4 pin firewire

tanders12

tanders12

New member
So I'm trying to set up a linux based DAW, and I originally planned on getting a usb 2.0 interface, but it looks like linux support is pretty bad on most of them, so that leaves me with firewire through FFADO. Only problem is that my laptop only has one of those tiny 4 pin Firewire ports. Any way to make it work?
 
I think the only difference is that a 6 pin supplies power, so if the interface does not require power in should be the same.
 
First 4 pins handles data.
Next 2 pins handles power (and most pcs dont provide power on those pins anyway)

If your interface has a 6pin port, use it's power supply and a 4-to-6pin converter or cable.
(been using one from my xp laptop to my Motu828mkII for years. Zero problems)
 
sockswithshoes said:
Yes, they do! You can usually see online in the description of what is included with the interface.
Click to expand...

Thanks that's good to know. Man the more research I do the grimmer the situation looks for linux recording. Firewire's pretty much pointless unless you can get a TI chipset which is next to impossible unless you wanna build a new computer (which I might be able to talk myself into). Not only that but I get the feeling that firewire is on it's way out, especially with USB 3.0 coming out. But on the other hand USB 2.0 support is basically non-existent for linux. The joys of real time kernels and JACK really speak to me, and I really don't wanna use windows or mac, but this is a pain.
 
It's not determined yet just how good USB3 will be.
Word is that it MAY come close to FW400 speeds. Maybe.

Thats a far cry from FW800 (and FW1600 and FW3200 are approved and solid and may be neccesary if you want to hang drives and convolution processors on the chain and still run high track counts)
Remember that USB still has that master/slave-through-cpu hit while FW lets data run direct from interface to device or device-to-device.
Manufacturers just love USB because it's cheap and no royalties for its use.

As for adding FW to your computer, you can get reasonably priced TI-chip'ed FW cards from Belkin and SIIG.

It's looking more like Linux will be out (its numbers are fading) before Firewire.
 
TimOBrien said:
It's not determined yet just how good USB3 will be.
Word is that it MAY come close to FW400 speeds. Maybe.

Thats a far cry from FW800 (and FW1600 and FW3200 are approved and solid and may be neccesary if you want to hang drives and convolution processors on the chain and still run high track counts)
Remember that USB still has that master/slave-through-cpu hit while FW lets data run direct from interface to device or device-to-device.
Manufacturers just love USB because it's cheap and no royalties for its use.

As for adding FW to your computer, you can get reasonably priced TI-chip'ed FW cards from Belkin and SIIG.

It's looking more like Linux will be out (its numbers are fading) before Firewire.
Click to expand...

A FW doesn't do me any good on my laptop, and I read that if you use an expresscard it's still controlled by the motherboard chipset anyways. I do have an old 2.4Ghz P4 with 1GB of RAM laying around. I could pick up a PCI FW card for that. I think first I'm gonna just get an interface and see if it works with my lappy's built-in FW. Do yo know how to find out what chipset it has?



EDIT: I just ran the lspci command and here's what it says about my FW chipset:

08:03.1 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments PCIxx12 OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller

Perhaps a stroke of luck? :D
 
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