Tips on the best performance

FireWire Information and Issues (for Flex-3000 and Flex-5000 models only). FireWire is the connection between your Flex radio and the PC (PowerSDR)
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ke9ns
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Tips on the best performance

Post by ke9ns »

Newer motherboards that have PCIe version 3.0 or newer stand the best chance of not having IRQ conficts between devices plugged into PCIe slots and device on your motherboard. The reason is the shift to using MSI (Message signaled interrupts) instead of the traditional pin-based IRQ. MSI are the negative IRQ values you see when you check your device manager for the IRQ value.

So make sure your FireWire card does not have an IRQ conflict
There are no FireWire cards I know of that support MSI. Let me know if you find one.

But if you have a modern motherboard with PCIe 3.0 you probably will not have any conflicts.
Note: NVIDIA cards can all support MSI, but need to be manually activated to use it (freeing up an IRQ). See my FireWire link on my website for details.

Also if your PC hasThunderbolt (USB-C plug with a thunderbolt symbol), you can get a Thunderbolt 3 to 2 adapter cable, the Apple Thunderbolt 2 to FireWire 1394B device, and then a 1394B to 1394A cable, to get FireWire.


As far as checking your motherboard for which revision of PCIe it has, just google the motherboard model and see what the manufacture says

Darrin
Creator of PowerSDR KE9NS v2.8, based on the Flex Radio PowerSDR v2.7.2 software.
Flex-5000, LDMOS and Titan Amps, G5RV, and Mosley TA-33 Junior
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