Firewire VIA chipset and Windows 10 - BEWARE!

knock on wood... i have a VIA VT6308 chip in my Gigabyte mobo and my Saffire Pro 24 has worked so far.  Seems like my chips is one recommended in their document below...
 
focusrite has an app on their site that will analyze your chipset and give advice on it...
http://us.focusrite.com/a...h-my-interface?id=1184
 
here is their pdf that talks about acceptable firewire devices...
http://d3se566zfvnmhf.cloudfront.net/sites/default/files/answerbase/Focusrite%20IEEE%201394%20Compatibility_0.pdf
 
just found out the urls get shortened in the forum... if u rt click on them you will go there... if you copy it it will not work.
 

I have had no problems since upgrading to Windows 10 last week.
 
I'm running Windows 10 Pro with Mixcontrol 3.6 downloaded from the Saffire Pro 40 location (although I'm using the Pro 14). The OHCI scan tool reports this:
 
Looking for OHCI 1394 Host Controllers...
1:
Vendor : (1106) VIA Technologies
Chipset: (3044) VT6307/VT6308
Revision: C0
Status : Active
Details:
Subsysten VendorId: 1043
Subsystem DeviceId: 81fe
Max # isoch Rx contexts: 4
Max # isoch Tx contexts: 8
Max 1394 Speed Capability: S400
Support: Compatible, no known issues.
Done.

I have Firewire latency set to 'Medium' - 'Short' did not do as well for me.
 

If it helps, here is how my firewire drivers look:
 

Going back a few years, but wasn't the TI chipset identified as the one to have for Sonar and Firewire? I seem to recall a thread where it was listed as a best practice.

ampfixer
Going back a few years, but wasn't the TI chipset identified as the one to have for Sonar and Firewire? I seem to recall a thread where it was listed as a best practice.

Firewire was originally adopted as a connection favored by movie makers and used to attach movie gear.
It tended to be more adopted by the Apple users, since Apple invented it.
Apple wanted a licensing fee for each interface, so Intel came out with USB alternatives.
Firewire and now Thunderbolt always stayed a step ahead of USB, but now with USB 3.1, we probably have a break-even point again.
 
However, it will still be a while before we see newer USB devices.
 
Firewire is probably considered dead nowadays as few pieces of newer equipment support it. And Thunderbolt is very expensive, power hungry and thermally active. All the connectors are active. USB is far more universal and the newest USB 3.1 stuff with that great new connector will probably become the de-facto standard in years to come.
 
Back in the XP days, I had a special PCI card that had Firewire 400 and 800 ports because all my external drives were Firewire 800. (This was before e-SATA, which I use nowadays).
 
It did sometimes seem to be trial-and-error to find the right chipsets and drivers because some people had movie gear, others audio, and I had audio and hard drives.
 
These old debates always re-surface when problems come up, but I think the issue is one of just finding out what works for you. The specs haven't changed and all the parts are supposed to conform to the spec. And just when you get things working, some new update will come up and you have to re-tweak things again. That's become a major issue now with so many vendors adopting 'agile' programming techniques.
 
In the past, I found some versions of NVIDIA graphics updates interfered with interrupt latency and made my Firewire interface glitch. But that was quite some time ago. I still try to keep my video drivers up-to-date, even though they are mostly game updates. I do check things with latencymon after updates.
 
For Focusrite drivers, there is a Firewire latency setting (not really audio latency) that seems to apply to the firewire transactions and interrupts. Larger setting might make larger Firewire transactions and heavier interrupt times, while shorter latencies will use smaller chunks at more frequent intervals. At least that is my understanding.
 
I've found the 'Short' setting was inferior for me compared to the 'Medium' latency setting. I was able to load larger and more projects using that.
 
Most of my projects involve humongously complex Reaktor modules (which are single threaded), so I need all the performance per core that I can muster. My tests then are stressed that way - most bang per CPU, not most number of tracks total.
 
 
 
 
 

Apparent workaround.... Not tested.
 
Turn on Saffire.
Start Windows 10
Log in.
Restart Windows 10 (keeping Saffire on).

Great info in this thread. Thanks everyone.

Doktor Avalanche
The DAW is irrelevant, it's the hardware it connects to. VIA has worked perfectly fine until Win10. Either Focusrite or VIA driver to blame.

Jim Roseberry
VIA Firewire chipsets have certainly NOT all worked fine with all audio interfaces up until Win10.
Ever tried to run an M-Audio FW1814 connected to a VIA chipset Firewire controller?  Don't bother, you won't be able to install the driver.

• Some VIA Firewire chipsets work fine with certain audio interfaces (RME and MOTU are less fussy about controller)
• Some VIA Firewire chipsets "work" in that you can play/record audio... but performance is poor compared to TI.
• Other VIA Firewire chipsets result in complete instability (or just plain won't even allow install of audio interface)

 
It's rare, but even some TI chipset Firewire controllers are unreliable with certain audio interfaces.

