PC firewire port

  • Thread starter Thread starter pdadda
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pdadda

pdadda

Captain Sea Boots
I bought a MOTU 828mkII and it works frickin' awesome with my Mac. But I also have a desktop PC I want to use it with. The PC doesn't have any firewire ports, so I am going to buy a card to add the ports on. Can someone give me the name of a brand that they KNOW works well with the MOTU and is reasonably cheap. I would prefer one that has 800Mbps transfer rate, but 400 is OK for now. I really only need one or two ports max. USB ports are not a necessity (although USB 2.0 ports might allow for more expansion). I am assuming I can get one for around $50 or less. Is that acurate? I have heard that there are some compatibility issues with the cards you can use with the MOTU. If it matters, the PC is a DELL (4550?).
 
I don't recall the brand name of it, but I got one from Wal-Mart for like $30 (400Mbps) 3 ports .... it ended up having the Texas Instruments OHCI Compliant chipset, which seems to work favorably with the MOTU's. Works great with my 828mkII anyway on a homebuilt PIII machine. Same with my main DAW P4 3.0Ghz, though its Firewire is onboard (Abit IC7-G maxII), it has the same TI OHCI compliant IEEE1394 Host Controller chipset.
The one thing you may want to pay attention to (other than getting a Texas Instruments based card) would be IRQ sharing. Try all the PCI slots in your computer till you find one that assigns the Firewire to it's own IRQ. You may get lucky on the first slot you try. Sharing may not end up being much of an issue, but it's extra reassurance to have a dedicated IRQ for the Firewire stream as to not create any conflicts with having to share with things such as the IDE controllers or the Video controller. NIC, modem and any onboard sound can always be disabled during DAW work if sharing with those such devices is unavoidable.
 
OK, I am still a little confused. I have looked at a couple PCI firewire cards online, and I can't find anything about whether or not they have a TIOCHI compliant chipset. Some say IEEE1394. Does that mean Texas Instruments. Any specific models and numbers that people have used successfully would be very helpful.
 
I've been using my Maxtor firewire card with great results.... no issues at all. Cheap too!

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