Complications between a firewire interface and Windows XP/Vista

[Tre Cool The 2nd]

Hello all!

The last piece of my home recording puzzle is regarding something that I was warned about a few times.

Can their be problems between a 2008 Toshiba P300-150 laptop running Windows Vista SP1 and Windows XP SP3 with a firewire express card and a firewire interface such as a Focusrite Saffire Pro 10 I/O, Motu 8pre or a Presonus Firepod?

A few people have warned me that there can be problems, in some cases unsolvable when using firewire interfaces and Windows.


Thanks and regards
Rob

[Gord The Drummer]

I have never had any problems running firewire and Windows... but there is something you must know about Vista... It has an "aggressive" method of utilizing RAM , which is bad when recording. However, it is still possible to record with Vista, it can sometimes be slow though. I don't know of any other problems with firewire and windows though.

[DrumIntoTheNight]

I think it's to do with the chip that deals with the FireWire port. Only certain types of chips can take it, for some reason.

[Tre Cool The 2nd]

Thanks Gord, I have XP setup as the recording OS but I have most the programs installed on Vista aswell just for the sake of it.

I heard it was to do with the chipsets but I sure if I get a well known brand it will work grand

I hope lol

Thanks
Rob

[JrummerJ]

Thanks Gord, I have XP setup as the recording OS but I have most the programs installed on Vista aswell just for the sake of it.

I heard it was to do with the chipsets but I sure if I get a well known brand it will work grand

I hope lol

Thanks
Rob

What all do you have connected to the laptop? Just the interface connected to an expresscard? That should work fine if the express card is decent. Siig makes good ones, the fw400 is actually certified to work with Pro Tools, so I would guess it has the TI chipset.

One thing to consider is if you are recording to your internal drive on the laptop. That is a big no no. the internal drives are much slower and already working to run your DAW and other apps. Dedicate a firewire drive and connect it to either the expresscard or the onboard port.

J

[Tre Cool The 2nd]

I have two hard disks in the laptop, on XP all the temp folders and whatnot are set to the "extra" drive that is used just for storage. Vista hasnt been setup yet.

So, there are no real hickups you can think of as long as I go with a well known firewire card?

[JrummerJ]

What speed are the discs in the laptops? I know you'll hit a track count limit sooner if you are running 5400 rpm drives. If the second drive is a 7200 rpm you should be ok.

there is nothing else major I can think of unless SP3 introduces some new bug. I refuse to update to SP3, everything seems like it got sorted out with SP2.

Then again, I don't run any recording stuff on my PC anymore, the macbook pro handles those duties, and well.

J

[Tre Cool The 2nd]

What speed are the discs in the laptops? I know you'll hit a track count limit sooner if you are running 5400 rpm drives. If the second drive is a 7200 rpm you should be ok.

there is nothing else major I can think of unless SP3 introduces some new bug. I refuse to update to SP3, everything seems like it got sorted out with SP2.

Then again, I don't run any recording stuff on my PC anymore, the macbook pro handles those duties, and well.

J
Both discs in my laptop run at 5400 rpm/

SO, whats a track count limiter? Sounds like it does what it says on the tin but whats the work around?
Thanks
Rob

[JrummerJ]

Not a track count limiter. It's just that the bandwidth of your drive will be maxed sooner with a 5400 rpm drive than a 7200 rpm drive. Most audio recording software recommends recording to a 7200 rpm drive, external if necessary.

J

[Butnutz]

7200rpm is minimum for any sort of performance
5400rpm real world read/write/seek time is ALOT slower

[Dissentor]

I run Windows Vista 64 bit operating software and the Focusrite Saffire Pro 10 in/out interface, Sonar home studio 6, without any issues so far. The main thing is that your computer meets or exceeds the requirments the interface reccomends. If you are using your laptop for alot of other things besides recording it better be powerful. If you are recording one instrument at a time you can get away with it sometimes. The firewire chipset is reccomended to be a Texas Instruments- but some non TI firewire chipsets work fine but why risk it if you are buying a card anyways. When recording make sure to turn off things like firewalls,programs,internet etc. which can cause issues.Make sure to buy your interface from a store/online that has a no hassel 30-45 day return policy just in case you have compatability issues.

[Tre Cool The 2nd]

Thanks for that.

So, for an external drive Id assume a firewire one would be ideal.

I may see how far I can get with the internal hard discs before I get an external.

[JrummerJ]

Let me add that if you go with an external firewire drive, you should get one with Oxford chipset for the firewire controller. Some good drives that have the oxford chipset are the OWC Elite, Lacie Quadra, Glyph. There may be more, but to me the OWC drives are the best deal and lots of pro tools guys use them. I think they come formatted for mac, so you may have to ask them to format it NTFS or Fat32 for you.

J