• Manhattan makes a TI chipset Firewire controller that doesn't work properly with the MOTU 896HD.  Ironically it works fine with the 8-Pre.

• UA Apollo, Mackie, and Tascam units are particularly fussy about the specific TI chipset.

 
It's down to the specific combination of Firewire chipset and audio interface.
 
 

No issues with Win 7 and 8.x at all. Works great, I have had no issues ever until Win10.

The problem is just windows 10 (for the moment). Loads of other drivers are having problems under Windows 10 right now, so obviously it's software not hardware.

And as you see it's deemed perfectly compatible by Focusrite:
http://d3se566zfvnmhf.clo...%20Compatibility_0.pdf

"Chipset Incompatibilities: The FireWire chip controls all data being streamed to and from the FireWire port, and certain chips have been known to cause problems with connectivity. We would recommend using either a Texas Instruments or a VIA FireWire chipset to avoid any such issues."

I trust Focusrite with what they say, they are excellent esp with support. They will resolve this issue.

ampfixer
What I've seen posted in the last few years supports what Jim is saying. 

And yet the manufacturer of this interface states (again):


"Chipset Incompatibilities: The FireWire chip controls all data being streamed to and from the FireWire port, and certain chips have been known to cause problems with connectivity. We would recommend using either a Texas Instruments or a VIA FireWire chipset to avoid any such issues."
 
If it's Jim vs Focusrite, I think I know who is likely to be correct here in the case of this interface.
 
And I've had no issues with Win 7 and 8.x and VIA - so forgive me for completely disagreeing in the case of Saffires here. There is a specific problem going on with Win 10 (Focusrite drivers or VIA drivers or even the OS itself) and Focusrite are on it. My interface continues to work on 8.1 so it's definitely software not the chip.

Jim's comment earlier was more global, which made me realize the thread title is misleading. The actual point with the OP is specific to Focusrite Saffire units running Win10 on VIA chipset.

Jim Roseberry

Doktor Avalanche
The DAW is irrelevant, it's the hardware it connects to. VIA has worked perfectly fine until Win10. Either Focusrite or VIA driver to blame.

VIA Firewire chipsets have certainly NOT all worked fine with all audio interfaces up until Win10.
Ever tried to run an M-Audio FW1814 connected to a VIA chipset Firewire controller?  Don't bother, you won't be able to install the driver.

• Some VIA Firewire chipsets work fine with certain audio interfaces (RME and MOTU are less fussy about controller)
• Some VIA Firewire chipsets "work" in that you can play/record audio... but performance is poor compared to TI.
• Other VIA Firewire chipsets result in complete instability (or just plain won't even allow install of audio interface)

 
It's rare, but even some TI chipset Firewire controllers are unreliable with certain audio interfaces.

• Manhattan makes a TI chipset Firewire controller that doesn't work properly with the MOTU 896HD.  Ironically it works fine with the 8-Pre.

• UA Apollo, Mackie, and Tascam units are particularly fussy about the specific TI chipset.

 
It's down to the specific combination of Firewire chipset and audio interface.
 
 

Has VIA ever updated their 1394 drivers.  The ones that have worked on my systems were dated 2001.
I guess FW interfaces are not a good investment and some of those Sapphire have been on sale.  I'm not a fan of USB since everything is USB.  Few are PCI-x that are affordable.  The lowest price Thunderbolt unit is $200.  I miss the PCI bus. I wonder how long the RME HFs will be manufactured. You can still get RME PCI cards.

I used to have a Saffire Pro 40 (with T.I. Chipset in PC) and it worked fine but the best latency I could reliably use was 12ms.  The Safire Pro 40 died and I moved on to USB with a Roland Octa-Capture and halved the latency and now with Windows 10 I'm down to the 4ms range.  I have several USB connected devices for recording, including a BCF2000 and a Tranzport, along with USB controllers for wireless mouse and keyboard, and there are no conflicts.
 
The Saffire Pro 40, like most firewire devices use a DICE (or DICE II) chipset and DICE likes to see a T.I. in the PC.  I used to have a DICE Utility that checked for the firewire chipset (and the DICE web site used to have a statement about using T.I. - I haven't checked lately). 

I hope you don't mind me digging this up. I'm setting up a new system drive and thought I'd try win 10 as I was eligible for a freebie, although I had read bad stuff about driver support for older products. I have an old TI PCI firewire card that I have used in systems for years so I was hopeful it might work with my Safire. It seems not. Anyone heard of any workarounds or fixes for this?
 
I have a Pro 40 elsewhere that I may try out, but I hate hardware going obsolete. I also have an NI Kore controller that I haven't tried out yet, but I guess that will have issues too.
 
EDIT Safire Pro 40 seems to work fine. Safire and sadly my old NI Kore 1 don't.

LSI firewire 400/800 may also work better for some brands of audio devices.
 
https://www.tonymacx86.co...0-compatibility.59767/