Syba Low Profile PCI-Express Firewire Card with Two 1394b Ports and One 1394a Port (2B1A), TI Chipset, Extra Regular Bracket SD-PEX30009

In summary: reasonably priced, very compact, easy installation, performs very well. I initially got this card because I was having some issues with USB 3.0 drivers on a nice external drive I was using. The external drive has FireWire, eSata, and usb 3.0, and the build quality is so high (and I value the ability to swap in my own hard drives) that I decided to blow ~$20 on a FireWire card rather than deal with a return or finding a new one. I've been very pleased thus far. Pros: 1) It's low profile, for small form factor cases, but comes with adapter bracket for standard PCI-E slots. Even if you have to swap the bracket, installation is a breeze. It'll fit in any PCI-E slot. 2) It has an internal FireWire 400 header, which was perfect to be able to take advantage of the front panel FireWire 400 port on my case. 3) It uses the top-tier TI chipset. 4) Native driver support in my OS's of choice (Ubuntu 12.04/14.04 and Windows7). 5) Speeds are right where you expect. I consistently see 80-90 MB/s over FireWire 800 in large file transfers on both Ubuntu and Win7. Cons: The driver instructions are a bit confusing. If you're running windows7 or linux (I've tried it with Ubuntu 12.04 and 14.04) ignore the driver disc that comes with this. Ubuntu has built-in drivers, windows7 will automatically install/activate its FireWire drivers after you physically install the card and connect a device.

I purchased this FireWire board with the intent of video capture and attaching some older firewire devices to my new gaming computer. I'm running the ASUS Rampage IV, Intel i7 3960X and Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit with a number of additional graphical/hardware components etc. When I picked up my newly built computer the first thing I did was install the FireWire card and boot the system. The next thing I did was install the drivers with the included CD. Unfortunately upon re-booting my system I was met with a blue screen of death. After investigating the crash dump and researching this on the internet I came to the conclusion the drivers were preventing the system from successfully booting and could not be fully wiped from the page file or system registry. Unfortunately even using a system restore point failed to prevent the blue screen from re-appearing. I even attempted removing the hardware from the motherboard and doing a partial system restore that again would lead to a blue screen after a shutdown and re-start. I had to subsequently wipe the HD and do a fresh windows install (thank goodness it was a new build with nothing installed). After re-installing windows and installing all the windows updates as well as all the associated Asus/Nvidia/Intel and LG drivers, I cautiously pushed the FireWire chipset back into the PCIe slot and booted windows. Presto, the hardware was found and windows loaded all the necessary drivers. I tested the connection speed and was able to get the near full advertised 800mbps. The conclusion? The drivers that come loaded on the included CD have the option of replacing the windows drivers and seem to cause system failures and instability. These drivers seem unnecessary as the built in windows drivers work perfectly. So don't install anything from the included CD, just make sure windows is up to date, install the hardware and let windows automatically install the correct drivers. I've been using the FireWire chipset now for 3 weeks capturing XMF/HDV/DV files from various professional (Sony PDW-700 / Canon XH-A1) and consumer grade cameras with no issues at all. Good product, just stay away from the included CD.

Not much supports Firewire any more, and I have a couple of older DV cameras I wanted to get the video transferred to my newer Mac. There are all kinds of solutions out there, but using a real Firewire card in an OWC PCI Express card to Thunderbolt box proved to be the best and fastest I could find. 5 minutes to install and I was in business. Everything I plug into the card is instantly recognized. One thing I like about this card verses some of the others, is that I do not need to plug the card into a PC internal power supply. Not an option for me, so this works great. My solution is not for everyone, but if you fall into this cateogory, this is the card for you.

This is a special FireWire 800/400 card because it features an onboard header for front panel connectivity. I pretty much built a "new" (13700k) computer around this old case (Corsair 600T) just for this front FireWire port, and this card delivers. Works flawlessly in Mac OS Sonoma, but Sequoia has dropped support. I can sync many vintage iPods that require FireWire without issue.

Bought this for my Hackintosh computer and it works perfectly. Can't remember if there was a driver required or just plug n play.

No problems installing into a Dell XPS 8700 running Windows 8.1. Windows detected the card and had loaded the Window's included TI drivers by the time I got to where I could see it was installed. I connected via Firewire to a Sony DCR-TRV330 using the cable that came with the camera. As soon as I put the camera in VCR mode Cyberlink Photo Director 10 opened. Haven't done any extended captures yet bu a five minute capture went smoothly, no sign of lagging or dropped frames. The video I tried it on was a Hi8 cassette remastered from a standard VCR tape I did have to replace the low profile bracket with the larger one which only involves removing and replacing two screws. FYI for Cyberlink Power Director users. Do not open Power Director to do a capture. Just plug in your DVR/camera and power it up. Power Director will start in a few moments. If you open Power Director and then try to capture it won't work - I have not tried to load the software that came with the card since so many other reviewers have said they had problems when they did. The device does what I wanted it for using the on-board Windows drivers. I have described the environment it's working in as most of the questions I have seen about it are looking to know if the card will work with a specific PC, OS or editing software. Hope this is helpful. A request to other reviewers--please describe your environment when rating de3vices that may be sensitive to the environment they are insertred into.

Hi Guys, I needed to convert my old 8mm, Hi8, and Digital 8 tapes to digital. My Dell 8700 did not have a firewire port. Syba card saved the day! (Yes, this is the card to get). It is truly plug and play - no extra power cords. It has the recommended TI chip set. Install tip: Install the bracket to card before installation. First time? It looks daunting, but you literally line up the card with the open PCI slot and press it in place. First time - scary. After that - old hat. The space in the Dell was very tight. It took a few minutes to line up the card and press it into place. Turned on the computer - Windows installed drivers. I plugged in the Sony Handycam, and Cyberlink Power Director 13 opened to CAPTURE mode and initialized the Handycam. Press the red button and it records to the hard drive. Frankly, I was shocked that everything worked the first time. Good luck, Tom

The card works perfectly. I installed it in a desktop pc running windows 8.1 pro (I first needed to switch to the full length card bracket which was included with the card). I have successfully transferred several mini DV tapes from a Canon HV-20 camcorder via a firewire cable that has a male 4 pin end on one side that connected to the camcorder and a male 9 pin end on the other side that connected to the card. I didn't use the drivers on the mini-cd that came with card but rather relied on the drivers that automatically loaded after I first powered up my camcorder (I first connected firewire cable to the camcorder before I turned the power on). I used Adobe Premiere Pro CC to capture the video. As a side note, Adobe Premiere Pro has a "Batch Capture" function which allows the user to predefine only those parts of the tape that you want to capture. This is accomplished by previewing the tape and defining start and end set points of the scenes you want. Once completed, this "Batch Capture Log" will then control the camcorder to those designated scenes, automatically record them, and then advance to the next designated scene and repeat. My point is this demonstrates the flawless connectivity between the card, the PC and the camcorder.