XP Home Firewire drivers

[Guest]

I purchased a SIIG PCI firewire adapter. It has no drivers and says that it
will use Win XP drivers. Well I installed the board and booted the pc, Win XP
recognized the hardware but could not find any drivers. I tried unplugging it
manually, installing it in another card slot with no luck. I took it back to
my pc dealer and he plugged it in his system and had no problems. I decide to
try another brand, an IO Gear GIC1394.
I had the same result. I had the installation process search my hard drive,
with no luck. I tried to have it search my Win XP CD for drivers and still no
luck. I have ALL of the windows updates installed. Any helpful comments or
suggestions are appreciated. Thank you.

 

[Americantechie]

There should be a CD with the adapter. You should install the drivers from
this CD before installing the firewire PCI adapter. If there is no CD, you
should get the drivers from the manufacturers website.

 

[Fisher]

There should be a CD with the adapter. You should install the drivers from
this CD before installing the firewire PCI adapter. If there is no CD, you
should get the drivers from the manufacturers website.

I don't think so. XP comes with standard Firewire drivers. Both my
Audigy2 and motherboard has Firewire ports and XP sets them up with
drivers with no input from me needed. Niether the soundcard nor
motherboard came with Firewire drivers of their own.Why this fellow is
having an issue on his system is a bit baffling though. I would go
through the steps to force hardware detection and search the XP cdrom
for drivers again. Is unknown hardware seen in device manager?

 

[Guest]

Thanks for your reply. There was no installation software for either of the
cards that I purchased.Both of the cards websites say that their cards use
Windows drivers.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for your response. In the hardware/ device manager there is a yellow
question mark next to the IEEE 1394 controller. In the help section from the
SIIG card, it gave me locations 3 locations on my hard drive to point the
istallation process to. All came up negative. I have tried disabling it,
uninstalling and reinstalling,rebooting, moving the card to a different slot,
all with the same result

 

[Americantechie]

I don't think so. XP comes with standard Firewire drivers. Both my
Audigy2 and motherboard has Firewire ports and XP sets them up with
drivers with no input from me needed. Niether the soundcard nor
motherboard came with Firewire drivers of their own.Why this fellow is
having an issue on his system is a bit baffling though. I would go
through the steps to force hardware detection and search the XP cdrom
for drivers again. Is unknown hardware seen in device manager?

Oops... I suppose I should slow down and read a little more before replying.
I now see the adapter did not come with drivers (so no CD) and is supposed
to run from drivers that are allready loaded on the XP system.

Regardless of that fact the bottom line remains the same. When you install
a hardware device, it will either find drivers and get installed
automatically, or it will not be able to find drivers and they will have to
be loaded. In the case that drivers are not found, you try the drivers that
are available at the manufacturers website. I went to
http://www.siig.com/downloads.asp and there are drivers available for their
devices.

 

[Americantechie]

Thanks for your reply. There was no installation software for either of
the
cards that I purchased.Both of the cards websites say that their cards use
Windows drivers.

Sorry, my other reply to Fisher was sent like a minute before you posted
this one. Ok, so what is the model number of the PCI Firewire card?

 

[Americantechie]

Thanks for your reply. There was no installation software for either of
the
cards that I purchased.Both of the cards websites say that their cards use
Windows drivers.

By the way... the following KB article backs you up. Windows XP has native
support for both Firewire and USB... but when all else fails... you should
always go to the manufacturers website to see if there are any other
drivers. It will not hurt. You say there are no drivers listed at the
website... dead end there I guess.

Also make sure your XP installation is totally updated.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;310433

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;314873

 

[Guest]

The firewire card is a IO Gear GIC1394.

Sorry, my other reply to Fisher was sent like a minute before you posted
this one. Ok, so what is the model number of the PCI Firewire card?

 

[Americantechie]

The firewire card is a IO Gear GIC1394.

Hmmm... that sucks...

Make sure you have SP2 and all the latest Windows updates. Maybe try in the
hardware update manager... "Install from a list or specific location" then
"Don't search. I will choose the driver to install." On the next screen
you get a list of devices... is your device in this list?

Well you and Fisher are right... I guess I was not sure because I have never
used firewire in XP and have never run into issues with it before. Heh,
maybe you should go with USB 2.0 instead... jk.

Good luck! Sorry I was of no help.

 

[Guest]

Hello. I tried to do a repair install in Windows, to have the pc load any
missing files. First it would not let me until i uninstalled Norton Go-Back.
So I uninstalled it. Then it went through the update process,installation,
but when it rebooted i got the dreaded BSOD.I booted in safe mode,went to the
System folder,then to Hardware, then to Device manager and saw that it didnt
even see the firewire card. I turned off the power. took the firewire card
out, rebooted and still got the BSOD. GREAT.
I am about to format C drive and start all over. Any ideas before I do?
Thanks.

