Been scouring the internet looking for ways to resolve issues many new laptop buyers are facing with their firewire audio interfaces due to the cheap Ricoh firewire chipset. (especially on duo core and duo core 2 systems)
Issues:
1. Firewire soundcards seem to perform best with TI chipsets. I don't get this! Isn't firewire 1394a/b a standard? Don't they all have to be OHCI compliant?
I just can't see why there seem to be such dramatic differences in performances between chipsets that are supposedly designed (and approved) to do the exact same things
2. Many people have reported equal or worse performance when using an expresscard firewire adapter from SIIG or Belkin (even though they have TI chipsets). I don't get this either, is it not faster to be interfacing to the PCI bus like this? Has anyone come across a expresscard firewire adapter that has improved their soundcard performance? (e.g. lower latency, less pops+clicks?)I am convinced that this will be the answer to many peoples issues once we isolate which card or combo of card + settings improve things.
I have been looking at this card from Akumen:
http://www.akumen.com/store/product.php?productid=178
Improved their firewire audio performance with expresscard?
-
intellijel
- Posts: 103
- Joined: Wed Aug 10, 2005 10:13 pm
Good question, I've been wondering this myself. I've just bought a dual core HP DV9000 laptop which I'm using with my RME Fireface, currently connected to the puny 4 pin port built into the laptop. The sound is alot flatter than when I was using my desktop. So I've ordered a Siig Firewire 800 Express card in the hope that the extra bandwidth will improve things a little. It hasn't arrived yet but I'll report back on whether it makes a diff.
OK, so I have now recieved and installed the Siig Firewire 800 Expresscard.
In a nutshell: Unsatisfied.
Siig supplies you with Firewire 800 drivers to get the full 800 mbps, but I can't get them to work (Windows says that there is no connectivity) so have to run it on the Microsoft drivers which only alow 400 mbps. Really annoying, as I had to pay a shit load of money for them to ship it to New Zealand. Have contacted Siig support but their response has been minimal; they gave me a new driver to try, but the only thing it fixed was the other annoying problem I intially had which was if I left the expresscard plugged in when shutting down, the computer screen would go blank but the hardrives, fans ect would just keep on running and never properly shut down. The only solution was pull ther power cord, disconnect the battery. So this issue has been solved but the bigger issue of getting the full bandwith of the firewire 800 is still unresolved. So its just a really expensive FW 400 port at the moment. Anybody have similar experiences and a possible solution?
In a nutshell: Unsatisfied.
Siig supplies you with Firewire 800 drivers to get the full 800 mbps, but I can't get them to work (Windows says that there is no connectivity) so have to run it on the Microsoft drivers which only alow 400 mbps. Really annoying, as I had to pay a shit load of money for them to ship it to New Zealand. Have contacted Siig support but their response has been minimal; they gave me a new driver to try, but the only thing it fixed was the other annoying problem I intially had which was if I left the expresscard plugged in when shutting down, the computer screen would go blank but the hardrives, fans ect would just keep on running and never properly shut down. The only solution was pull ther power cord, disconnect the battery. So this issue has been solved but the bigger issue of getting the full bandwith of the firewire 800 is still unresolved. So its just a really expensive FW 400 port at the moment. Anybody have similar experiences and a possible solution?
FW
http://www.rme-audio.com/english/techinfo/fw800sp2.htm
maybe installing the MS patch..helps--see RME info...
maybe installing the MS patch..helps--see RME info...