Your Recommended FireWire Adaptor Cards

[Goddard]

See this. FW on Z170 (and also X99) platform can be problematic.

[Dramatic Hammer]

Good news! This startech.com PCIe card seems to be working perfectly so far http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00IAABHFE

[Martin Walker]

Excellent - always good to hear of a combo that actually works!

Martin

[studer58]

Without any proof or even knowing the devices involved I'm wondering whether these adapter boxes: Village Instruments and
Aquitek
enclosing one of these: SIIG Firewire card might not be a good solution for those laptops still sporting an Express card slot ?

[John Reid]

[quote="Dramatic Hammer"]Good news! This startech.com PCIe card seems to be working perfectly so far http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00IAABHFE />

Same problem here with Z170 and a TI XIO2200A chip; bizarrely though, that Startech card seems to have a VIA chipset, which were long regarded as poison for audio. Can you confirm the chipset please?

[Pete Kaine]

Yes, the TI XIO2200A found on the cheaper 2 X FW400 port cards, that have been the go to solutions for years, no longer function properly on X99 or Z170

Cards based around the TI XIO2213B most often found on cards with three outputs (normally 2 X FW 800 + 1 X FW 400), which even TI themselves stress is the replacement for the now legacy XIO2200A seems to work fine in everything that we tested it with.

The VIA's were always hit or miss, depending on the interface being plugged into it, great if and when they work however.

[John Reid]

Thanks guys, for saving me a second day of head-scratching! Now to find such a card ... a sense of deja vu sets in ... retailers sure don't make it easy, previously it was a case of hunting for the TI logo, which could often be spotted by zooming in on the pic, but now we need to look for the exact chip. Firewire itself seems to been consigned to the scrapheap, but I'm not ready to give up on a perfectly good interface yet!

So far, I've found a Delock 89153 and this Digitus which seems to have the desired chip, but I'll need an adapter FW800->FW400 which I am assuming will not cause problems.

[Exalted Wombat]

Your previous reply was from a retailer who can sell you a suitable card. Check Peter's sig.

[Pete Kaine]

Aye, can't 100% confirm on the brand your looking at as I've not physically handled one, but given the info they provide and looking at the card layout I suspect you'd be absolutely fine.

They look to have mounted the FW400 port internally in that design however (along with the two external FW800), which if it was outwards facing would save you from the convertor. FW 400 - FW800 cables also exist, which might prove better than hanging the plastic off the port.

FWIW the validated card we use over here is the Lycom PE 107, as that's what we import. Plenty of other brands exist based around the same design however.

[Wonks]

I've been running a Sonnet Allegro 3 x FW 800 PCIe card in my music PC for over a year now with no problems whatsoever; under both Win 8.1 and then Win 10.

It's got a Ti chipset, with the added benefit that each of the three outputs is on its own FW bus, not a single shared bus like on a lot of FW400 cards with three FW connectors. Quite a few audio interfaces don't like sharing a bus with other devices, so if you have multiple interfaces or other FW peripherals, this makes things a lot easier.

I'm using it with a FW 800 to 400 cable to connect to my MOTU traveller. I chose it because I wanted it to connect to my Liquid Mix as well (and hence the bonus of separate buses, as I had to use two FW400 cards on my previous music PC), but found out after buying it that Focusrite had stopped supporting the Win 8.1 (+ Win 10) Firewire drivers, so that went off to someone still on Win 7.

I haven't got any FW800 devices, so can't comment on its performance at that speed, but it's been rock solid with the MOTU running at around a 3ms latency.

At around £60, it's not the cheapest FW card out there, but if you would benefit from separate FW buses, then it's a much neater solution than multiple cards.

[Dramatic Hammer]

Via - VT6315N according to this: https://www.startech.com/uk/Cards-Adapters/FireWire/2-Port-1394a-PCI-Express-FireWire-Card~PEX1394A2V
Looks like you've already solved your problem though!

[Pete Kaine]

The Sonnet Allegro is based around the TI XIO2213A chip, rather than the TI XIO2213B solution. I've had feedback that the "A" revision is running fine, but I can't verify first hand.
(A number of other resellers & manufacturers give me positive feedback, so fairly certain)

Just to clarify Wonks, what chipset is your system running? The issues being discussed only applies to X99/Z170 rigs at the moment, although I don't expect that to change on newer chipsets moving forward.

[Wonks]

It's an older Asus Z87 MOBO with an i7 4770K processor.

[John Reid]

I've pushed the button on this Digitus card and shall report back anon.

Apart from the fact that it has the TI XIO2213B chip, I chose this one because of the internal port, which I will use for the existing front panel FW400 connector. For the audio interface I'll use a 9-pin to 6-pin cable.

Just to reiterate, this is all about motherboard chipset compatibility with my Z170 board.

