in need of a peculiar firewire card

[rarewolf]

I need Firewire IEEE 1394a, and my computer has only one remaining PCI
slot. That slot is smaller (~45-50mm long) and described by the
manual as a "8x PCI" slot. So my question is ... is there such a
Firewire card that can work in this slot?

TIA & cheerios

 

[smlunatick]

I need Firewire IEEE 1394a, and my computer has only one remaining PCI
slot.  That slot is smaller (~45-50mm long) and described by the
manual as a "8x PCI" slot.  So my question is ... is there such a
Firewire card that can work in this slot?

TIA & cheerios  

What color is the slot? You seem to be describing some type of
different slot.

The only slot that gets an "x" in its description seems to be a
PCIExpress slot.

 

[rarewolf]

What color is the slot?  You seem to be describing some type of
different slot.

The only slot that gets an "x" in its description seems to be a
PCIExpress slot.

Thanx for you reply )

The slot is black. It may be a PCIexpress, but think there are 2
types, 16x and 8x(?)

 

[Malke]

Thanx for you reply )

The slot is black. It may be a PCIexpress, but think there are 2
types, 16x and 8x(?)

Yes, you are describing a PCIe slot. PCIe is only for video cards; you can't
install a firewire card in it.

Malke

 

[Paul]

Yes, you are describing a PCIe slot. PCIe is only for video cards; you can't
install a firewire card in it.

Malke

That is not true. PCI Express slots come in a variety of sizes, from
x1 up to x16, and can support all sorts of different cards. Even a
motherboard, like Asus A8N-SLI with two x16 slots, once it had a
BIOS update, was able to support an Areca RAID controller in one
of the x16 slots. So it does work for more than video. But sometimes
the BIOS needs an upgrade, before it works (BIOS bug).

There is an example of a Firewire PCI Express x1 card, here.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductReview.aspx?Item=N82E16812186009

Here is a picture of the Firewire card. It is a bridged design. The
upper chip, is a Firewire chip with PCI interface. The bottom chip,
is a PCI to PCI Express bridge chip (by PLX). The connector on the bottom,
is an x1 connector, and will fit in an x1, x4, x8 or x16 slot.

http://c1.neweggimages.com/NeweggImage/productimage/12-186-009-03.jpg

The top four connectors here, are PCI Express. Any one of them could
be used with that Firewire card. (The bottom connector is an older
PCI 32 bit slot.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:PCIExpress.jpg

Paul

 

[rarewolf]

That is not true. PCI Express slots come in a variety of sizes, from
x1 up to x16, and can support all sorts of different cards. Even a
motherboard, like Asus A8N-SLI with two x16 slots, once it had a
BIOS update, was able to support an Areca RAID controller in one
of the x16 slots. So it does work for more than video. But sometimes
the BIOS needs an upgrade, before it works (BIOS bug).

There is an example of a Firewire PCI Express x1 card, here.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductReview.aspx?Item=N82E16812186009

Here is a picture of the Firewire card. It is a bridged design. The
upper chip, is a Firewire chip with PCI interface. The bottom chip,
is a PCI to PCI Express bridge chip (by PLX). The connector on the bottom,
is an x1 connector, and will fit in an x1, x4, x8 or x16 slot.

http://c1.neweggimages.com/NeweggImage/productimage/12-186-009-03.jpg

The top four connectors here, are PCI Express. Any one of them could
be used with that Firewire card. (The bottom connector is an older
PCI 32 bit slot.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:PCIExpress.jpg

    Paul- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Paul ... thank you! And I'll be sure to ask Dell about the BIOS ...

cheerios )

 

[Malke]

That is not true. PCI Express slots come in a variety of sizes, from
x1 up to x16, and can support all sorts of different cards. Even a
motherboard, like Asus A8N-SLI with two x16 slots, once it had a
BIOS update, was able to support an Areca RAID controller in one
of the x16 slots. So it does work for more than video. But sometimes
the BIOS needs an upgrade, before it works (BIOS bug).

