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Old 10-04-2019, 08:25 AM
bscism bscism is offline
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Default firewire connection to USB? Or Other?

Darryl - the world is a better place in that there are folks who will keep us on the straight and narrow. Much appreciated.


I am looking at a DELL XPS that has a Thunderbolt 3 network I/O card. I've seen quite a bit of posts that suggested the firewire adapter to Thunderbolt would work but those usually deal with a Mac system, not PC.


You suggested that it would work but as you can see that isn't a universal answer as others have thought perhaps not. I guess I am hoping that someone will read the thread who has either tried it an failed, or tried it and it worked.


I do already have a pci-e card for firewire in my current machine but I also have a UAD 2 Solo card which requires a pci-e slot. If there is only a single pci-e on the new machine that is available then I have to sacrifice the firewire card and then I'm back to whether a firewire adapter will work with thunderbolt on PC - and you are of the opinion that it will work which is great for my situation. A question re: the pci-e card for firewire, do they usually require a pci-e 4 card or higher or would even a pci-e 1 card have sufficient power/speed to manage?


Thanks again, and sorry for the confusion I've caused re: the two threads


Bruce



Quote:
Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm View Post
Please follow the DUC usage rules and post a question to one thread. If you ask a question and keep spawning it into different threads you are wasting other users time here.

I answered your question before. http://duc.avid.com/showthread.php?t=406584

This new question ads value how? Does your new PC even have Thunderbolt support? Most do not. If it does then I've already explained you could use that. And I already explained if you have PCIe slots you could use this.. and you do so why not just get a PCIe card? But please do not start another thread asking what PCIe card to get.

Hopefully a moderator can merge these threads.
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Old 10-04-2019, 12:03 PM
Darryl Ramm Darryl Ramm is offline
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Default Re: thunderbolt and firewire connectivity

Bruce can you post a web link to the exact model Dell you are looking at.

Be careful with configuring systems, e.g. you cannot add the Dell Thunderbolt 3 Card to any Dell PC, only some models, I'm not aware it works in any XPS PC, but I have not looked hard to check.

Your life is likely to be easier with a PCIe card. And I would suggest you find a Dell (or other PC) with enough card slots.

Thunderbolt-Firewire adapters can work on Windows 10. But there can be driver issues/hassles--best to just avoid those by just using a PCIe card. When you were first asking I did not for example know if you were looking at a laptop... then a ThinkPad or some others do have Thunderbolt.

If you don't use Thunderbolt for an Firewire adapter did you want a PC with Thunderbolt for other uses? That does narrow choices, but Thunderbolt 3 can be really handy, and a nice option for the future.

And generic advice... the best option is often to build your own Pro Tools PC or get one custom built for you.
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Old 10-04-2019, 07:47 PM
bscism bscism is offline
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Default Re: firewire connection to USB? Or Other?

Here's the configuration of the model I'm looking at. No detail about the Pci-e slots though and it's been like pulling teeth from Dell to get info. But I think I have figured out that the machine will have one Pci-e x 4 slot if I don't use the Thunderbolt network card. I have a AUD 2 Solo that needs to go into that slot which then leaves me having to look at a new interface, one that might run through USB 3 perhaps.


Or, I'm also gonna look into having a machine custom built. The Thunderbolt would be nice over the next 5-8 yr period


Processor9th Gen Intel® Core™ i9 9900 (8-Core, 16MB Cache, up to 5GHz with Intel® Turbo Boost Technology)Operating SystemWindows 10 Home 64bit EnglishVideo CardNVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 2070 8GB GDDR6Chassis Options850 Watt Power Supply [80 Plus Gold Efficiency]Memory32GB DDR4 at 2666MHz; up to 64GB (Additional memory sold separately)Hard Drive512GB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD (Boot) + 2TB 7200RPM 3.5" SATA HDD (Storage)Wireless802.11ac + Bluetooth 4.2, Dual Band 2.4&5 GHz, 1x1Additional Network CardsThunderbolt 3 PCIe Network and IO CardCD ROM/DVD ROMTray Load DVD-RW Drive (Reads and Writes to DVD/CD)XPS 8930XPS 8930 BaseKeyboardBlack Dell KB216 Wired Multi-Media Keyboard (English)MonitorIf accessories are purchased, they may ship separatelyDriverDW1810 driverMouse6 Button Laser MouseSoundIntegrated 5.1 with WAVE MAXX Audio® ProSpeakersNo speakers (Speakers are required to hear audio from your system)CableUS Power CordDocumentation/DisksSafety/Environment and Regulatory Guide (English/French Multi-language)Systems ManagementWindows System driver, XPS 8930
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Old 10-04-2019, 08:25 PM
Darryl Ramm Darryl Ramm is offline
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Default Re: firewire connection to USB? Or Other?

