Firewire major problem with brand new system.

[Martin Walker]

Hi tboydva, and welcome to the SOS Forums!

Also, thanks for such a useful first post

Martin

[Pete Kaine]

So, in the meantime since the first post I've seen this myself and it's also why I pulled the Prime X570 from my specs over the last few weeks.

Some point between launch and now there has been a BIOS update that breaks Firewire support. If you roll back to the earlier ones, you should be able to find a BIOS that still works, although given the fixes rolled out recently, I'd be loathed to do so.

I escalated it, they said they'd look into it and I've pulled the hardware until they come back with an answer I'm happy with.

The chipset is listed as XIO1223B. I see it with my own eyes "XIO1223BZAY". I get the exact same result as I did with my first card : no display on my monitors, no way to tell if the system boots completely. When I unplug the card, everything runs normally.

Yes, sorry, it's a new fault specific to that mainboard range.

I purchased a second hand Scarlett 18i6 for 60$ for the moment. My suggestion for anyone with a new W10 system and a Firewire interface would be not to lose your time with it. Get yourself a USB interface. I tried 4 different PCIe firewire cards, including one with the advised chipset, with no sucess.

Ironically they tend to work fine over a Thunderbolt connection + converter. The question is if it is worth it to buy the AIC+Converter+cable for about £150 or just buy a new interface... I imagine for most it's the latter.

[Dremix]

Hi All,

Was reading this and I had the same problems with my Asus Prime x570-P motherboard.
I build my new PC and inserted all my drives and cards in it. On first boot only a black screen. Monitor got a signal but no Bios no nothing.

After removing some hardware I found out it was my PCI-Express Firewire card from DAWI-control. After pulling the card out al worked and system booted.

After reading some forums I came across a message on the Creative Soundblast forum on which a lot of people also had troubles with their Soundblaster cards with weird behaviour after the newest AMD Bios.

So what happened is that AMD turned on a 10-bit Tag Field, which is only available on PCI-e Gen4 devices. This results in compatibility issues with older Gen PCI-e cards like my firewire card.

So I went into my BIOS and searched for the 10-bit tag field and dissabled it. Also put the compatibility on Gen3 for the PCI-E slot I inserted my Firewirecard afterward and voila systems boot and Windows 10 even loaded the ' Texas Instruments 1394 OHCI Compliant Host Controller' driver in the device Manager.

Hooked up my TC Electronic Konnekt Live firewire soundcard and it is working.

Hope some others find this helpful.

Regards,

Andreas

[Pete Kaine]

So what happened is that AMD turned on a 10-bit Tag Field, which is only available on PCI-e Gen4 devices. This results in compatibility issues with older Gen PCI-e cards like my firewire card.

Interesting find, I've got a few more cards I may need to try that on!

[Dremix]

Interesting find, I've got a few more cards I may need to try that on!

Let me know if you where succesful. This can help others who read this message and are having issues.

[uselessoldman]

I am running Windows 10 ver 1909 build 18363.778 with a LSI Agere Firewire 400 Card (Chipset 5811) connected to my Focusrite Liquid 56 without ANY problems. There was an issue originally with build 1909 Microsoft acknowledged due to a new memory compression algorithm. THIS was sorted.

I have just bought my Liquid 56 cos of one single reason THUNDERBOLT. Next year 2021 USB4 will finally be released and basically it will be Thunderbolt 3. Similarly MIdi2 will also finally appear but my guess is it will take manufacturers longer to design and release anything that takes advantage of it - wait and see.

So in answer to your problem.

It should work with the latest version of WIndows 10 (x64). I see no problems between motherboard and Firewire card, no recourse issues. I would start with installing the firewire card in the motherboard with ONLY the Graphics card - NO HARD DRIVES etc, should boot to bios. Me personally would then install Windows on an old hard drive just to double check all is well before I reconnected my old original drives - save screwing them up.

I am running an old Gigabyte 990x mobo (cos it has a M2 20Gb socket) with a FX8350 cpu cos I am waiting to upgrade next year to Ryzen when the new boards have USB4/Thunderbolt as standard - only ASRock has it currently and thats a none starter for me *very bad experiences with them many years ago). Focusrite clearly stated all their firewire devices work with thunderbolt !!!

