is this a bug

Does this help

[ 407.355173] hm2: loading Mesa HostMot2 driver version 0.15
[ 407.382330] hm2_7i43: loading HostMot2 Mesa 7i43 driver version 0.3

[ 407.392106] hm2_7i43.0: firmware: requesting hm2/7i43/SV8.BIT

the SV8.BIT file is in hm2/7i43-4/


[ 407.419256] hm2/hm2_7i43.0: firmware hm2/7i43/SV8.BIT not found
[ 407.419269] hm2/hm2_7i43.0: install the package containing the firmware.
[ 407.419282] hm2_7i43.0: board at (ioaddr=0x0378, ioaddr_hi=0x0778, epp_wide ON) not found!
[ 407.441541] hm2: unloading
[ 407.644988] SMI configuration has been reset, saved mask used = 1.
[ 407.652415] RTAI[math]: unloaded.
[ 407.734433] SCHED releases registered named ALIEN RTGLBH
[ 407.764441] RTAI[malloc]: unloaded.
[ 407.864055] RTAI[sched]: unloaded (forced hard/soft/hard transitions: traps 0, syscalls 0).
[ 407.871114] I-pipe: Domain RTAI unregistered.
[ 407.871191] RTAI[hal]: unmounted.

yes that helps.
pncconf is looking in the folder 7i43 instead of 7i43-4
I assume you did download the firmwares (hostmot2-firmware from synaptic package manager)
So this is indeed a bug.
the firmware used to be in 7i43, now there are some links in the folder that point to some of the new firmware but not the one your looking for.
i will update pncconf soon.
In the mean time here is a work around.
If you don't need to test in pncconf then you can make a config and change the line that loads the 7i43 card to point to the right folder.
it looks like:
loadrt hm2_pci config="firmware=hm2/7i43/SV8.BIT num_encoder .......
change the 7i43 to 7i43-4 (for ypur card)
or you could copy the 7i43-4 firmwares to the 7i43 folder (you need sudo privileges for this)
then you could use the tests in pncconf.
or you could wait till i fix it. I think Jeff is going to send out another bug fix soon so I will try to hop on that wagon.
Hope that gets you going. Thanks for reporting the trouble.
Chris M