Firewire Interface for Saffire Pro 40

[userchanged1]

Hey guys, so I bought this Focusrite Saffire Pro 40 the other day. Its overkill for my purposes, but it was a bargain so I couldn't let is slip. As far as I am told, this is a very decent unit. I plugged it into my firewire port but nothing happened.

Turns out the firewire port on my PC case is not connected to anything as my motherboard doesn't support it... Man I feel like a dumbass.
Anyway I guess thats not that big of a deal, I can probably just buy a firewire interface right?
So my question is: are there things i should watch out for, things to avoid, etc.? Any suggestions?
I don't want to have this Pro 40 giving me crap because the Firewire I/O is bottlenecking the whole chain.
Is it better to buy an internal card, or is an external box (usb then I guess) equally good?

Thanks for the help guys.

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

You mean a firewire card that works?

 

[userchanged1]

yes that would be the idea.

 

[Wookieslayer]

Buy an internal firewire card IMO. I got mine from monoprice.com for around $10-15. It's not the best but it does the job and seems to be low latency. Otherwise just look around on Amazon etc... You will need to see what availability your motherboard has as far as PCI or PCI-express slots go.

 

[C-Martin]

Depending on what you have available on your motherboard get one of these:

PCI
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/FWCardPCI/

PCI-e
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/FWCardPCIe/


I have a Saffire 56 and i bought the PCI version from sweetwater a couple of years back. Never had any problems with it, poped it in and worked right away with no hassle. Make sure you configure it properly and you'll never have to worry about it. You could get any equivalent card with a Texas Instrument chip and it should work though, i just recommend these because it's what i have and i know they will work.

 

[Scottxx]

TI (texas Instruments) chip or latest VIA. That are checked to work good.

 

[userchanged1]

I bought a pci card with VIA chipset and I have gotten my first sounds out of it. Took me some time to set up routing, but its good now.

thanks for the help, and for anyone stumbling upon this thread looking for similar info: the focusrite has firewire 400 onboard and I have heard people having issues with firewire 800 ports on their pc. So buy a firewire 400 card to avoid troubles.

cheers