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

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The other day I bought the aforementioned PEX1394B3 card (V1.4, 643e) for my hackintosh. I have a FW audio interface connected to it, and every few minutes the sound stops and the system log says: "kernel[0]: ERROR: FireWire (OHCI) Lucent ID 5901 built-in: handleUnrecoverableErrorInt".

I'm running 10.8.5 on a Gigabyte GA-Z87X-D3H.

I have the same FW chipset (Lucent ID 5901) in my Macbook Pro 7,1, running the same OS (10.8.5), using the same audio interface, and I have flawless functionality there.

On the very same hackintosh under Windows 7 everything works fine, too. I've already tried two different PCIe ports, to no avail, under OS X I get the same kernel error. I've also tried all ports on the FW card, including FW400 and FW800 connections, no difference whatsoever.

I'd appreciate any help regarding what I shall try to do next to troubleshoot this issue.

Thank you guys!
 
Haswell CustoMac
GA-Z87X-D3H |  i7 4770K |  Graphics Card
futurus said:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002S53IG8/

I bought one of these Syba cards and honestly it has me perplexed beyond belief. My 400 port is working perfectly (I have a ProFire 2626 audio interface hooked up to it). No latency issues or anything... but for some reason neither of the 800 ports work. I can connect a drive and hear it spinning, but OSX just doesn't pick up on it - even in the system profiler. Just the 400 bus. Any ideas? I've already tried swapping into different PCIe slots with no success.
Click to expand...

Is it a DICE compatability issue?

Is the card OP recommended DICE compatible?
 
Hello folks! First post... First build!

It's taking shape. Everything is working perfectly at the moment so now I'm going about making my Hackintosh my audio workstation!

I have a motu interface which I don't want to get rid of and need a Firewire PCIe card. Based on r.5's much appreciated research I am probably going to go for one of these...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B002UOWQQU/?tag=tonymacx86-21

Does this look good? Seems to use the chipset r.5 recommended as being a full fat PCIe and not a PCI to PCIe fudge.

I am ready to drop the hammer! If anyone else has any better ideas I would love to hear about them. If not I will get the above and let you know how I get on.

Thanks!

Dan
 
BighugeMonkeysuit said:
I am probably going to go for one of these...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B002UOWQQU/?tag=tonymacx86-21

Does this look good? Seems to use the chipset r.5 recommended as being a full fat PCIe and not a PCI to PCIe fudge.
Click to expand...

That card is not PCIe... it is PCI, therefore no PCI > PCIe bridge.

IMHO (and this is, indeed only my opinion), I think finding the holy grail of a PCIe FW800/400 card that doesn't use the PCI > PCIe bridge is a valiant effort, and in theory this would be the method to reduce latency when monitoring your record tracks. While I'm no technical expert by any means, the more I think about it, the more I get a gut feeling that latency caused by cards with the PCI > PCIe bridge architecture would hardly be audible.

Also note that most all audio interfaces these days come with their own software app that acts as a virtual mixer; and your hardware + this software app are designed to be used for "near-zero latency." Your MOTU's CueMix is one such app (Focusrite has Saffire Mix Control; Apogee has Maestro, etc). Remember: if you monitor through the audio input feature of Logic, DP, etc., you will, indeed have to deal with a certain amount of latency due to the routing of audio once it's inside your DAW.

Changing your DAW's buffer size will help reduce this, but not eliminate. Consider changing your workflow and have CueMix running in the background of your DAW app. Disable your DAW's input monitoring, and instead monitor through CueMix. THAT will give you the near-zero latency that you're looking for, regardless of what FW card you use.

In your case, if it were me, I would get myself the FW card that works on a CustoMac OoB (out of box) - there are several including the SIIG one that TheHacker1 shared. I use the Syba one that's been used around here for a long time. Check out my Studio 2.0 build parts list for links to both the Syba and the Belkin FW400 card that I use. BTW, not sure which MOTU interface you are using, but if I'm not mistaken, all MOTU FW interfaces are FW400 (even though some of the newer models use the FW800 connection). So FW800 is not really a requirement in your case.

Hope this helps... :)
 
BoomR said:
That card is not PCIe... it is PCI, therefore no PCI > PCIe bridge...

