Yes, but additionally our hardware does not support any buffer size, only fixed ones (I think this is true for many pro audio cards). Usually that should be no problem as CoreAudio will take care of that.

Mine works with a black Macbook that has a Lucent chipset...

... but only if the CPU load is below 50% (64- or 128-sample latency, 44100Hz)

I am studiying the problem currently. If I find a working solution (like http://www.lindy.de/ieee1394a-firewire- … 32908.html or http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products … veid=372), maybe I will post it here.

All the best
-j

This may be be a help to those looking at buying a new Mac.
I have the latest Imac 20"  2.66 with 4 Gig Ram Lucent 5901 FW chip, I than have a FF800 connected thru a LaCei D2 Harddrive all with fw800 cables and all working perfectly . Haven't pushed it to the limit yet but all good so far !

On the Mac Book Pro 17'' (late 2008) the problem with the FW800 port and FF800 was solved with a firewire cable 800 to 400.
Everything works perfect! Just connect to the Mac ff port and to ff800 firwire 400 port. No problems!

This post descibes how to determine your firewire chipset: http://www.rme-audio.de/forum/viewtopic.php?id=4986

It also mentiones which chipset revision should work fine (7). But, how can I check the chipset revision, ' cause it's not shown via the above mentioned method.

Any thoughts?

Okay, check this out. I just stopped by my friendly local mac store here across the bay from San Francisco. I checked out 3 different macs, the new 15" 2.66 pro, the 17" pro, and the white macbook. I opened the console utility app, filtered on "firewire", and saw the damndest thing. The first entry was dated January 26 and said
Firewire (OHCI) TI ID 8025.....

Wow!

But then I saw a whole bunch entries dated later that said

Firewire (OHCI) Lucent ID 5901

just like my latebook.

I wonder if the original OSX driver had a bug and mis-identified itself and later it was fixed? But all three macs had this.

Meaningless?

Yes. But only that early date of Jan 26.
Tell me about it. Doesn't make sense to me either, but that's what I saw.
I didn't think to look at the version of OSX, but isn't the latest  10.5.6?

It's probably meaningless.

Do late 08 alu (non unibody) MBP's use the TI chipset? together with the matte screen they are starting to look like a better deal than a new MBP.  Still no news on Rev7 from LSI?

I thought the 5903 is FW400 and the 5901 is FW800
Could be wrong ?

Possibly - at least I've had reports of things working without repeater cable with the following chip info:

FireWire (OHCI) Lucent ID 5901 built-in now active, GUID 00254bfffea7d2de; max speed s800.

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

I had my friend come over last night with his Macbook Black 2.4ghz - Tested to see what chipset he was running, it was the Lucent 5811 - i instantly thought that this wouldnt work at all, to my supprise, loaded up my FF400 - bus powered - was able to run mp3's through iTunes without a single jerk/drop out/glitch, loaded up ableton, ran multiple tracks at once without a single glitch or drop out too..

Has anyone had similar experience with the Lucent 5811? Is there anymore tests i can run to see if it really can handle it as good as it was ?

I just bought the latest MacBook Pro 15" (June 2009) and it also has the Lucent FW controller. Would be interesting to know the revision though, but I've not been able to find it anywhere, too...

Could anyone please answer Gavin's question? Maybe Admin Knut, the author of the aforementioned post? Would be really appreciated! :-)

Thx in adv,
Mike

first post here! .. would basically like to know how to find out the revision number on my MBP firewire chip (april 2009 upgrade, the latest 15" with expresscard) ... any suggestions? since i'm choosing between an mh2882 and ff800 this is potentially a dealbreaker ..

Does the issue with the Firewire chipset and FF800 in Macbook Pro's still exist with the new models that were just released in June 2009?  The reason I ask, is because the new MBP 15" lacks an ExpressCard slot for the workaround mentioned here.  Thanks.

Macbook Pro 15" mid 2009 works with the Fireface 400. No idea about the FF800 though.

Try this: http://rme-audio.de/forum/viewtopic.php?id=4986
For more details, you may need to ask Apple.

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

I've just tried it through my firewire HD and it does indeed work.