There is a tool Focusrite recommend (on their website) to test your Firewire card ohciTool2.exe NOTE not all cards have been tested I have some TI chipset Firewire cards that it said were UNTESTED so unknown compatibility issues !!!! so I stuck the Via Agere ones in my Music computer machines (windows 10) and there fine - 100% solid no issues WHATSO EVER

[uselessoldman]

Just a further note from my experience

IF on boot up your get a popping sound from your audio interface/speakers no problem. (on my Liquid 56 the FW Audio flashes)

Let your computer boot up as normal. Give it a couple of minutes then open the Sapphire Mix Control. It happens to me sometimes cos the sample rate is higher than 48 kHz - Firewire 400 will not work above this !!! I change this to 48 kHz and click H/W control a couple of times and then all is well

[James Perrett]

It happens to me sometimes cos the sample rate is higher than 48 kHz - Firewire 400 will not work above this !!! I change this to 48 kHz and click H/W control a couple of times and then all is well

This must be specific to your system. I use a Saffire Pro 26io on Firewire 400 at 96kHz sampling rate with no problems.

[innerchord]

I know all about the TI chipset issues, but I'll just mention that I've also had problem-free results in some systems with both Lucent/Agere and Via chipsets on PCI/PCIe cards.

Cards are extremely cheap on eBay so it's always something you could try.

I haven't use many Focusrite interfaces, though.

[Nitrocell33]

Hi,
i have exactly this same problem

I would like to know how this case ended? Could the card with the TI chip solve the problem?

[n o i s e f l e ur]

when will manufacturers settle on one standard

Oh - they have, my friend . . . they have.

https://xkcd.com/927/

[uselessoldman]

I have a box full of firewire cards, ranging from ISA to PCI and PCIe and a mixture of both 400s and 800s. It is impossible to say what card works with which system as there are so many variables from different motherboards to CPU/GPU and the firewire cards themselves.

I hope noisefleur will agree with me on this, its pot luck, good luck, but generally all combinations should work in theory, although not always in practice. There is no need to waste money on expensive specific cards, I have found using various cards, usually any and all combinations work. Whether it be TI VIA or NEC chipsets, it does not matter.

As for a successful install lets consider the steps in sequence.

Build computer/update all drivers
Install firewire card boot system and make sure it is installed correctly. SHUTDOWN
Switch on all firewire devices and then boot up system.

Install most up to date drivers available if any, specific to the system build x86 x64 Windows 7/8/10 etc

For audio interfaces make sure you have set the sample rates correctly and the master clock sync is set to the right local device.

This is a mistake I made when I first tried to connect my Behringer ADA8200 extension cos as I said before its only 48khz unlike my Focusrite Liquid 56 which goes to 192 so I had to drop the sample rate to 48kHz to make them work when switched on and connected together. I also have to make the Liquid slave and AD8200 master clock syn. Else I just get flashing lights and they won't work. Who reads manuals? Learn the hard way trial and error !!

Before they invented PnP (Plug in a play) motherboard and devices, we had to manually set DMA and IRQ system resources, now hopefully all modern systems do that for us and all works well. One issue that can be a right pain is if you have installed a sound card and not using the internal audio or HDMI. I have come across this issue with the creative labs SB0460 which I used to use in all my systems that were binned after I moved to HDMI. Now I just disable the internal audio I do not use it so do not need it and it cannot cause any issues, I just use HDMI (AV Amp) or USB to my audio interfaces.

[wildschwein]

Apparently Focusrite are offering a trade in deal on older firewire interfaces. A member in the Reaper forums has flagged this:

https://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=249228

[uselessoldman]

My Liquid 56 is working just fine, and I am sure it will continue working just fine. I am using it right now and windows 10 is fully updated as of this morning.

[smhiker]

I also have an Asus Prime X570-P. I cannot find a 10-bit tag field in the BIOS.

If you could reply to tell me where it is located, I would appreciate it.

smhiker123ATgmailDOTcom

(email address edited to protect OP - Andy)

[smhiker]

First of all, I want to thank Dremix. You provided the answer to my problem.

At first, in the BIOS, I changed the PCIe slot to Gen3. At the time, I could NOT find "10-bit tag field. And ONLY changing the PCIe Slot to Gen3 was NOT enough to let the computer to boot.

After searching the BIOS, I found "PCIe Ten Bit Tag". I disabled it, and again inserted the firewire card into the PCIe Slot.

The computer, now booted into Windows as normal, and it installed the driver for my firewire card.

Thank you so much for providing the answer to the problem!

It was a major relief to get this issue resolved!