FireWire ?

need some help

I have a firewire input on my MotherBoard that I have never used. This is what it looks like in ‘Devices’ along with the drivers.



It’s not even enabled 'cus I don’t use it.
I was wondering - What is the best (cheapest) way to test this port for performance? I currently have zero firewire devices.
The reason is I might want to try a firewire audio interface, but I don’t want to jump the gun before I know if this port is adequate.
My MotherBoard is a FIC AU13 - rather dated. But the USB2 ports/drivers that came with it are outstanding.
Any ideas?

After thinking about it - I remembered they have those conversion boxes for hard disks. Like IDE to USB. I think they got one for IDE to 1394. So I’ll go pick one of those up (if I recall about $20) and slap an IDE drive in and plug her into the firewire port. That way I can get an idea of speed compared to the USB2.

Have you not got a camcorder SoE?


.

Got an old Panasonic PV-L958 VHS-C. Great camera, but uses a 9-pin serial connector.

The hard disk enclosure with 1394 is a pretty good test and easy enough to do. Besides, you can never have too many external hard drives lying around…

Just curious though… how many I/O are you looking for on your new audio/midi interface and how high a sample rate do you need?

For just a couple, maybe up to four inputs at up to 96k, USB 2.0 is easily up to the task. I’d start getting paranoid and go Firewire after that. (IMO)

USB 2.0 is theoretically faster at burst data transfers (480mbs vs. 400mbps for FW) but in tests, Firewire is superior in sustained throughput. Sustained throughput is what you want for audio/video work.

Another thing is the nature of the network control system. Each Firewire device on a FW network handles it’s resource and traffic scheduling and is true peer to peer. USB devices have to “phone” the host controller for traffic and resource scheduling. Firewire wins here too. This is ONE of the reasons USB audio interface manufacturers will want you to make sure their device is on it’s own host controller with nothing else like a printer, mouse, keyboard etc… I’ve read a few stories where guys were having drop out issues with USB interfaces and the only way they could resolve it was to make sure ALL USB devices on ALL host controllers were disconnected. Except for the interface of course.

Of course with Firewire, there are potential chipset issues, but I think we have beat those around on here pretty hard already. A Texas Instruments chipset is almost always preferred.

D

USB 2.0 is theoretically faster at burst data transfers - unless you have XP SP2 installed on your PC you will not be able to use the USB drve correctly - standard XP only has USB 1 and this will crash the file transfer when transferong long files TO the drive - SP2 has the usb 2 update - also there is a bug that has to be fixed with the original XP where firewire speed is fixed no matter what you set it at - AND the chipset used on your firewire card may not be compatable with the firewire unit you plug in - yop must find out what chipset your card has and then check with the manufacturer of a firewire unit to see if it will run correctly on your card -

M.R.

Such smart people here. OK I just looked in the MB manual and it says "embedded 1394 controller with Agere FW803 for 3 port solution - IEEE-1394a compliant with up to 400Mbs bandwidth."
I was kink of looking at Lynx - cus everyone seems to think their converters are really good. - Hence the FW investigation.

Yeh - should be in good shape - found this at MOTU

FW card chipsets

Quote: (sevenOfeleven @ Mar. 25 2009, 11:49 PM)

I have a firewire input on my MotherBoard that I have never used. This is what it looks like in 'Devices' along with the drivers.



It's not even enabled 'cus I don't use it.
I was wondering - What is the best (cheapest) way to test this port for performance? I currently have zero firewire devices.
The reason is I might want to try a firewire audio interface, but I don't want to jump the gun before I know if this port is adequate.
My MotherBoard is a FIC AU13 - rather dated. But the USB2 ports/drivers that came with it are outstanding.
Any ideas?

Why don't you quit goofin around and practice! :agree:
???