I bought a firewire card with 3 firewire inputs but my pc only has 2 pci slots, 1 is for my internet connetion and the other is my 16bit soundblaster card being used for my audio (pc speakers) connection. if I take out the audio card and put in the firewire card how do I connect my speakers? Or can I just leave the audio card in and hook up the firewire some other way? Note: I am using the firewire to capture DV from my camcorder if that helps. Thanks
Well with no sound card there is no way to hook up your speakers. What motherboard do you have. Many have firewire integrated and thus freeing up your pci slots.
If the computer has only 2 PCI slots, it is doubtful that it has a firewire connection integrated into the board.
Do you have integrated audio on your PC? It's not an ideal situation, but if your backplate has audio connectors on it, you at least have some form of sound.
Here are the basics of what I got: Dell Demension 4300 S (I bought it in 2002) Windows XP Home edition service pack 2 Pentium{R} 4 CPU 1.40GHz 640 MB of RAM Where do I check to see what kind of mother board I got? Yes, I do believe it has integrated audio as there are inputs for a mic and 2 other symbols I don't recognize (half circles with an arrow, 1 arrow starts from the middle and points through the top half circles, the other starts below the half circles and goes to the middle. I never bothered with them before) I installed the firewire card and my cpu doesn't recognize it at all. I also discovered that my cd/dvd rom is connected to the audio card as well and had to disconnect it in order to put in the firewire card. Jeez this is frustrating but thank you for your responses, they all help
The CD-ROM drive will be ana analogue audio connection, which you won't need if you're running Windows XP, that uses digital playback, but before, when you used the CD player program in Windows 98 & Me, that used that cable. Does the firewire card appear in your Windows Device manager? Those ports you mentioned sound like headphone and line-in ports, usually there's a green blue and pink, or they could be all black. That does definitely suggest you have integrated sound though. As for the motherboard, the properties menu of My computer may display it, if not, then the POST screen (the first screen you see when you turn the PC on) will show it. Ifall you see at startup is the Dell logo, there's a button you can press to return to the POST screen, usually written at the bottom.
Yes, the ports are green pink and blue. I ended up just taking out my fax/modem card and using my firewire and soundblaster cards and it worked fine but then I can't get to the internet unless I switch the cards back, kinda a hassle. Is there a way around this? Like a card with multiple inputs for a fax/modem-dial up line and/or ethernet, and a couple of firewire 6 pin inputs, and audio? Or some kind of an adapter that can bring it all together? Is there a way to add more pci slots? Or shhould I upgrade to another computer. I know, a lot of questions. Thanks for answering even 1 question
Another computer is a bit extreme, depends how desperate you are, I suppose. Can I recommend you use the onboard audio, and use the modem & firewire cards in PCI? Or if you're not happy with the onboard sound quality, you could try an external USB sound card, such as http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16829102174
Wow, I didn't even know they existed. Sounds like a great solution to my problem. Can't thank you enough sammorris. Thank you
That's OK, should be suitable for your needs, but of course you won't get maximum transfer rate through that since you're running multiple ports off one incoming connection.
