmmmmm. I also asked if there was any input about using a usb2 card with it and he said that they had no experience with any of them. |
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RE: Power Computing Powerwave Sound troubleshootin |
October, 15, 2003 6:27 PM |
marcush |
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I meant to say try putting your 3rd drive on the internal bus also. |
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RE: Power Computing Powerwave Sound troubleshootin |
October, 15, 2003 4:40 PM |
tebjlc |
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It's odd how on almost identical machines results vary so much.. I have been using an M Audio Revolution 7.1 on my 9500 G4 800 Sonnet / OS X 10.2.8 /10.1.5/9.2.2/9.1/8.5/for app. 6 months now ;since I got my USB 2.0 card issues settled I've been using it and a Roland Edirol USB MIDI controller to run Metro 6 LE/ Deck 3.25 LE ,and recording/playback results(MIDI and Audio in) have been excellent...I also tried a Griffin Imic I'd bought previously on the USB 2.0 card ,and it also appears to work well now(it didn't with the non-NEC USB 1.1 Belkin card I had before).. You might try changing PCI slot order....or not...as I recall, I had to download the latest derivers from M Audio before Audio In worked..and I think the 10.2.6 upgrade also helped a lot... Does "unsupported" mean "in free fall",or do i just feel that way sometimes ? :- ) |
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E: Power Computing Powerwave Sound troubleshooting |
October, 15, 2003 2:56 PM |
jseibyl |
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I have 8 slots and I filled them with 128 Dimms from Other World Computing, all of them, so I can't really interleave them that well, they are all the same! You ARE inerleaved! ram that is in A1 B1 is interleaved if it is the same. The same with A2-B2, A3-B3, etc. This audio thing is just nuts, I think there are more posts on audio in/audio out than there are Radeon posts...... ;-) My ride 9500 g4 800 gig RAM, etc, uses the external speaker solution works for me, but no sound in. My spare 8500 with the A/V module gets sound in. Not sure about the clones. |
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RE: Power Computing Powerwave Sound troubleshootin |
October, 15, 2003 2:28 PM |
marcush |
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If your RAM is all identical and they are in matching slots then your RAM is interleaved. Sound out does work on my Power Tower Pro but sound in never has. I'm not certain what the solution would be. It seems to be entirely hardware dependent. You could try putting that 3rd drive that is on the external bus and seeing if that changes anything. If that is your boot drive you may be having this problem because of quirky behavior on that bus. It can cause installation problems if either your boot drive or CD-ROM drive are attached to it. |
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RE: Power Computing Powerwave Sound troubleshootin |
October, 15, 2003 2:21 PM |
marcush |
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The M-Audio Revolution 7.1 works flawlessly for me. You will however, get no support from M-Audio of you have problems. I spoke to reps at Macworld SF last January and told them about my hardware and they made that clear. They did say that I would have better results with the PCI card rather than their USB box which I was at first interested in. I have a Power Tower Pro Sonnet G4/800, 1GB RAM, Sonnet ATA/100, Ratoc Firwire/USB2.0, M-Audio Revolution, Zynx 10/100 Ethernet, Radeon Mac Edition 32MB, 3dfx Voodoo 5. |
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BEWARE THE M AUDIO REVOLUTION |
October, 14, 2003 10:48 PM |
cjsconfections |
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I am in the process or returning one (or trying to if MegaMacs will cooperate). It will play fine on my 9600 but crashes (real hard. Corrupts startup disc) on attempt at input. The official word from M Audio is that any Mac with an accelerator card is not supported. I was able to get a tech to tell me that some accelerated macs will work but some won't. A post of mine a week ago has some details and while some on this forum have gotten them to work not all do. M Audio also has usb solutions but when I inquired about them I was told that only macs with built in usb are supported. Again, some macs with pci usb cards may work but if you have problems, M Audio will not support them. I am currently inquiring with Griffin about their PowerWave. I'll let you know what they say. |
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E: Power Computing Powerwave Sound troubleshooting |
October, 14, 2003 7:57 PM |
mbp11 |
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Thanks for your suggestions. I am actually leery of putting 10.2.8 on any of my macs right now, I am not having any problems, I prefer someone else to go first and let me know what happens. As far as memory interleaving, I have 8 slots and I filled them with 128 Dimms from Other World Computing, all of them, so I can't really interleave them that well, they are all the same! I will look for those USB-audio adaptors, sounds like something like the Griffin iMic should help perhaps... Mike Peterson |
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RE: Power Computing Powerwave Sound troubleshootin |
October, 14, 2003 5:43 PM |
tebjlc |
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You could try: 1.USB audio (NEC-chip -based USB 2.0 cards appear to work better than USB 1.1 cards for audio ; I can vouch for this on my 9500,or see one of the many USB audio /audio/USB 2.0 threads on this board). 2.What many here have found preferable,however,is the M-Audio Revolution (or higher) series of PCI audio cards; the Revolution is under $100 now (if you look),sounds great, works in 9 or X (as I recall, 8.5 may have issues ,but your built-in works with it.or should)... The problem with solution 2 is that in order to have USB you'd have to lose a video card ; the ATI Radeon 7000 Mac Edition PCI has dual monitor capability (with the included DVI-to-VGA adaptor)and would allow you to lose one of your video cards; if you do this,you'll have to change some OF settings in XPF in OS9 before you can boot into X successfully(again,see posts on this 'board on what to do).... Bottom line:if you use audio a little ,go with USB; if you use it seriously( and don't mind spending money) the M-Audio card will probably work more reliably ..good luck.. |
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E: Power Computing Powerwave Sound troubleshooting |
October, 14, 2003 5:30 PM |
mjoecups358 |
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Is your ram intereleaved? that can also be an issue. I use a NEC based USB2 card which works great under OSX 10.2.8 on my powerwave, and the Onkyo USB audio thing... The Opti based USB 1.1 card DIDN"T work for USB audio, although it did work AOK for the mouse. YMMV, Marty |
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E: Power Computing Powerwave Sound troubleshooting |
October, 14, 2003 5:26 PM |
mjoecups358 |
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Is your ram intereleaved? that can also be an issue. I use a NEC based USB2 card which works great under OSX 10.2.8 on my powerwave, and the Onkyo USB audio thing... The Opti based USB 1.1 card DIDN"T work for USB audio, although it did work AOK for the mouse. YMMV, Marty |
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E: Power Computing Powerwave Sound troubleshooting |
October, 14, 2003 1:34 PM |
mbp11 |
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Thanks, Guys, I appreciate your comments. Any idea why iTunes behaves so strangely?? I am going to see if I can reinstall the iTunes 3 and see how that behaves. Do you have any suggestions on the usb sound card that you suggest? No, I have neither time nor money, but I am shorter on time, I think. I am having a great time with OSX, and it impresses the hell out of the PC people where I work. If I could just get a CD or mp3 to play!!! Mike Peterson |
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E: Power Computing Powerwave Sound troubleshooting |
October, 14, 2003 1:37 AM |
lyonsdj88 |
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Try to update to 10.2.6 not 1,2.8. Sometimes that helps, other wise USB audio is the way to go unless you have more time than money. If your long on time short on cash try apple dev. tools. I could fix your sound out,but $30-50 for USB would be cheeper than postage of your Powerwave and the day to year it would take;-) |
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RE: Power Computing Powerwave Sound troubleshootin |
October, 13, 2003 11:19 PM |
mjoecups358 |
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This is an issue that many of us have seen, sometimes even on supported hardware. Some people have had luck working around this, by using USB audio out. Good Luck, Marty |