P4PE - 4 and 6 pin Firewire active simultaneously?

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus (More info?)

Are both the 4 pin and the 6 pin Firewire ports active simultaneously on this
board? I've got a cable going from the header on the motherboard to the
bottom of the slot adapter, near the 6 pin port. There is nothing connected
to the top part of that little adapter near the 4 pin port.

I've got a device (a camcorder) that works on the 6 pin port with a 6 - 4 pin
cable. When I plug it in to the 4 pin port it doesn't. I'm guessing that I
need another cable from the motherboard to this port?

Is this correct? Is that cable included with the motherboard? Sorry to ask,
but my stuff is still buried somewhere after a recent move.

Thanks in advance.

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus (More info?)

Mail Ias wrote:

> Are both the 4 pin and the 6 pin Firewire ports active simultaneously on this
> board?

Yes

> I've got a cable going from the header on the motherboard to the
> bottom of the slot adapter, near the 6 pin port. There is nothing connected
> to the top part of that little adapter near the 4 pin port.

Which is why it doesn't work, obviously

>
> I've got a device (a camcorder) that works on the 6 pin port with a 6 - 4 pin
> cable. When I plug it in to the 4 pin port it doesn't. I'm guessing that I
> need another cable from the motherboard to this port?

Exactly. You can try of course taking the cable off the 6-pin port and
connecting it to the 4-pin port to make sure the port itself is ok. And
you can try plugging the motherboard-side of the cable to the second
IEEE-1394 header to make sure that one works too.

>
> Is this correct? Is that cable included with the motherboard? Sorry to ask,
> but my stuff is still buried somewhere after a recent move.
>
> Thanks in advance.

Both cables should be included with the motherboard. The difference
between 6-pin and 4-pin ports is that the 4-pin ones do not supply power
to the bus, they only have the data signals connected.
Both motherboard headers (and the cables I assume) however are fully
supporting the 6-pin ports, so it shouldn't make any difference at the
motherboard level. The truncation of the bus-power lines is done on the
module.
Furthermore, your camcorder doesn't need bus power at all so the
"natural" connector for it is the 4-pin one, this saves the 6-pin
connector for any device you might add that would possibly need bus power.

Regards
Nikos