Still frustrating though because I bought the laptop and fireface 400  to be portable and now i have to carry around my HD (with important data on) to gigs... i wondering what the cheapest hub / wire option would be?  I heard about that repeater cable but i don't want to buy one without being sure it will work. Can anyone offer any options? Has anyone tried these wires?

edit: i just read somewhere that the Hard Drive doesnt need to be switched on or mounted and it still works!! crazy.  So surely that means i can find a cable that will solve the problem...??

Here's how to identify the revision of the LSI/Agere chipset:

In Terminal type:  ioreg -lxw0
(lower case "L" and digit Zero)

find in FRWR:

FRWR@0  <class IOPCIDevice, id 0x1000001d8, registered, matched, active, busy 0 (695 ms), retain 9>
    | |   |     | {
    | |   |     |   "assigned-addresses" = <1000048200000000000010d30000000000100000>
    | |   |     |   "IOInterruptSpecifiers" = (<1300000007000000>,<1900000000000100>)
    | |   |     |   "fwswappedbib" = <01000000>
    | |   |     |   "class-code" = <10000c00>
    | |   |     |   "IODeviceMemory" = (({"address"=0xffffffffd3100000,"length"=0x1000}))
    | |   |     |   "fwtune" = <00000008e3e3040000000808e3e3144100004008200b40bf0000700810000000>
    | |   |     |   "pci-aspm-supported" = Yes
    | |   |     |   "IOPowerManagement" = {"ChildrenPowerState"=0x2,"CurrentPowerState"=0x2}
    | |   |     |   "subsystem-vendor-id" = <c1110000>
    | |   |     |   "built-in" = <00>
    | |   |     |   "acpi-device" = "IOACPIPlatformDevice is not serializable"
    | |   |     |   "IOPCIMSIMode" = Yes
    | |   |     |   "IOInterruptControllers" = ("io-apic-0","IOPCIMessagedInterruptController")
    | |   |     |   "name" = "pci11c1,5901"
    | |   |     |   "IOChildIndex" = 0x1
    | |   |     |   "device-id" = <01590000>
    | |   |     |   "vendor-id" = <c1110000>
    | |   |     |   "IOPCIExpressASPMDefault" = 0x0
    | |   |     |   "fws0" = <01000000>
    | |   |     |   "compatible" = <706369313163312c3539303000706369313163312c3539303100706369636c6173732c30633030313000>
    | |   |     |   "acpi-pmcap-offset" = 0x44
    | |   |     |   "IOPCIExpressLinkCapabilities" = 0x73c11
    | |   |     |   "IOPCIResourced" = Yes
    | |   |     |   "acpi-path" = "IOACPIPlane:/_SB/PCI0@0/RP05@160000/FRWR@0"
    | |   |     |   "subsystem-id" = <00590000>
    | |   |     |   "revision-id" = <07000000>
    | |   |     |   "IOPCIExpressLinkStatus" = 0x1011
    | |   |     |   "IOName" = "pci11c1,5901"
    | |   |     |   "fwports" = <01000000>
    | |   |     |   "reg" = <0000040000000000000000000000000000000000100004020000000000000000000000

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

I just use FW400 anyway and plug a HD on my FW800 port. I heard it's just better that way.

Andre

i confirm that the Ff400 doesn't work properly (only Midi works sometimes) on a MBP Late 2008 (Lucent Chip Rev 6)

about this repaetercable i heard from a friend that it crashed his harddisks 2 times on an iMac (early 2009) - luckily this repeatercable was recommend by the apple-service so it was a guarantee - the guy now uses a Mac Pro

actually i'm really pissed by apple - i bought exactly this MBP to have Firewire and the oppertunity to use my Ff400 - and it doesn't work

also i wonder if other Firewire-Interface work with this MBP?

Hi,

I read and read the forum through, but couldn't find any suitable answer :

Does the FF800 work on the agere chip revision 6 (MBP unibody late 2008) ?  Or do i still need a repeater / hub ?

Thanks for the anwer.

Greets.

Pierre

Rev 6 Agere/LSI needs a hub or repeater, rev 7 does not. The new Macbook Pros and iMacs have the rev 7.

Please contact the support. From your brief description I don?t think it?s a chipset problem.

best regards
Knut

Should do, but it may depend on the chip being used inside the cable. You have to try yourself.