Can you spare a little therapy for a struggling musician/audio engineer/songwriter?

I’m getting very frustrated trying to connect my new Dell 5510 Mobile Workstation and my Focusrite  Liquid Saffire 56.  The laptop has a Thunderbolt 3 port.  It even has the little lightning bolt insignia.  The 56 uses Firewire connectors.  I checked with Focusrite support and they told me that I could use a Firewire 400 to 800 cable connected to a Apple Firewire to Thunderbolt 2 adaptor which is connected to a Thunderbolt 3 adaptor.  Well right now that doesn’t work.  The Dell is seeing the 2 adaptors, but not the device.  I checked with Focusrite support yesterday to see if there was any installation software besides the Mix Control.  He said no.  I already have the Saffire Mix Control 3.7 installed, but it says that there is no device connected.  The only other thing I can think of is that I am not sure whether I previously put the 56 in stand-alone mode.  If so, would that prevent the Mix Control from seeing the device?   I would really appreciate any advice.  I just want to start making music again, but this is sapping my creative drive bigtime.  Thanks for the therapy session.  

Thanks for the suggestion, I will try anything at this point.

Thanks, I will try a different cable, it's a generic. I can't really do anything about the chipset because it is a mobile workstation, so nothing is replaceable. I did try shutting everything down and restarting. What OS are you using, I'm using Windows 10 pro. Thanks for the suggestions.

I would say the problem is with the adapters rather than the Focusrite Mix Control.  If the device is not being recognized and installed by Windows, nothing else will work.
 
Our resident DAW builder guru hopefully will chime in and set you straight with the adapters.  I recall something about only certain Apple approved adapters will work. 

Also my laptop is recognizing both of the Apple adapters but it doesn't seem to go beyond that. In other words it's not seeing the device so I'm wondering if the firewire part of the connection is what it's not recognizing rather than the adaptors which it does see.

I updated windows, but I'm not sure about the firewire drivers. How do I do that? I might be able to use an old laptop with firewire to check the 56. It's so old that I'm not sure if it still works. That's what the Focusrite tech guy told me also, so your thinking is right. I do have a desktop that I might be able to stick an old firewire card in. I have both.

I love computers when everything works, but they get real frustrating when they don't.

Actually the laptop is new. But I will check for driver updates, thanks.

I bought a Focusrite and for a week or something it worked from my laptop. Then I updated the firmware. That broke the connect from the laptop and for a month worked with Focusrite to get it working. I ultimately returned it.

I will say for the very short window in which it worked I was super impressed.

Yes, I agree. I have used it before on my other computers and it is good, that's why I am working hard to try to get it working.

tonyzub999
Mosvalve, I checked on the prior version of Mix Control, 3.4, but it didn't list windows 10 support. I'm using Win 10 pro. Will that work with 3.4?

I am running Win 7 so I don't know if it will work but at this point it can't hurt.

I have Win 10 Pro and a PCIe Firewire card with a T.I. chipset.  I am using the default driver that Windows installed and NOT the legacy driver.  My MOTU 896Mk3 Hybrid works perfectly with Firewire (or USB as it has both USB and Firewire capability).

Another thought, is that if your PC has Thunderbolt 3 over USB-C, and it can see the adapters correctly, then the Focusrite software is probably not completing the connection.
 
Maybe the suggestion to roll back to an earlier version is worth trying!

Apple have their ways of locking down even the wiring connections. 

Thanks Jim. I really appreciate your expertise. Is there a way to check to see whether a Firewire driver is in the laptop and if so which one? I guess another more important question is whether I need a Firewire driver or whether the thunderbolt 3 is backward compatible. This is all way beyond technical knowledge.

Firewire drivers are stock Microsoft/Windows. 
The one Windows 10 Pro installed for my PCI firewire card as reported in the Device Manager is:
Texas Instruments 1394 OHCI Compliant Host Controller
Driver date is 6/21/2006 and Version 10.0.15.063.0
 
It doesn't state "legacy" driver as I've seen in Win 7 and Win 8, but given the 2006 date it may still be the legacy driver.