...In your case, if it were me, I would get myself the FW card that works on a CustoMac OoB (out of box) - there are several including the SIIG one that TheHacker1 shared. I use the Syba one that's been used around here for a long time. Check out my Studio 2.0 build parts list for links to both the Syba and the Belkin FW400 card that I use. BTW, not sure which MOTU interface you are using, but if I'm not mistaken, all MOTU FW interfaces are FW400 (even though some of the newer models use the FW800 connection). So FW800 is not really a requirement in your case.

Hope this helps... :)
Click to expand...

Thanks BoomR.. That's some first hurdle crap right there! All the cards I've seen use the 1 x speed PCIe slot. I presume it has ample bandwidth for firewire? I liked the look of combining 400 and 800 but have read below that I would only get 400mbps out of the 800 port on such a card anyway.

https://www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep09/articles/qa0909_2.htm

I have an 800 External HD so I figured combining the two would be the best option but clearly not!

I am happy enough to have a little latency, that isn't a massive concern but OoB operation definitely is. I'll read through your parts and steal your ideas!

Thanks for your input.
 
BighugeMonkeysuit said:
Thanks BoomR.. That's some first hurdle crap right there! All the cards I've seen use the 1 x speed PCIe slot. I presume it has ample bandwidth for firewire? I liked the look of combining 400 and 800 but have read below that I would only get 400mbps out of the 800 port on such a card anyway.

https://www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep09/articles/qa0909_2.htm

I have an 800 External HD so I figured combining the two would be the best option but clearly not!

I am happy enough to have a little latency, that isn't a massive concern but OoB operation definitely is. I'll read through your parts and steal your ideas!

Thanks for your input.
Click to expand...

That's a great article in SOS on all the various pitfalls of FW and spot-on, to be sure. Thanks very much for sharing that bit of research. I'm gonna bookmark that for sure. But just a quick correction to your observation:
BighugeMonkeysuit said:
I liked the look of combining 400 and 800 but have read below that I would only get 400mbps out of the 800 port on such a card anyway.
Click to expand...

Depending on the card, you would probably still get FW800 speeds from the 1394B ports, and FW400 from the 1394A ports; however, what the article was trying to stress is the fact that your HD and audio interface traffic is still on the single PCIe bus of your combo-card. Therein lies the potential problem (both latency and otherwise). And again, as I stated before, your MOTU interface only operates on FW400, even though the FW port is the 1394B-type (FW800). So the net result is everything is running at FW400 speeds.

FWIW, a long-standing best practice is to make sure that your high-traffic FW devices are on their own separate FW bus. When you've got a project with lots of simultaneous tracks playing or recording, plus all the I/O traffic of your FW interface all on the same FW bus, you are asking for problems (clicks/pops, drop-outs, etc.).

I'm not sure what your budget allows, but I would sincerely suggest you do one of 2 things:
  1. If you are committed to using your FW800 external drive, you should consider getting 2 FW cards: one card to drive your MOTU, and one card to drive your FW800 hard drive. OR
  2. Consider investing in a USB3.0 drive enclosure, then move the hard drive mechanism from your FW800 external enclosure to the new USB3.0 enclosure. That would put your HD on one bus (USB3.0), and your MOTU would have exclusive use of all the bandwidth of your FW PCIe card.

:headbang:
 
Okay folks,

I took BoomR's recommendation and bought the Syba 1394 Firewire controller Card here:
[AMAZON-uk]http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B002S53IG8/[/AMAZON-uk]

It seems to be working well.. No clicks or pops on simple play back! I will get the opportunity to stress it out properly in the very near future! Thanks for all your help everybody.
 
BighugeMonkeysuit said:
Thanks BoomR.. That's some first hurdle crap right there! All the cards I've seen use the 1 x speed PCIe slot. I presume it has ample bandwidth for firewire? I liked the look of combining 400 and 800 but have read below that I would only get 400mbps out of the 800 port on such a card anyway.
((snip))

Okay folks,

I took BoomR's recommendation and bought the Syba 1394 Firewire controller Card here:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B002S53IG8/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

It seems to be working well.. No clicks or pops on simple play back! I will get the opportunity to stress it out properly in the very near future! Thanks for all your help everybody.
Click to expand...

This is COMPLETELY OT, but I was **wondering** if you were in the UK? I've never before heard the expression, "That's some first hurdle crap right there!" But it sounds like something my good musician-&-graphic-artist-mate Tobias would say (he lives in Brighton). Now that you shared the link from amazon.co.uk, guess I was spot-on!!
:headbang:

Best wishes & happy music making - keep us posted on the performance of your setup!
 
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