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New Mac mini

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cvanaxel

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 6, 2013
2
0
What kinda firewire chipset is on the new mac mini.
I want to buy one but i need to know what kinda firewire chipset is on it.

Can someone please tell me.

You can find the firewire chipset by rebooting your mac mini and press cmd + s (command + s).
 
M

magebarf

macrumors member
Dec 29, 2012
51
2
Gothenburg - Sweden
First off, sorry for not being able to answer your question, my Mini is still in shipping...

But, may I make a guess about this relating to sound cards and compatibility?

If so, I just thought I'd mention that a lot of the "compatible with chip <x>" recommendations manufacturers put out is usually about running the audio interfaces in Windows.

There still are incompatibilities with certain sound cards and Mac when run with specific firewire chipsets, however the issues are not so easy that one can point to the chip alone but it is usually a combination of the firewire driver stack together with the chip. Thus, a chip causing issues for a audio interface under Windows might (and generally do) work better when combined with OS X instead.

Edit: Also worth thinking off is that the option to use the Thunderbolt->FireWire adapter is available...
 
M

magebarf

macrumors member
Dec 29, 2012
51
2
Gothenburg - Sweden
Managed to find some hardware digging for you...

iFixIt's tear down shows it to be a LSI L-FW643E-2, as visible here:
http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Mac+Mini+Late+2012+Teardown/11262/2

Also found a MacRumors thread where the Thunderbolt->FireWire adapter was taken apart and it was found out that it also uses the LSI L-FW643E-2:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1428004/

As linked from the other thread, here's the data sheet for the LSI chip:
http://www.lsi.com/downloads/Public/1394 Products/FW643E/LSI-PB_2pg_FW643E_fn.pdf
 
C

cvanaxel

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 6, 2013
2
0
magebarf said:
First off, sorry for not being able to answer your question, my Mini is still in shipping...

But, may I make a guess about this relating to sound cards and compatibility?

If so, I just thought I'd mention that a lot of the "compatible with chip <x>" recommendations manufacturers put out is usually about running the audio interfaces in Windows.

There still are incompatibilities with certain sound cards and Mac when run with specific firewire chipsets, however the issues are not so easy that one can point to the chip alone but it is usually a combination of the firewire driver stack together with the chip. Thus, a chip causing issues for a audio interface under Windows might (and generally do) work better when combined with OS X instead.

Edit: Also worth thinking off is that the option to use the Thunderbolt->FireWire adapter is available...
Click to expand...

Yeah I got a Digi002 rack studio soundcard. Manufacture is Avid.
It works on a texas Instrument chipset and is only FW400 and the new mac mini is FW800.
 
B

benwiggy

macrumors 68020
Jun 15, 2012
2,382
201
cvanaxel said:
It works on a texas Instrument chipset and is only FW400 and the new mac mini is FW800.
Click to expand...
Any FW400 device should run on an FW800 socket. It will just run at half-speed (400).
I have an Edirol FA-66 which works fine (as FW400) on my 2012 mini in a chain with a hard drive running FW800.

I would certainly try it out on the mini before assuming that it's not going to work because there's a different chipset and speed.
 
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