The FireWire 800/400 card to own for 100% compatibility

[awediohead]

So I've installed the new firewire card (SYBA PEX30009) and I can very happily confirm that it works OOB as is supported natively with my 300 series mobo (Gigabyte GA Z370M D3H). My previous power management woes (inability to sleep, and shutdown causing reboot) that I had with the Startech card are completely gone

Audio output is perfect. I've installed it in the PCIe 1x and have not noticed any lag or glitching with my external audio interface, the Focusrite Saffire Pro 40.

I think the initial Startech recommendation on this particular thread is definitely NOT the one to own because it isn't compatible with modern motherboards. However, on an older system it'd probably work.

I live in the UK and the SYBA PEX30009 is easily available cheaply. The Startech? I spend more and had to source one second hand. Please, if you read this forum don't waste your time on the Startech card unless you are really want to run a fairly old (ie. pre-UEFI) motherboard.

So happy to finally have an OSX system that supports such lovely PCIe cards, NVMe, simple multi-booting, water cooling and a shmexy case!

Thanks very much for posting this - having ordered the Startech a few weeks ago and banged my head for a few hours ("no firewire ports were found") this evening after installing it as the final part of my most recent build (GA-H97M-D3H based - all secondhand gear on the cheap) I got to page 8 or 9 of this thread before realising I was reading posts from 2012 and had the bright idea to skip to the end !!!

Annoyingly I'm just a few days outside the return window on Amazon UK but as I'm reliant on my ancient but still wonderful RME Fireface 800 for tracking and mixing, a reliable OOB Firewire card is essential. I've ordered the SYBA PEX30009 and will post again to confirm results.
Thanks again for the heads up.

 

[awediohead]

Installed the SYBA PEX30009 today and it works like a charm. Only hiccup I had was a KP because I'd left the "Fix Firewire" option ticked in Clover Configurator while trying to get the Startech card to work from yesterday. That deselected it shows up in System Profiler as an 800Mb/s Firewire Bus without anything else done whatsoever. Of course I'll get to plugging in the FF800 and messing with other FW gear to test, but looking good so far. Thanks again Inkly

 

[Inkly]

Installed the SYBA PEX30009 today and it works like a charm. Only hiccup I had was a KP because I'd left the "Fix Firewire" option ticked in Clover Configurator while trying to get the Startech card to work from yesterday. That deselected it shows up in System Profiler as an 800Mb/s Firewire Bus without anything else done whatsoever. Of course I'll get to plugging in the FF800 and messing with other FW gear to test, but looking good so far. Thanks again Inkly

I'm so glad that my post has already helped someone! Sorry to hear that you can't return the Startech card, but hurray for the SYBA PEX30009! Long live FireWire!

 

[awediohead]

The only way your post could be more helpful is if someone pinned it to the start of this thread! Let's hope a mod notices because otherwise Startech are going to be selling a lot of cards that aren't much use nowadays - and getting something that works OOB is the ONLY reason anyone would find and read this thread.
Thanks again

 

[bmulv]

I'm so glad that my post has already helped someone! Sorry to hear that you can't return the Startech card, but hurray for the SYBA PEX30009! Long live FireWire!

Hey folks - got the SYBA PEX30009 and installed it into my fresh hacky-poo. Thing is, it shows up in the system hardware list, including the fact that it's a Duet, but the apogee software doesn't seem to recognize that the interface is plugged in. Has anyone had to deal with similar situ and find a fix?

I know using High Sierra w/ Duet FW is a risk, but it seems to work with other folks who have upgraded.

 

[CSanjay]

Hi 2 All.I got this firewire card Sonnet Allegro FW800 PCIe-https://www.sonnettech.com/product/allegrofirewire800pcie.html.Got it installed on my Hackintosh with MOBO Gigabyte-Z170X-UD5TH/Processor-Intel i7-6700k.OSX is MacOS Sierra.In System report/FireWire,its showing the card,But if i connect any firewire harddrive or sound card to the firewire ports my com restarts and goes into a boot loop at the apple logo screen.Any help is much appreciated. TNX
FireWire Bus:
Maximum Speed: Up to 800 Mb/sec

 

[bmulv]

Hey folks - got the SYBA PEX30009 and installed it into my fresh hacky-poo. Thing is, it shows up in the system hardware list, including the fact that it's a Duet, but the apogee software doesn't seem to recognize that the interface is plugged in. Has anyone had to deal with similar situ and find a fix?

