VIA 1394 OHCI controller chip may be fixed

[wkulecz]

I had the interface side of one of my generic TI based 1394 controllers go out -- W2K device manager said everything was fine, plugging in a 1394 CD burner shutdown the burner's powersupply. Burner worked fine on another system. Pulled the TI based ADS Pyro 1394 controler from my 1.4G Via based Athelon to get the burner up where it needed to be and went shopping this weekend for a replacement.

No TI based boards instock except for the SIG which lacks the internal 1394 port which I need. So I took a chance on a Via based 1394 controller since it had the internal port, 2 external 6-pin and an exteranl 4-pin. Since I've a ton of 4-6 cables, and only hook external 1394 drives to this system since its Via based motherboard can't import or export DV without glitching a couple of times per hour I thought I'd give it a try.

Happy to report that I hammered the 1394 hard drives without problems. Did a quick DV import/export test, same couple of glitches per hour. So I may stop my knee-jerk warning about VIA 1394 controllers since at least one revision now seems to work correctly (or at least as good as a TI based 1394 controller on this Via MB).

Used the W2K builtin Via 1394 OHCI drivers. The CD that came with it when straight to the trash having Ulead VS4 "bundled".

--wally.

[davpen]

I have always wondered what problems others have had with VIA based Firewire boards. I have two and they have never given me a problem. I use them with and ADVC-100 and two ADS external Firewire enclosures, one which has a hard drive and the other a Pioneer DVR-104 DVD burner.


Cheers,

David.

[Brian Ellis]

I agree. I have a VIA-based 1394 board (Swann) and it works perfectly importing and exporting to/fro an internal DVCAM drive and an ADVC-100 converter. The only problem I have is playing to tape from the MSP (6.5 and 7.0) timeline, but no problem via MSP Export. This is a software problem that Ulead are trying to put their fingers on. It works with some DVCAM devices and not others and it may be related to analogic difficulties with a few camcorders. I've had the Swann IEEE-1394 VIA card for well over 6 months now.

I wonder whether the rumoured problems with this 1394 chipset were real or just simply "give a dog a bad name" from the m/b chipset problem. I have found no concrete evidence of these problems on the 'Net and nothing more substantial than vague talk that a problem may have existed.

Incidentally, Swann used to use the TI chipset. I don't know why they changed.

[wkulecz]

Via is cheaper, that's why they changed.

My problems with Via 1394 and NEC controllers were not subtle.
Gray blocks on output back to the DV camcorder. Replacing with a TI based 1394 card was the solution.

I've seen no evidence of driver updates to fix the issue. I still have the NEC card and its still broken, although it is usable if you don't write back to tape with it. These cards are approaching two years old, but fact of the matter is they stuck me with duff goods (or tried to, I returned the Via based board).

If you think selling defective chipsets and quitely "fixing'" problems with different chip revisions while denying the problems exist is OK then stick with Via.

I took a chance because I needed a card now, but I was ready to return it and order something else (which breaks the now requirement) but fortunately this one works. "Current" Via 1394 controllers may be OK, time will tell. If I have problems, I can swap in a TI card and if the problem goes away you can count on hearing about it!

--wally.