 

[Americantechie]

Hello. I tried to do a repair install in Windows, to have the pc load any
missing files. First it would not let me until i uninstalled Norton
Go-Back.
So I uninstalled it. Then it went through the update process,installation,
but when it rebooted i got the dreaded BSOD.I booted in safe mode,went to
the
System folder,then to Hardware, then to Device manager and saw that it
didnt
even see the firewire card. I turned off the power. took the firewire card
out, rebooted and still got the BSOD. GREAT.
I am about to format C drive and start all over. Any ideas before I do?
Thanks.

Yeah... rarely will you ever want to do a repair installation for any
problem. A repair installation is not a targeted fix and as you see can
cause more problems. Unless you know for certain that a repair installation
should be performed (and have that idea backed up by an MSKB article that
says as much) you should not do it.

As a side note, the firewire card is not detected in safemode becauase
safemode disables non essential devices.

Because you are able to boot into safemode without getting the blue screen
you should be able to fix your computer without doing anything drastic like
wiping your hard drive. Safemode disables most hardware and software and
the fact that you are able to boot into safemode means one of those items
that were disabled is causing your problem.

The first thing I would do is remove all devices that are not needed for the
operation of your computer (mouse and keyboard) and reboot. If the problem
goes away, you are looking at one of the devices you removed. Plug in one
of those devices and reboot, rinse and repeat until you get the problem
back. If you get the problem again after plugging in one device, you know
it is that device that is causing the problem. Update the drivers for that
device and you should be good to go. If you determine the problem not to be
a hardware device, go back to safemode and perform a cleanboot per the
following article.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;310353

Basically what you are doing here is using the msconfig utility to disable
all startup items and non MS services. If you can boot to a normal desktop
where you were not before... the problem lies in one of these startup items.
Basically you are going to go through the same process of elimination here
that I described for the hardware devices.

Sorry if none of this makes sense, I just woke up. If you have any other
questions, reply back. After you have fixed the problem, make sure you
install all updates and service pack 2 before trying to get the firewire
card to work again.

Good luck!

 

[Guest]

Thanks for all of the info. I have no cards plugged in except for my video
card. I have ALL Win XP updates. In device manager I have a yellow question
mark thats says "Multimedia audio controller" Which i believe is my mobo
sound device which I dont use, I use a SB Live card but it is unplugged
too.The other yellow question mark says" Raid Controller" which I dont use
either. I tried to access the mobo cd,but it cant access it in safe mode.Any
other last ideas? Thanks

 

[Americantechie]

Thanks for all of the info. I have no cards plugged in except for my video
card. I have ALL Win XP updates. In device manager I have a yellow
question
mark thats says "Multimedia audio controller" Which i believe is my mobo
sound device which I dont use, I use a SB Live card but it is unplugged
too.The other yellow question mark says" Raid Controller" which I dont use
either. I tried to access the mobo cd,but it cant access it in safe
mode.Any
other last ideas? Thanks

At this point I am not sure which problem you are trying to fix. Did you
get around the BSOD problem? If not, you should follow the steps I gave you
earlier. If you followed those steps, what happened?

If you got around the BSOD question and you are now looking at the firewire
card, I am not sure how to get around that problem. I have always used USB
2.0 which require drivers so I assumed if you install a firewire card and
the system is not able to find drivers, then you have to get them from the
manufacturer, apparently this is not the case. I have no clue what to do if
you follow the installation instructions of the hardware and those
instructions don't work. I have checked all around the net, newsgroups, and
Google. There does not seem to be much info on this problem. You could try
my earlier suggestions (my last post before you tried the repair install)
and if that does not work then I am out of ideas.

 

[Guest]

I did the clean boot procedure outlined in the article and still have the
BSOD on boot. I then go to safe mode and still have the same 2 yellow
question marks under "other devices". I

 

[Americantechie]

What does the BSOD screen say? What is the error message? Is there any
file names mentioned?

 

[Guest]

To be honest, it goes by so fast I have no idea what it says.

 

[Americantechie]

To be honest, it goes by so fast I have no idea what it says.

So you are in a boot loop then? The computer gets to the blue screen and
then reboots? If this is the case you can go into safemode and do the
following...

1. Right-click My Computer, and then click Properties.
2. On the Advanced tab, click Settings under Startup and Recovery.
3. Clear the Automatically restart check box under System failure, and then
click OK. The error message should remain on the screen so that you can
record the error information.

This will at least stop you on the error message and give you a chance to
read it.

 

[Guest]

Yes I am stuck in a boot loop. I gave up in frustration yesterday. I will do
as you suggest and post the error message later after work. Thanks for your
tenacity.

 

[Lil' Dave]

Believe that therein lies your problem. Even if the hardware is not used,
its consuming an irq. Disable aforementioned devices in the bios setup.
Firewire should have its own irq.