>> From: Iain Mott <mott@reverberant.com>
>> I tried another slot (there are only 2 pci slots on the mother board),
>> but the same thing happens. It required about 3 boots to get the
>> firmware to load. I hope it's not a problem in the RME PCI card itself.
>
> You could try checking whether the PCI card is detected in the cases where
> the firmware is not loaded.  It is PCI and not PCIe?
> Compare the output of lspci in the good vs. failing case and verify that
> the PCI card is detected, because the driver will never load and attempt
> to find the external interface if the PCI part of the interface is not
> detected.

that's a good spot Chris, I tend to have that very same problem from time to time with a HDSP PCI card, i suspect my PCI extender to move in the rack and the card sometimes not being detected at all on startup.
It also mean I have never find a real solution to this because i suspect the hardware, so sometimes i open the rack, move the card, and reboot.
Lain, if you're in the same situation, make sure the card is properly inserted and aligned in the pci slot.