[John Reid]

OK I'm back ... long story short, after an issue with one retailer I gave up on the Digitus and went with a Delock card instead (looks identical to the Digitus, right? Wrong!!!) popped it in and found it had an LSI chip instead. Nevertheless this is now working perfectly with my Z170 motherboard and has given my MOTU a new lease of life!

So, I can recommend the IOI FWB-PCIE1X20 with LSI FW643 chip, rebadged as Delock 61557

This card has 3 independent FW800 ports and I have tested with all three active, connected to my MOTU as well as 2 FW400 external harddisks using FW800->FW400 cables. So far, this is the best card I've come accross (and I have measured and compared the disk transfer rates) and it does all of this with the stock Firewire driver in Windows 10 (no need to load the "legacy" driver).

The "TI only" dogma might no longer hold true for modern motherboards.

[IvanSC]

John - did you actually buy it from that german site? How much did you wind up paying including shipping, please?

[Guest271017]

Just went through a build with a Z 270 A and ended up with this card working. $28 USD/ free shipping.

Syba Low Profile PCI-Express 1394b/1394a (2B1A) Card, TI Chipset, Extra Regular Bracket SD-PEX30009

This one did not work, even though it's TI.

Ableconn PEX-FW101 1394a 2-Port PCI Express (PCIe) Low Profile FirwWire Host Adapter Card - TI XIO2200 Chipset

All TI chips are not created equal, or so it appears.

[Pete Kaine]

This one did not work, even though it's TI.

Ableconn PEX-FW101 1394a 2-Port PCI Express (PCIe) Low Profile FirwWire Host Adapter Card - TI XIO2200 Chipset

All TI chips are not created equal, or so it appears.

The XIO2200 itself was delisted by TI almost a decade ago, although chips are still in circulation. Support has been dropped by everyone else over the last few generations.

[Dr R]

Hi all,
A friend offered me a "control surface" to have a play with. Turns out to be a Tascam FW-1884. Very nice, but I don't have firewire on my pc.
It's a 2009 Dell Inspiron souped up with a pair of ssds, and although I have the service tag (BVN6K4J) the motherboard details aren't on the dell support site.
Any suggestions for a cheap card? The thing is probably too big for what I want, but it would be interesting to see what pc mixing with faders is like.

As ever, many thanks,

Rich

[maggotspawn]

I just purchased a Siig PCIe FireWire card. It has a Texas Instruments chipset, though I'm unsure of which one. Working great with my i7 7700k build running Windows 10.

[jahjahjah]

can someone confirm that the following firewire controllers works on motherboards z170 and over (i have msi z370 a pro)

DeLock PCI Express Card 89153 (its an IT chipset but i cant find which one exacly)
PCIe Dawicontrol DC-FW800 (i thing its an IT too)

and also the VIA-VT6315N chipset that is included in many firewirecontrollers

[BillPhillips]

I just purchased a Siig PCIe FireWire card. It has a Texas Instruments chipset, though I'm unsure of which one. Working great with my i7 7700k build running Windows 10.

I have the SIIG DP FireWire 2-Port PCIe. It's compliant with Compliant with the IEEE 1394-1995, 1394a-2000 and OHCI 1.1 Standards. Doesn't work at even the highest ASIO buffer size with my old MOTU 828mkII.

Not sure the FireWire card is the problem but looking for another FireWire card anyway. Any suggestions?

My system specs:

CPU: Intel i7-6850K @ 3.60 GHz
Motherboard: ASUS X99-DELUXE II
RAM: Corsair Vengenance LPX 32 GB (4x8GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM
SSD:
• System Drive: MyDigitalSSD 240GB (256GB) BP5e 80mm SATA III 6G M.2 2280 NGFF SSD
• Alt Boot Drive: MyDigitalSSD 240GB (256GB) BP5e 80mm SATA III 6G M.2 2280 NGFF SSD
• Projects Drive: Samsung SSD 850 EVO 1TB
• Resource Drive: Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250 GB
GPU: ASUS R7250-2GD5 (AMD Radeon R7 250)
PSU: Corsair RM1000i
Chassis: Fractal Define R5
OS: Windows 10 Pro (x64) v1809
FireWire: SIIG DP FireWire 2-Port PCIe

[innerchord]

Have you checked that the interface is working correctly?
After doing that, I'd suggest trying StarTech or Syba cards, with TI or VIA chipsets.
I don't use MOTU interfaces myself, so don't know which chipsets they like...

[BillPhillips]

The Sonnet Allegro is based around the TI XIO2213A chip, rather than the TI XIO2213B solution. I've had feedback that the "A" revision is running fine, but I can't verify first hand.
(A number of other resellers & manufacturers give me positive feedback, so fairly certain)

Just to clarify Wonks, what chipset is your system running? The issues being discussed only applies to X99/Z170 rigs at the moment, although I don't expect that to change on newer chipsets moving forward.

Is the TI XIO2213B still the best choice for X99? Thanks.