4 firewire cards tested

The most important consideration when choosing a firewire card is the controller chip used by the card. The two preferred manufacturers of controller chips with Flex Radios is Texas  Instruments (TI) and VIA are  the two most qualified manufacturers.

I suppose that there are models from these manufacturers that may not work but you are 99% sure if you go with models using these manufacturers' controller chips.

Be careful specifying a card like "Startech 3 port card" as Startech probably sells 10 different firewire cards, a few with TI chipsets and others that will not work at all. In the US, Startech and Syba sell the most different models and some will work and others will not, but just look for TI or Via chipsets. If they do not say what the chipset is, you usually do not want to buy the card.

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I was using that card as my "go to" card for a couple of years as it had a TI chip and was almost half the price as other TI-based cards.

I stopped using (and recommending) the card because of its high failure rate, I would guess 30-40% failed within the first 18 months. The failure mode of PCI/PCIe devices is quite devious also, it can draw enough current to cause other devices on the same root device to stop working (and stop appearing in the device manager even though they are built into the motherboard).

I would take it back to the shop you bought it from. If they have sold many,they know its failure-prone.

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