Thinkpads Forum

Hello everyone,

I've been looking through these forums for the past couple days and just today ordered a 2379DXU (my first ThinkPad) based off of what I read here. Got it for $1799 through Visa pricing.

Anyway, I need a firewire card for video editing (I have an external USB 2.0 hard drive) but I've been reading on various places on the Net that certain firewire cards just won't "work" with the T42 series (mainly those that have USB 2 + Firewire ports, like a combo card).

After reading these posts from various users I found this card on NewEgg:

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDe ... 158&depa=0

My question is...

1) Has anyone ever used this firewire PCMCIA adapter?

2) What firewire adapter cards work with your ThinkPad?


Thanks in advance for your replies! This is a great resource!

yep - i use it with an external DVD-burner and it works fine - no problems so far (1-2months of moderate use). This brings up a general criticism i have of the T's - is it really that hard to put firewire (and an extra 1-2 usb ports) into a laptop? many competing models have 3-4 usb ports and firewire. oh well, nothing's perfect ...

I have experience with

IBM IEEE 1394 CardBus Card
and
Adaptec FireConnect for Notebooks (AFW 1430)

I got the IBM when I was wrestling with my old TP765D (Win98-SE). It worked perfectly there with my MiniDV VideoCam .. and it works well with my A31p models (Win XPP).

On a recent project I needed to use a SONY scientifiic camera with FireWire .. for this I needed to get a PC-Card with external power .. since I needed to power the camera (@ 500ma). The Adaptec (COMPUSA) has three ports plus a power connector for up to 1.5amp per port. Worked well with the camera, should work well with other peripherals.

Frank K-F

I use the LaCie firewire card. I can sustain 64MB/sec transfer rate to my firewire RAID drive (measured using HDTach).

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDe ... 013&depa=0

If you want another two USB2.0 ports in addition to the two firewire ports.

i assume there is some disadvantage to the 4-pin vs 6-pin firewire ports? i also heard some bad reports online regarding cards that mix usb/firewire. but perhaps those issues have been resolved...

If IBM would only get rid of the legacy parallel port and would include a FireWire and additional USB ports ...

Sven

i assume there is some disadvantage to the 4-pin vs 6-pin firewire ports?

That is the wrong question.

A 4-pin 1394 connector has a pair for transmission plus a pair for receiving data. So it works well with a MiniDV camcorder, for example, where that device is powered independently from the PC.

A 6-pin 1394 connector's extra pair is to provide power to the peripheral. My experience, for example is to power a hi-res scientific Firewire camera. A Firewire WebCam will work the same way (there are actually a couple such in the market). Other peripherals (disk drives) may be powered via the 6-pin Firewire cable or via its own power plug. The potential issue with powering from the PC is the adequacy of that power supply relative to the requirement of the attached peripheral(s).

Both types of connector work the same as a Firewire connection.

Hope this helps.

Frank K-F

skuehne wrote:If IBM would only get rid of the legacy parallel port and would include a FireWire and additional USB ports ...

Sven

This has been discussed to death....In a business environnment the parallel port (heck, even the serial port) are much more useful than a firewire port... However, usb ports should indeed be increased (or at least completely ditch the port replicator in favour of the mini-dock)

The LaCie card works just fine on my T42p running over FW800 with the power adapter attached to the card.

there is a nice deal on that trendware card 10$ bucks

http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDe ... 158&depa=0