Rocky Posted January 5, 2016 Share Posted January 5, 2016 (edited) My GA-Z97X-Gaming 7 mobo has no firewire, and I need it to transfer old JVC DV camcorder footage. So I bought a £8 PCI firewire card and found that out would not fit any of the mobo PCI slots, to be exact, the first row of connector before the break, say about 15mm long, was fractionally too long to fit in any of the PCI slots. Until I realised if I took out the PCI soundcard, the Firewire card fitted in there perfectly. I can use the onboard sound (I'll set that up next!), but really I want to understand why my mobo only has one slot that PCI cards actually fit into, when the board spec is as follows : The mobo site lists them as 1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x16 (PCIEX16)1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x8 (PCIEX8)1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x4 (PCIEX4)3 x PCI Express x1 slots1 x PCI slot I'm guessing both my sound card and firewire card can only use the slot I have highlighted (a legacy type slot?) *confused* I thought all the PCI slots would be the same physical dimensions but running at different speeds. Edited January 5, 2016 by Rocky Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Forrester~SPARTA~ Posted January 5, 2016 Share Posted January 5, 2016 PCI is an older version which PCIe replaces. Most soundcards nowadays use PCIe, don't know if there are any firewire cards around still that use PCIe slots. Ask Luggage, hell confuse you even more 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gon5~SPARTA~ Posted January 6, 2016 Share Posted January 6, 2016 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conventional_PCI hope this works Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zathrus~SPARTA~ Posted January 6, 2016 Share Posted January 6, 2016 (edited) The firewire and soundcard are older, they will use the slot you highlighted. If they are newer versions they should use any of the PCI-E x 1 slots. You obviously want the PCI-E x 16 for the video card. that firewire card you got is a very old design by all appearances. I would suggest you return that and get a firewire card (if you really need it) that uses PCI-E it is significantly faster. Edited January 6, 2016 by Zathrus~SPARTA~ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rocky Posted January 6, 2016 Author Share Posted January 6, 2016 Ah okay, so the FW card and the soundcard are kind of outdated. The FW card is actually capturing okay Zath, so I'll stick with it. The onboard sound seems to be working okay so I'll go a while without a soundcard and see if there are any issues. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rocky Posted January 6, 2016 Author Share Posted January 6, 2016 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conventional_PCI hope this works Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PANiC Posted January 6, 2016 Share Posted January 6, 2016 surprised it has a PCI slot at all tbh, but goes to show these things still needed :] the mobo has very good onboard sound btw, you should install the Sound Blaster X-Fi MB3 software that came with the mobo, or download http://www.creative.com/oem/products/software/x-fimb3.asp to get the most from it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zathrus~SPARTA~ Posted January 7, 2016 Share Posted January 7, 2016 (edited) yeah Panic is correct, most gaming motherboards sold in the last 5 years (at least) have excellent sound cards built in. I have not used a soundcard for years. Edited January 7, 2016 by Zathrus~SPARTA~ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KILLE Posted January 7, 2016 Share Posted January 7, 2016 I have not used my soundcard for years either.It was 2008 when I installed this rig and I have used only the onboard sound without any probs. -KILLE- Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rocky Posted January 7, 2016 Author Share Posted January 7, 2016 (edited) surprised it has a PCI slot at all tbh, but goes to show these things still needed :] the mobo has very good onboard sound btw, you should install the Sound Blaster X-Fi MB3 software that came with the mobo, or download http://www.creative.com/oem/products/software/x-fimb3.asp to get the most from it. Yes, it should be good, but there is an issue. When I use onboard sound I sometimes get a faint zip-zip type interference coming through the speakers when I am scrolling on the desktop. The sound chip is shielded so this should not happen, and I cannot find anyone else with this issue so its a bit weird. This is why I put a soundcard in, and the issue stopped. Now I need the card out to use FWire, so now I have ordered an cheap 5.1 PCI-E sound card for a few quid to see if it stops the interference coming through. Edited January 7, 2016 by Rocky Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zathrus~SPARTA~ Posted January 7, 2016 Share Posted January 7, 2016 surprisingly... that problem is typically caused by dust in the audio jack Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PANiC Posted January 7, 2016 Share Posted January 7, 2016 (edited) just out of interest Rocky, does it happen in any app that you scroll in, or just your internet browser? tbh i've had that myself, and also just moving the mouse around on one system I had was enough to give a little buzz in the background, but there is so many different fixes (dozens and dozens) for it when looking around on google. the 1 that i remember working for someone at BPR was the mouse smoothing option in the browser, but even then it seems that for some it works turning on and others turning it off fixes it haha. /edit, if you cant find info on this then maybe i'm not looking for the right issue? Edited January 7, 2016 by PANiC Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rocky Posted January 8, 2016 Author Share Posted January 8, 2016 I'll test and see what causes it. Today I clearly heard it when in file manager browsing photos there were listed as large icons. I'll play around and see if I can narrow it down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Watchman~SPARTA~ Posted January 8, 2016 Share Posted January 8, 2016 I used to have that problem when browsing. None of the tweaks I tried worked so I went for a cheapish sound card and that did the trick. