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

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Well, USB 3.0 is set to really change things, as not only is it low cost, but it doesn't suffer from most of the problems that previous generations of USB has had. Things like CPU polling is gone, so it uses far less CPU cycles for nothing.

Thunderbolt is in essence an external PCI Express interface, it's expensive, complicated to design for if you're making daisy-chainable devices and costly for the end user in most cases. Not an ideal standard, but something of a spiritual success of FireWire.

As to how OS X deals with FireWire, well, I'm sure some of it comes down to the hardware makers drivers as well, as I think that has more of an impact than the interface itself, which should work vastly much better in OS X than in Windows, at least in theory. However, it looks like fewer and fewer of the audio hardware manufacturers have the engineering resources they used to, so they're cutting corners. With programmers going to the best paying employer... well, I guess things aren't the way the used to in this market segment as audio has become something of a ubiquitous technology. Even the once great Creative Labs is a shadow of what it used to be as a company, although that's also got something to do with various company business decisions to do as well, among many things.

I'm sorry I don't have any real answer or solution to your last question, but I'm sure there are people here that can answer it.
 
Build 1
GA-Z77X-UD5H |  i7 3770K |  GeForce GTX 660 Ti
thelostswede said:
And can I ask, why would you waste $100 on that card, when you can have the same TI chip on a generic card for far less money that will work just as well? o_O
This is literally the same PCB, just in black instead of purple, with a smaller crystal and a FW400 port instead of the third FW800 port and it's $25... http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815124107
Click to expand...

I bought the card 3 years ago and it did not cost me $100. Closer to $30-$40. The card's packaging was rebranded as something other than TI (although it says TI on the chipset). If they are $100 now, then you are correct in saying a $25 alternative is better and I lucked out in finding a good card that was appropriately priced!
 
That was meant to the poster below you going for the Sonnet card, I think you got things mixed up here :p

I never said the TI card's don't work, as clearly they do as tons of people use them, I was merely trying to point out two things 1. Apple uses the LSI chip and you can get the same hardware for your hack and 2. TI is kind of lying with regards to what people are thinking that they're buying, as their chips are not native PCI Express and this might cause issues for some users in certain scenarios.
 
Build 1
GA-Z77X-UD5H |  i7 3770K |  GeForce GTX 660 Ti
thanks for info
 
I'm thinking about buying this PCI Card, not PCIe.
Motherboard GA-X58A-UD3R v2.0 FF.
Would this work without extra latancy ?!
 
thelostswede said:
Well, since the X58/ICH10R supports native PCI... yes, it'll be just fine.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the fast responce!
Then I'm going to buy one tomorrow :)
 
So...I have a great deal of faith in thelostswede, and had numerous problems with the first Firewire card (Syba) I installed in my Hackintosh build. So...I bit the bullet and paid the slightly higher price for this card. It arrived today; I installed it and have been in a world of hurt ever since.

First: my build. i7 3.4 2600 Sandy Bridge; Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3, Radeon 6870 1 GB, 8 GB Ram, 550 Watt PSU, a bunch of hard drives, Sony Optiarc DVD burner, Apple wi-fi hack card and natively-recognized BT dongle. Running U1h bios and Mountain Lion -- and I wouldn't be surprised if all of my heartache is due to foolishly living on the bleeding edge... ;)

My build had been working perfectly save for one remaining issue - auto sleep would not work (my display would auto sleep, but the computer itself would not). I could sleep manually and wake without issue - a far cry from my Mountain Lion experience with my first graphics card, a 550Ti (shudder).

I replaced my ASUS DVD drive (one potential source of sleep issues) and added in the Startech PEX1394B3 today and rebooted. As I tested, I could see that Auto sleep still wasn't working properly...however, the Startech card was recognized as a Firewire 800 interface and all seemed well.

An hour later, I realized: manual sleep was now broken, too. When I tried to sleep (either from the OS or the power button) my machine would, at first, sleep and then immediately wake up again. After a couple of failed sleep cycles, the computer rebooted itself and went into some kind of a boot loop or CMOS reset. I mean, the motherboard was really having a hard time. I watched the screens as the machine finally went to the backup BIOS, then complained about errors and offered me the option of rolling back to "optimized defaults". I did so, reset the boot drive, ACHI, etc. Restarted into ML and continue to troubleshoot.

Tried:
Removed entire SystemConfiguration folder in Library/Preferences and allowed it to rebuild.
Tried a variety of sleep profiles via Terminal = 0,1,3, all with similar results.
Went line by line through running processes, and used pmset in Termial to check to see if software was keeping the machine from sleeping (nothing).
Tried darkwake=1 and =0 in boot.plist.

Tried to shut down the computer to begin removing hardware but Shut Down was now broken, as well, causing the system to shut down and then immediately reboot (consistently, and not tied to BIOS or Energy Saver settings that I can see). Another CMOS event / boot loop ensued, but the system eventually was able to POST and I didn't have to redo any bios settings.

Forced the machine to shut down using the power button and removed the card.

Rebooted --> all sleep functionality / stability was restored to its earlier condition.

Shut down (worked fine without the card!); moved card to different PCIExpress slot (swapped with Airport card to make sure slot was working). Result: sleep and shutdown problems returned. Airport card worked fine in its new home on the MB, so I think the PCIExpress slot is OK...

Removed card again (after a force shutdown from Chimera boot screen) ---> result, sleep / wake is restored.

Presently, there is no DSDT for this board (presumably, it's not needed) so it would appear that native Power Management isn't able to handle this card OOB *on my setup*.

So, buyer beware. And in the meantime, I would be extremely grateful for any help a resident smart person could suggest. :D
 
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