I know using High Sierra w/ Duet FW is a risk, but it seems to work with other folks who have upgraded.

Fixed this ran a new install

 

[Inkly]

Fixed this ran a new install

Fantastic, I'm really glad to hear that! Odd that you needed to reinstall, but it worked so huzzah! I've had no problems since installing the SYBA PEX30009. It's a really sweet card that works well under OSX, Linux and Windows.

 

[Inkly]

Hi 2 All.I got this firewire card Sonnet Allegro FW800 PCIe-https://www.sonnettech.com/product/allegrofirewire800pcie.html.Got it installed on my Hackintosh with MOBO Gigabyte-Z170X-UD5TH/Processor-Intel i7-6700k.OSX is MacOS Sierra.In System report/FireWire,its showing the card,But if i connect any firewire harddrive or sound card to the firewire ports my com restarts and goes into a boot loop at the apple logo screen.Any help is much appreciated. TNX
FireWire Bus:
Maximum Speed: Up to 800 Mb/sec

ok, so there's two things I can think off the top of my head that might be the problem. But firstly, I have to say please do NOT connect firewire cables whilst the computer is on. They can cause things to fry out because of power surges. Firewire is generally not safe for hot-plugging.

(EDIT: Apparently the sonnet card supports hot-plugging, but it's still not something I'd recommend making a habit of.)

So the first thing I can think is that it could be that your devices are drawing too much power. What PSU are you using?

What happens when you turn the computer off and unplug the devices? Does the problem go away?
Also, if you're multi-booting OS's, do you get the same sort of problems?

Sonnet claim that OSX 10.5.8+ & High Sierra are supported, but the machines listed are, naturally, fairly ancient machines by today's standards. I had a problem with my previous (Startech) firewire card which caused my computer to reboot after shutdown. As it turned out, that card didn't support UEFI systems.... And your Mobo is a Z170, which is UEFI. It's entirely possible that apple only support certain older firewire cards properly when using those machines.

Have you tried the FirewireFix flag in Clover configurator? That flag caused my system problems and I'm not entirely 100% sure what it does, but you might find that it fixes the problem on your system.

Failing that, the SYBA PEX30009 can usually be found very cheaply and so far seems incredibly well supported by all the toshes I've seen on this forum thread. If none of the above fixes your problem, maybe consider the SYBA: it's a very good card for hack systems

 

[CSanjay]

ok, so there's two things I can think off the top of my head that might be the problem. But firstly, I have to say please do NOT connect firewire cables whilst the computer is on. They can cause things to fry out because of power surges. Firewire is generally not safe for hot-plugging.

(EDIT: Apparently the sonnet card supports hot-plugging, but it's still not something I'd recommend making a habit of.)

So the first thing I can think is that it could be that your devices are drawing too much power. What PSU are you using?

What happens when you turn the computer off and unplug the devices? Does the problem go away?
Also, if you're multi-booting OS's, do you get the same sort of problems?

Sonnet claim that OSX 10.5.8+ & High Sierra are supported, but the machines listed are, naturally, fairly ancient machines by today's standards. I had a problem with my previous (Startech) firewire card which caused my computer to reboot after shutdown. As it turned out, that card didn't support UEFI systems.... And your Mobo is a Z170, which is UEFI. It's entirely possible that apple only support certain older firewire cards properly when using those machines.

Have you tried the FirewireFix flag in Clover configurator? That flag caused my system problems and I'm not entirely 100% sure what it does, but you might find that it fixes the problem on your system.

Failing that, the SYBA PEX30009 can usually be found very cheaply and so far seems incredibly well supported by all the toshes I've seen on this forum thread. If none of the above fixes your problem, maybe consider the SYBA: it's a very good card for hack systems

Tnx....Will Try this card.And firewire fix flag in clover didnt work either.