P4PE - 4 and 6 pin Firewire active simultaneously?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Mail Ias
  • Start date Start date
M

Mail Ias

Are both the 4 pin and the 6 pin Firewire ports active simultaneously on this
board? I've got a cable going from the header on the motherboard to the
bottom of the slot adapter, near the 6 pin port. There is nothing connected
to the top part of that little adapter near the 4 pin port.

I've got a device (a camcorder) that works on the 6 pin port with a 6 - 4 pin
cable. When I plug it in to the 4 pin port it doesn't. I'm guessing that I
need another cable from the motherboard to this port?

Is this correct? Is that cable included with the motherboard? Sorry to ask,
but my stuff is still buried somewhere after a recent move.

Thanks in advance.
 
Are both the 4 pin and the 6 pin Firewire ports active simultaneously on this
board? I've got a cable going from the header on the motherboard to the
bottom of the slot adapter, near the 6 pin port. There is nothing connected
to the top part of that little adapter near the 4 pin port.

I've got a device (a camcorder) that works on the 6 pin port with a 6 - 4 pin
cable. When I plug it in to the 4 pin port it doesn't. I'm guessing that I
need another cable from the motherboard to this port?

Is this correct? Is that cable included with the motherboard? Sorry to ask,
but my stuff is still buried somewhere after a recent move.

Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...

If there are two headers on the motherboard and two sockets on the
adapter, then two cables does make sense.

Paul
 
Mail said:
Are both the 4 pin and the 6 pin Firewire ports active simultaneously on this
board?
Yes

I've got a cable going from the header on the motherboard to the
bottom of the slot adapter, near the 6 pin port. There is nothing connected
to the top part of that little adapter near the 4 pin port.
Click to expand...

Which is why it doesn't work, obviously :)
I've got a device (a camcorder) that works on the 6 pin port with a 6 - 4 pin
cable. When I plug it in to the 4 pin port it doesn't. I'm guessing that I
need another cable from the motherboard to this port?
Click to expand...

Exactly. You can try of course taking the cable off the 6-pin port and
connecting it to the 4-pin port to make sure the port itself is ok. And
you can try plugging the motherboard-side of the cable to the second
IEEE-1394 header to make sure that one works too.
Is this correct? Is that cable included with the motherboard? Sorry to ask,
but my stuff is still buried somewhere after a recent move.

Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...

Both cables should be included with the motherboard. The difference
between 6-pin and 4-pin ports is that the 4-pin ones do not supply power
to the bus, they only have the data signals connected.
Both motherboard headers (and the cables I assume) however are fully
supporting the 6-pin ports, so it shouldn't make any difference at the
motherboard level. The truncation of the bus-power lines is done on the
module.
Furthermore, your camcorder doesn't need bus power at all so the
"natural" connector for it is the 4-pin one, this saves the 6-pin
connector for any device you might add that would possibly need bus power.

Regards
Nikos
 
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