ASUS P4P800 Deluxe Question

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xyz

Hi,

Just got my new board and set everything up and networked it to my second pc
but wondering what in heavens name "1394 connection" is and why there is
the need for a "Network Bridge"? What is a Network Bridge, come to think of
it?

Cheers in advance
 
xyz said:
Hi,

Just got my new board and set everything up and networked it to my second pc
but wondering what in heavens name "1394 connection" is
Click to expand...

LOL, me too. For about 2 hours I was trying to get it to connect me to the
internet, until I discovered it was not my LAN connection.

Alistair
 
That's the IEEE-1394 High Performance Serial Bus, otherwise known as the
"firewire", gents. It's a very fast external bus standard that supports
data transfer rates of up to 400 Mbps (in 1394a) and 800Mbps (in 1394b).
Like USB, 1394 supports both plug and play and hot plugging, and also
provides power to peripheral devices.
 
That's the IEEE-1394 High Performance Serial Bus, otherwise known as the
"firewire", gents. It's a very fast external bus standard that supports
data transfer rates of up to 400 Mbps (in 1394a) and 800Mbps (in 1394b).
Like USB, 1394 supports both plug and play and hot plugging, and also
provides power to peripheral devices.
Click to expand...

Apparently, you can connect two computers together via Firewire,
and there is a network stack that operates when you do it. The OS
leaves this stack in place, in case you connect the computers
together. Like any interface on the computer, you don't have to
use it. Just find the interface appropriate to what you are
doing and use it. For the internet, you need a phone line modem,
or Ethernet to connect to a cable modem or an ADSL modem.

Paul
 
I see - thanks!

Paul said:
Apparently, you can connect two computers together via Firewire,
and there is a network stack that operates when you do it. The OS
leaves this stack in place, in case you connect the computers
together. Like any interface on the computer, you don't have to
use it. Just find the interface appropriate to what you are
doing and use it. For the internet, you need a phone line modem,
or Ethernet to connect to a cable modem or an ADSL modem.

Paul
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Have you done this

I am temped to just joint 2 computers together with a normal 6wire
firewire cable and see if the networking works..

or must you use a special cable
 
Hi,

It would be cheaper to get 2 PCI NIC's and a piece of 100mbit network cable
with cross over than purchase the appropriate firewire cable. Just add 1
switch or Hub and you are running a real network, or go for GB Ethernet.

- Tim
 
I am not worried about expense here except the expense of burning up two
perfectly good computers....I already have a gigabit network that works
great

and I already have all the variations of firewire cable I need

I just need to know if a normal 6x6 or 6x4 firewire cable is used to
when networking with firewire - incase I am ever forced into a corner
and networking with firewire is the only solution

on a 6x6 cable the extra 2 wires are for supplying power so I would
think that you couldnt connect the 5 volts from one computer to the 5v
rail of another computer directly without some smoke
but maybe a normal 4x4 cable is all that is required
 
Legend said:
I am not worried about expense here except the expense of burning up two
perfectly good computers....I already have a gigabit network that works
great

and I already have all the variations of firewire cable I need

I just need to know if a normal 6x6 or 6x4 firewire cable is used to
when networking with firewire - incase I am ever forced into a corner
and networking with firewire is the only solution

on a 6x6 cable the extra 2 wires are for supplying power so I would
think that you couldnt connect the 5 volts from one computer to the 5v
rail of another computer directly without some smoke
but maybe a normal 4x4 cable is all that is required
Click to expand...
My recommendation is to break the power path between computers.
That means dropping down to a four pin interface, somewhere along
the path between computers. The reason I say this, is motherboard
manufacturers seem to take few of the recommendations for Firewire
seriously. On my motherboard, I don't see any backfeed protection,
and you don't want the +12V from one computer driving the +12V on
another computer (assuming both motherboard designers cheaped out
and didn't include a diode). That is because, if the +12V are
slightly different voltage, and the cable resistance is zero, a
large current can flow (like the sparks that fly when you use
jumper cables between two cars).

That recommendation goes for any Firewire peripheral, for that matter.
I would recommend going 4 wire to self-powered Firewire devices,
at least if a computer is on one end.

As far as I know, Firewire is supposed to use "floating" power for
VP/VG pins. This means the VG doesn't have a low impedance path to
ground, and when it connects to the ground reference of another
piece of equipment, no ground loop current can flow. A self
powered disk drive enclosure, for example, makes this requirement
easy to meet, as all that is required is a transformer isolated
source of power. On a computer, the isolation requirement would
require an onboard switching converter, with transformer isolated
output, something that would cost money, and no self-respecting
motherboard company would do that (spend money).

In a world where the powering of all devices might not meet this
requirement, place all Firewire peripherals on the same power
strip. That won't solve the backfeed problem, for those systems
that don't have a diode in the Firewire power path, to only
allow outflowing currents, but at least it helps with ground
loop currents flowing between systems.

This site is the best I've seen yet, in terms of trying to
understand why Firewire ports fail.

http://www.wiebetech.com/pressreleases/FireWirePortFailures.htm

You might also want to read this Texas Instruments application
note on Galvanic Isolation. For a leaf node (i.e. computer to
firewire camera) there is no exposure, but with two powered
systems (Figure 1 is the case I'm worried about - two Asus
motherboards connected together) that is when I worry. The
four wire cable solves the Figure 1 problem.

http://focus.ti.com/lit/an/slla011/slla011.pdf

My best guess,
Paul
 
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