Firewire Chipset

  • Thread starter Thread starter MBM
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MBM

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How can I find out what Firewire chipset I have without taking apart my computer and physically looking at the chip.

Thanks,

MBM....
 
Easy

Right Click on my computer
Click Manage in the drop down box

Computer management window opens

Click System Tools
Click Device Manager

find the item that says "IEEE 1394 Bus Host Controlers"
click the plus sign to the left of that line

This will bring up the name of your FW Chipset
 
Roger that. It say's, OHCI Compliant IEEE Host Controller. Is OHCI the brand of the chipset.

Thanks,

MBM....
 
There's a good chance that it's not TI

Mine says Texas Instruments OHCI Compliant IEEE Host Controller
I just fired up andother Machine that I wasn't sure about the FW chipset on that I have and that one says:
VIA OHCI Compliant IEEE Host Controller

the fact that yours doesn't come up with a name could mean it's some generic chip set made for the MOBO manufacturer

Is this a prebuilt system like a Dell or HP or something
 
Yeah, it's a Dell Laptop with a 4 pin Firewire connector and lots of USB's....

Thank's,

MBM....
 
On a laptop it's almost a given it's not TI Firewire. It's getting harder and harder to find TI chips on Laptops
 
It's funny how you don't know what you have until you start looking. I was trying to make sure that I don't have the DiceII chipset. I've heard nothing but bad things about it.

Thanks,

MBM
 
DICE II is not a computer FireWire chipset. It's a chipset used in audio interfaces.

FireWire chipsets include

TI
LSI/Agere/Lucent
NEC
VIA
Ricoh

Of those, the only truly terrible one is Ricoh. The other four usually work with whatever you throw at them. However, pretty much every manufacturer makes sure their hardware works with TI chips, while manufacturers may be less thorough testing compatibility with others.

Oh, and somebody asked about OHCI. OHCI stands for the Open Host Controller Interface. It specifies a standard set of control registers and stuff. Every OHCI FireWire chip can be controlled by the same drivers. The 1394(ab) standards specify the electrical side, while the OHCI standards specify the software/PCI bus side.
 
Tending to be the type to rush in blindly, I didn't asked about chipsets when getting a firewire card. I just got what was in the store at the time. Turns out to be a VIA. I have experienced no problems, either in setting up the firepod or running it.
 
I would hope that you wouldn't see serious problems with most of the chipsets, but the worst case scenario is that a driver vendor for one of the FireWire interfaces requires some OHCI 1.1 feature. I think all TI chips are OHCI 1.1, while a great many of the VIA FW chips out there are not. (The current stuff should be, AFAIK.) The only devices that are likely to care are those that do isoch communication, e.g. audio interfaces, camcorders, etc.

AVC interfaces (camcorders, the Presonus FireBox and FP10, maybe M-Audio with recent firmware, Phonic, older Mackie boards with add-on cards, most stuff by Focusrite, etc.) should "just work".

DICE II-based gear (Presonus FireStudio, anything by TC, Alesis, etc.) probably will fall over dead like it always does.

MOTU is a question mark. They might handle OHCI 1.0 support now, but at least a few years ago, they basically wouldn't touch NEC, Ricoh, or VIA chips, and I strongly suspect this is because those chipsets lacked OHCI 1.1 support. Gut feeling.

RME apparently handles 1.0 just fine.

If you bought a recent VIA-based interface, it is probably OHCI 1.1-compliant anyway. I'd expect those to be about as compatible as TI or LSI.
 
Wow, I didn't realize that there were so many compatability choice's out there. I was planning on getting a PreSonus brand audio interface but I will put everything on hold until I can figure out what works with what. Since my computer is a Dell Laptop with a 4 pin Firewire connector, I must re-consider my options there as it appears to be made on to the motherboard. There must be an easier way to figure all this out. The answer could be as simple as what audio interface with eight analog inputs will work with what I have now. Then again the answer could be deeper, such as, I have an old Gateway 500mhz desktop that could totally be refurbished, what should I get to have what I need for now and the future....

Thanks guy's for your help, it's much appreciated....

MBM....
 
While I believe that some Dell laptops use TI FireWire, apparently a bunch of them use Ricoh FireWire chips, which basically don't work at all with anything. If your laptop has a CardBus (PCMCIA) or ExpressCard port, you can always stick a FireWire card in there if you discover that Dell stuck you with a crap chipset. :)
 
Yeah, I thought about the PCMIA slot. I may have to go that route if the 1394 is made on to the motherboard. Would there be any performance loss when using the PCMCIA Cardbus slot ? If not, what brand and chipset would you recommend.

Thanks....

MBM....
 
A slot should have roughly the same performance as the same chip would have if it were on the logic board, give or take.

As for specific products, buy something with a TI chipset if you can. That's about the only useful advice I can give in that regard.
 
I'm not sure of the name of the program (Sandra or something...), but there is a free program that you can download that scans your computer and tells you all of the details about it.

I hope I'm not way off in left field...:confused::D:D
 
Thanks for the help guy's. It's looks like I should go with the PCMCIA Cardbus. The new card I'm looking at has the TI chipset but it also has a 6 pin connector. If a audio interface device has a 6 pin connector, and a internal power supply, does the audio interface device not use the supplied power of the cardbus ? In other word's, are the power supply pins of the audio interface device not connected internally because of it's internal power supply ?

Thanks....

MBM....
 
It should pass through power to other devices, but it won't be actually using any bus power except maybe to power the PHY silicon.
 
Let me see if I have this right. An Audio Interface device (such as a Presonus Firewire Audio interface), may or may not have power supplied to it by the Firewire Cardbus even though the Audio Interface device has an internal power supply. And of coarse we are talking 6 pin connectors on both device's. Would this be a correct statement ?

Thanks....

MBM....
 
If the audio interface has its own power supply, it won't care whether the CardBus card supplies power or not. I'm assuming that's the real question.
 
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