RE: Help! Need advice about HP and Firewire Audio.

[Jeff Larson <jeff.larson@sailpoint.com>]

> The problem is my MOTU 828 recommends only using the Firewire cards
> with a TI chipset.  I can't find anything about the HPs that mention
> what chipset they use.  I've written and called and got no response
> from their sales dept. (way to go HP!)

If you can locate the machine you're considering at Best Buy or
whatever big box computer stores you have around you, bring up Control
Panel, select Device Manager, and open the tree node that says "IEEE
1394 Bus host controllers".

You should see something like this.

    RICOH OCHI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller

In my case I have a new Lenovo laptop that apparently has the feared
and maligned Ricoh chipset.  This is my work laptop, I've never used
it for audio so I can't say how it works.  If you see "Texas Instruments"
instead of RICOH then you should be okay.  One of my daughters has a
small form factor HP that's a year or two old and it apparently has 
an Agere chipset, I don't know anything about those.

My audio desktop is a Gateway, strangely enough it has two 1394 
controllers, one of them Texas Instruments and the other a name I forget.

Jeff