Like this ? https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell.../xdvmstcs004s?

OK they do take a Thunderbolt 3 options.

But I would still get a PCIe Firewire card.

But after spending a few minutes tying to find out their PCIe slot specs I would give up on Dell. What a pain in the ass website, and I love all the negative reviews there by customers. They also do annoying things like only offer lower-end GPUs in the configs I looked at. And OK for full disclosure Dell is dead to me anyhow after being caught up in their cheap-crap failing capacitor incidents years ago, with a PC that died and they would not replace. I would *so* much prefer to just build a PC. I know that is not for everybody. The thread here http://duc.avid.com/showthread.php?t=238426 is the bible of PC builds.

ASUS and Gigabyte make Thunderbolt motherboards, worth asking about on that thread if they are not mentioned. e.g. https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/PRIME-X299-DELUXE, https://www.gigabyte.com/us/Motherbo...E-EX-rev-10#kf

Quote:
Originally Posted by bscism View Post
Here's the configuration of the model I'm looking at. No detail about the Pci-e slots though and it's been like pulling teeth from Dell to get info. But I think I have figured out that the machine will have one Pci-e x 4 slot if I don't use the Thunderbolt network card. I have a AUD 2 Solo that needs to go into that slot which then leaves me having to look at a new interface, one that might run through USB 3 perhaps.


Or, I'm also gonna look into having a machine custom built. The Thunderbolt would be nice over the next 5-8 yr period


Processor9th Gen Intel® Core™ i9 9900 (8-Core, 16MB Cache, up to 5GHz with Intel® Turbo Boost Technology)Operating SystemWindows 10 Home 64bit EnglishVideo CardNVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 2070 8GB GDDR6Chassis Options850 Watt Power Supply [80 Plus Gold Efficiency]Memory32GB DDR4 at 2666MHz; up to 64GB (Additional memory sold separately)Hard Drive512GB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD (Boot) + 2TB 7200RPM 3.5" SATA HDD (Storage)Wireless802.11ac + Bluetooth 4.2, Dual Band 2.4&5 GHz, 1x1Additional Network CardsThunderbolt 3 PCIe Network and IO CardCD ROM/DVD ROMTray Load DVD-RW Drive (Reads and Writes to DVD/CD)XPS 8930XPS 8930 BaseKeyboardBlack Dell KB216 Wired Multi-Media Keyboard (English)MonitorIf accessories are purchased, they may ship separatelyDriverDW1810 driverMouse6 Button Laser MouseSoundIntegrated 5.1 with WAVE MAXX Audio® ProSpeakersNo speakers (Speakers are required to hear audio from your system)CableUS Power CordDocumentation/DisksSafety/Environment and Regulatory Guide (English/French Multi-language)Systems ManagementWindows System driver, XPS 8930
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Old 10-04-2019, 08:38 PM
Darryl Ramm Darryl Ramm is offline
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Default Re: firewire connection to USB? Or Other?

Well the Dell one I'm looking at (from the install guide) has

One PCIe x16 card slot
Two PCIe x1 card slots
One PCIe x4 card slot

But they give no clearance specs/height/physical slot specs. Pretty sloppy.

No specific clarity that I could see about M.2 PCIe lane sharing, so I hope there is no conflicts there.

So it looks doable if you have to use that Dell.

GPU in the x 16 slot
The UAD cards are only x1 lane and the Firewire cards are only x1 lane you.

The fantastic thing about modern processors is how many PCIe lanes they can provide. So more slots are certainly possible.
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Old 10-05-2019, 05:37 AM
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The Weed The Weed is online now
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Default Re: firewire connection to USB? Or Other?

If you can afford it, get a PC built by pro-tools-pc.com - our very own guitardom here on the DUC. Their PCs are guaranteed to work with Pro Tools as they're built specifically for Pro Tools and Steve guarantees and supports them.
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