Using Firewire on a K8V Motherboard

[Mtimerding]

Hello all,

I have a (sorta) homebuilt system, using a K8V motherboard and AMD 3400+
CPU .... I want to use firewire connections (for my camcorder), however this
motherboard does NOT have firewire connections. (Deluxe yes, Plain ole
K8V no) so I purchased a 3-Port Firewire PCI Host Adapter from
FirewireDirect.com, installed it, booted the computer and there was
no "Found New Hardware" msg from Windows, there is no new entry
in Device Manager (not even one marked "disabled"or something)
The card came with just that ...... the card ... no manual, no instructions,
just the PCI card and the receipt which clearly says "No software needed
for operation"

When I use one of my programs for capturing video (Nero Vision or
Ulead Video Studio 9.0 .... both give the message "No capture device
installed
or detected" (with the camera plugged in and turned on) it's a Canon ZR85 if
that
matters)

I did notice a 4 pin connector on the card, for connecting a power source
that is not
connected to anything but their tech support assured me it does NOT have to
be "that power
connection is just there in case you want to install additional firewire
devices"

At either rate, I have no idea how IEEE94 is supposed to work, what I should
see
(in device Manager) ... in short I have NO clue about anything to do with
Firewire.
I am wondering if someone thinks I have provided enough info to definately
state that the card is defective or if maybe I might have missed something
and
not done something right. (Or maybe this motherboard will not support
firewire of
any kind or something)

I am running Windows XP Pro (sp2). I have swapped PCI slots the card used to
rule that out .. final point is neither System Info or Everest Ultimate
Edition show
this device, or any 'Unknown device" in a PCI slot.

Any ideas?

 

[Paul]

Hello all,
<<snip>>

At either rate, I have no idea how IEEE94 is supposed to work, what
I should see (in device Manager) ... in short I have NO clue about
anything to do with Firewire.

I am wondering if someone thinks I have provided enough info to
definately state that the card is defective or if maybe I might have
missed something and not done something right. (Or maybe this
motherboard will not support firewire of any kind or something)

I am running Windows XP Pro (sp2). I have swapped PCI slots the card
used to rule that out .. final point is neither System Info or
Everest Ultimate Edition show this device, or any 'Unknown device"
in a PCI slot.

Any ideas?

IEEE1394 devices have a standard register set on the interface.
This allows an OS with an OHCI driver, to find the device.
I think there is support in Win98SE, but perhaps not Win98.
It is supposed to be a plug and play experience.

It should be as simple as installing the card, and Windows
should already have the driver.

Regarding the dumping of PCI config space (as proof a card
is accessable), I don't really know if the BIOS exerts any
force in the process or not. Personally, I'd prefer to use
a utility that says explicitly that it scans the PCI
address space looking for devices, rather than just consulting
some BIOS-provided table. I would hope Everest is really looking
at the hardware directly, but you never know.

There are other utilities, but I haven't tried them.
Do a search for "dump pci config windows" with your favorite
search engine, to find more. i don't know what OSes
this one supports:

http://h18000.www1.hp.com/support/files/alphant/drivers/
ftp://ftp.compaq.com/pub/softpaq/alphant/pciiv132.zip

Also, it is possible that working in a Linux environment,
may make it easier to verify the hardware. I have a Knoppix
boot disk (700MB download), that is a standalone read-only
boot disk. You don't even need a hard drive to use it.
It boots from a CD, and as long as you have enough RAM for
the RAMdisk it uses, it will start. Just viewing the
bootup sequence can tell you a lot about the hardware
that can be seen. Once the OS is running, you may find the
Linux/Unix PCI dumping tools to be a bit more convincing
than their Windows counterparts.

I would say, if a PCI config space dump is not finding the
card, it isn't working. Try popping the card in another
computer, to verify the diagnosis.

Paul