There is an example of a Firewire PCI Express x1 card, here.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductReview.aspx?Item=N82E16812186009

Here is a picture of the Firewire card. It is a bridged design. The
upper chip, is a Firewire chip with PCI interface. The bottom chip,
is a PCI to PCI Express bridge chip (by PLX). The connector on the bottom,
is an x1 connector, and will fit in an x1, x4, x8 or x16 slot.

http://c1.neweggimages.com/NeweggImage/productimage/12-186-009-03.jpg

The top four connectors here, are PCI Express. Any one of them could
be used with that Firewire card. (The bottom connector is an older
PCI 32 bit slot.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:PCIExpress.jpg

Thanks for the correction and the great information you provided.

Malke

 

[Paul]

Thanks for the correction and the great information you provided.

Malke

To be fair, PCI Express is not an entirely "quirk free" technology.
What I wanted to dispel, was the notion that an x16 slot is always
a "video slot".

There are still some motherboards, where funny things happen. For
example, on some of the newer motherboards, where there
are three or four x16 physical slots, the users find they cannot
stuff a video card into just any slot. So there are still some
(BIOS bug) surprises, and BIOS updates are not always rushed out
to fix them.

The physical slot size, doesn't have to match the wiring to the
slot. So when you see a big slot, the actual bandwidth can be
a lot less. It is possible, for a x16 slot, to only have x1 wiring,
which would give a pretty severe bandwidth penalty. So just because
they soldered a big connector, doesn't always mean big bandwidth.
Deception is possible.

I've seen one other alternative, which isn't too common yet. One
motherboard has a large slot, and three x1 slots. As soon as you plug
a large card in the large slot, the three x1 slots are disabled. The
motherboard maker used a bus switch, which can switch the lanes away from
some of the slots, on demand. It is both a clever and a dastardly
feature, and not something people expect from bus slots. It was
done because the chipset had limited lanes to work with, and they
tried to make the most of a limited resource. For that one, the
user had better have read the manual, because otherwise, it'll be
a tech support nightmare (slots that don't work when you expect
them to). Motherboard is Gigabyte GA-P35-DS4.

Paul

 

[M.I.5¾]

Yes, you are describing a PCIe slot. PCIe is only for video cards; you
can't
install a firewire card in it.

Not correct. You can install a PCI-Express firewire card in it. Although
not common at present, they do exist.

 

[Malke]

To be fair, PCI Express is not an entirely "quirk free" technology.
What I wanted to dispel, was the notion that an x16 slot is always
a "video slot".

There are still some motherboards, where funny things happen. For
example, on some of the newer motherboards, where there
are three or four x16 physical slots, the users find they cannot
stuff a video card into just any slot. So there are still some
(BIOS bug) surprises, and BIOS updates are not always rushed out
to fix them.

The physical slot size, doesn't have to match the wiring to the
slot. So when you see a big slot, the actual bandwidth can be
a lot less. It is possible, for a x16 slot, to only have x1 wiring,
which would give a pretty severe bandwidth penalty. So just because
they soldered a big connector, doesn't always mean big bandwidth.
Deception is possible.

I've seen one other alternative, which isn't too common yet. One
motherboard has a large slot, and three x1 slots. As soon as you plug
a large card in the large slot, the three x1 slots are disabled. The
motherboard maker used a bus switch, which can switch the lanes away from
some of the slots, on demand. It is both a clever and a dastardly
feature, and not something people expect from bus slots. It was
done because the chipset had limited lanes to work with, and they
tried to make the most of a limited resource. For that one, the
user had better have read the manual, because otherwise, it'll be
a tech support nightmare (slots that don't work when you expect
them to). Motherboard is Gigabyte GA-P35-DS4.

Thanks again for the additional information. It was a very interesting read
and I appreciate the time you took to share that.

Cheers,

Malke