Onboard Firewire (TI) Audio (Focusrite Saffire) woes

[kludgedean]

Been hacking around with hackintoshes for a while now, and seeing as my PCI soundcard (Terratec Phase 28 Producer) isn't going to have drivers written for it, I decided to make a leap of faith, and purchase a firewire audio interface!

 

My GA-EP35-DS4 motherboard I specifically bought as it has known high compatibility with OSX10.5 (at the time), and has onboard Texas Instruments Firewire

 

Done lots of research before-hand to make sure it was compatible with both windows, as well as Leopard AND Snow-Leopard!

 

It's a focusrite saffire, I've tried plugging it into the front-panel firewire port, the 2 on the motherboard, and also tried using the bundled DC adaptor.

 

It isn't detected in win xp, vista, 7, or Leopard and Snow Leopard.

 

Called DV247 this morning, and they said to call Focusrite, who've advised me to buy a firewire card (with TI chipset). So off I went to Maplin, and they don't have ANY (PCI) cards with a TI chipset!. Only VIA (and although that should be ok, I don't want to take risks, hence why I bought the motherboard with TI chipset.

 

Going to try source a TI chipsetted firewire card, and just hope it works in Snow Leopard (From what I've read on the forum it should be ok!). But for the Saffire to not be detected in ANY firewire port in ANY OS isn't good, I can't afford to risk sending it back, only to (probably) be charged a re-stocking fee, or sent another device which may do the same thing!

 

Any words of wisdom, or something really simple i've overlooked?

 

Notes: Disabled all non-essential devices in the BIOS.

 

Thanks for your time reading

 

EDIT (13/october/2009): yesterday my new firewire card (of which i thought from all my research) a T.I. chipsetted BELKIN Firewire card, only for them to cheap out and use crappy LSI/Agere chipsets!). Upon installing this card in my rig, the Saffire still isn't recognised!.

I even went to the extreme of putting this new firewire card in another PC of mine (Dell Inspiron 531), and still absolutely nothing at all, Not even detected in Device manager.

 

Upon Multiple eMails, and calls to both DV247 and Focusrite, I've managed to get DV247 to give me a returns number, which I have cross-referenced with FocusRite's case number.

A courier was sent, and arrived 11:35am this morning to pick up the Saffire, and take it to DV247, who will send it away to FocusRite for testing etc.

 

In a world of incompetence, DV247 and FocusRite have shone!... I'm making this edit, for future archival reference in case anyone else has a similar situation/circumstances =]

[irvingtelder]

I don't know if you got this resolved, but I have a Focusrite Saffire LE working on my Asus PK5C onboard firewire with retail install (with various added kexts and EFI strings for the particulars) of OS 10.5.8. The LE was always recognized by the system, but didn't work until I installed "AppleFWAudio-2.1.0fc9-e2" and subsequently replaced the AppleFWAudio.kext with version 1.2.2.

 

My attempt to get it working in a Snow Leopard installation was fruitless.