Some few months back I've acquired a faster PC with a Window 7 Professional OS 64 bit, Intel i7-2600 3.40 Ghz processor and 8GB Ram, an Asus motherboard P8Z77-V LX. To be able to use my Profire 2626, I had to acquire a LACIE Firewire 800 PCI adapter using a Texas Instrument compliant device. The Lacie adapter card has been installed. And I am using a Lacie Firewire 800 to 400 cable to connect the soundcard and the PC....It does recognise the Profire 2626 but everytime and then, the connection between the soundcard and PC is broken and I have to put off the soundcard and put it on again for the PC to recognise it again. Maybe it's an issue with the 800 to 400 cable, because the firewire adaptor seems to work well. There is a light at the back to show that it's properly connected. I am thinking of acquiring another firewire adapter that has firewire 400 connection so that I don't need these 800 to 400 cables....Could anyone of you point me to a good firewire adapter on ebay.co.uk or or amazon.uk that could be convenient! I try to buy another one once on amazon.uk but it simply didn't work properly. It comes from China...Seems to be some kind of generic adapter! Please help me find a good firewire adapter online that won't require a adaptor cable! Thanks in advance!

Is your LACIE Firewire adapter a PCI card, or a PCI Express (PCIe or PCI-E) card? If you don't know the difference, consult the information in your motherboard manual which identifies its expansion card slot types, and see also these wiki pages for info and images of the different card/slot types:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conventional_PCI

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI_Express

If it's a PCI card, then you should seek a PCI Express card. Older style PCI Firewire cards (even those with a T.I. controller chip) don't always play well in some newer motherboards with system chipsets (like on your Z77 board) which lack "native" PCI interfaces and instead provide only "bridged" PCI slots.
Can't point you to any particular card, but you should look for one with a PCIe x1 interface and a T.I. XIO2213B or LSI 643 chipset (so check the card listing specifications and images). You might check here:

http://www.scan.co.uk/index.aspx?NT=1-0-47-393-0

You might also check M-Audio's (and Focusrite's and Presonus' and MOTU's, etc.) website for a FW adapter compatibility listing, as the interface makers typically list those FW adapter cards which they've tested and confirmed to be compatible with their interfaces.

I doubt it's the cable. Are you using the external power adapter for your Profire 2626 (which you must iirc)?

Using the "legacy" firewire driver in Windows is another thing to try.

Good point Fireberd. Here's a link:

http://www.m-audio.com/in...2f735091995b2752f6ffe2

Ok, I did a quick search and found that Lacie marketed a PCI (actually, PCI-X) FW800 card:

http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?id=10333

and also, apparently, a PCI Express x1 version:

http://www.lacie.com/download/.../DSS_FW800_PCIExpress_EN.pdf


So that should help identify which card type.

I've got a step by step with screen shots for the "Legacy" driver install.
http://deeringamps.com/fw1884/sonarx1b_fw1884.htm
Try that if you have trouble following the MAudio instructions.
Good TI chipset PCI-e cards are getting hard to find.

Tom

I've been using a cheap, generic made-in-China firewire adapter for over 8 years without issues. 

At least, not with the adapter. My audio interface, however, has occasionally stopped communicating. Whenever it would do that, I'd disconnect the firewire cable, reboot the interface and plug the cable back in. 

That problem turned out to be heat-related. I'd often go for weeks without powering the interface off. Once I got into the habit of shutting it off whenever I'd put the computer into standby, the problem went away.

This is the firewire card I am using.... http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?id=10333 It has a 64-bits PCI-X form factor for best performance as well as being compatible with a 32-bits PCI slot. But I am using it on a 32-bits PCI slot....Could this be the problem? My system is a 64 bit OS! One thing I noted too is the communication often breaks when I put on my M-Audio BX8 monitors. I am using my Profire with an power adapter of course. My previous system was a 32 bit operation system. I never had this problem on the previous system!

I think I will go for a PCIe firewire card! Goddard must be right! Will try it. Thanks a lot! Will let you know if it works!

Neel1, your PCI-X card is still usable in a 32-bit PCI slot and with 64-bit Windows , that should not be causing a problem.

More likely is that your motherboard doesn't fully support PCI (or PCI-X) cards, and changing to a good PCIe Firewire card should overcome that.

Before changing your card, you might try changing to the legacy Windows Firewire driver first, as already suggested, to see if that helps.

Good luck!