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zathrus~SPARTA~ Posted January 8, 2016 Share Posted January 8, 2016 (edited) interesting... is everyone with this problem using gigabyte boards? I have never detected this issue in any ASUS boards I have been using. I did have a gigabyte mb for about 1.5 years, it was a bit noisy with static periodically but not very bad. The onboard sound blew out completely with a small static discharge to my headphones when I picked them up one dry day. That started a series of cascading failures on the MB which eventually caused it to also lose all USB hubs. I went back to an ASUS board. Perhaps gigabyte is not isolating their onboard sound correctly. As easily as it blew out on me (I have done the same accidental static discharge on two asus boards with no negative issues) and the noisy static you guys are complaining about indicates to me it is not isolated properly. Edited January 8, 2016 by Zathrus~SPARTA~ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Watchman~SPARTA~ Posted January 8, 2016 Share Posted January 8, 2016 Mine's an Asus board. Quite old though, must be 7-8 years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zathrus~SPARTA~ Posted January 8, 2016 Share Posted January 8, 2016 well... I have zapped this 3 year old ASUS maximus extreme about 6 times with accidental static discharges to my headphones with no negative effects. The gigabyte board died the second time it accidently got zapped. The gigabyte board did have sound that produced static at odd times. None of my ASUS boards have done that. That is why I am thinking they have not isolated the sound board on their mobo's properly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rocky Posted January 11, 2016 Author Share Posted January 11, 2016 So, the equivalent PCIe card for the PCI sound card I have is £25. I can get a different make PCIe soundcard for £5 from Amazon! So I bought the cheap one and it installed fine, so problem solved for £5. I'm wondering if its even possible to tell the difference in sound quality from a £5 to a £25 card, I doubt it though. Having said that the more expensive card is double the size, wonder what all those extra chips do for the same functionality. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoScream~SPARTA~ Posted January 12, 2016 Share Posted January 12, 2016 Generally NO, they all sound the same to most old buggers.... I too needed FW & had a PCI version, ended up buying (at short notice) http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/firewire-1-internal-and-2-external-pci-express-card-a49hh maplins, then using a Molex (normal old bugger hard drive power connector) to newer SATA power connector converter to get power to it... Then I had onboard sound, wanted Super +£5 sound and bought a sound card but needed old coaxial digital sound leads. so got convectors for that too.... to goto optical fiber.... The joys of getting upto date... Just like modern cars, buggers keep changing.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rocky Posted January 12, 2016 Author Share Posted January 12, 2016 The FW card I linked to above was £6 and needed no power, not sure why some need power..? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zathrus~SPARTA~ Posted January 13, 2016 Share Posted January 13, 2016 well much of it depends on the speaker or headphones your using. Many gaming headsets use most of what onboard sound can provide, but in many cases not all of it. So... I doubt you will notice much. In my experience, some cheaper cards had difficulty with 3d sound SOMETIMES. some have no problem at all. The ones with issues tended to blend left and right too much making it hard to tell where something was coming from. By 3d sound, I mean being able to tell what direction someone is walking from by sound. which is important in an FPS If that works well... your good to go. it does not really matter what it costs... as long as it works as needed. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PANiC Posted January 16, 2016 Share Posted January 16, 2016 had the buzzing with Abit and Asus boards, was never a fan of onboard, used to always use creative cards, but fell out with them when it kicked off years back about that guy who was unlocking all their features with his modded drivers, it turned out they wanted you to spend more money for those features with their more expensive cards, knobheads. i always use an external DAC now, and no way going back to onboard or addin card. only problem I have is with microphones but that's a different story XD glad u got it sorted Rocky, thats the kind of problem i'd like to get stuck into 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zathrus~SPARTA~ Posted January 20, 2016 Share Posted January 20, 2016 (edited) odd... I have never had any kind of buzzing or static with this current ASUS board or my previous ones. I have been buying gaming boards however which tend to get better onboard sound cards. This asus maximus extreme I am using now actually has a very good sound card on it. So maybe that is why... hard to say really. Edited January 20, 2016 by Zathrus~SPARTA~ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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