Which of these USB/FW cards would work with a Beige G3 running OS9?

[croissantking]

I’ve seen mostly generic ones for sale with VIA chips eg:

VIA Chipset 2 USB 2.0 & Firewire Port (1x 4 Pin & 1x 6 Pin) PCI Controller Card | eBay

VIA Chipset 2 USB 2.0 & Firewire Port (1x 4 Pin & 1x 6 Pin) PCI Controller Card.

www.ebay.co.uk

There’s also a D-Link one with NEC and Agere chips:

D-Link DFB-A5 REV A1 COMBO 3-Port Firewire + 2-Port USB 2.0 PCI Adapter. | eBay

3-Port Firewire + 2-Port USB 2.0 PCI Adapter. D-Link DFB-A5 REV A1 COMBO. All in working order.

www.ebay.co.uk

Would either of these work? I know I’ll only get USB 1.1 speeds under OS9 which is fine. I see the D-Link was advertised as being OS X 10.0.4/10.1 compatible, but no mention of OS9.

 

[AichEss]

IIRC VIA chipsets are simply not compatible with Apple gear.

DLink DFB-A5 Rev.A1 3-Port Firewire, 2-Port USB 2.0 PCI Adapter for Apple and PC - this is in the USA, like the one in the UK

http://legacyfiles.us.dlink.com/DFB-A5/REVA/DFB-A5_DATASHEET_1.00_EN.PDF. - "OS X 10 & above"

(3x)FireWire & (4x)USB 2.0 Combo PCI Adapter for PC/MAC. - ?

Vintage Apple Macintosh PCI Sonnet Tango 2.0 Firewire 400/USB 1.1&2.0 Combo Card - OK for OS 9 according to the box

 

[croissantking]

The same as you have pointed out, I found some online info about VIA chips not having good compatibility with Macs, so I took a punt on the D-Link.

I’ll report back with my findings.

I see internally it has a third FireWire port. I read that the intention was to one day have internal FireWire devices that could use this port but they never materialised, did they?

 

[Dude.JediKnight]

Never got involved with combo USB/FW cards, so I can’t speak on those, but I do have two separate cards for USB and FW in my Beige G3.

I’d have to dig out my Beige G3 to find exact details, but a generic CompUSA card (advertised as Mac OS9 compatible on the box, as I recall) that I bought at a yard sale years ago worked just fine with just the standard Apple USB extension package (“USB Card Support” I think it’s called) under OS9.

Same goes for a bog standard FW card working with the standard Apple FW extension package (“FireWire Support” I believe) under OS9. I believe full FW bus power needs an external power plug (floppy power or Molex) depending on the connector found on the card.

Again, that’s the basics as far as I remember, I’d have to open it back up if you want anything more specific.

I also know that NEC USB2 cards are supported out of the box at USB2 speeds in OSX. In general, I think NEC chipset cards are also better in OS9 as well. There is no USB2 support under OS9 though, so any cards that would work are limited to USB1.1 speeds while booted into OS9.

 

[mikes-macs]

It may also come down to whether or not you plan to boot from a Firewire device, as there are specific chipsets that will boot a firewire drive and some that do not. As far as USB booting I'm no sure.

 

[croissantking]

I’d be very impressed if I could boot off a FireWire card on a beige G3. That’s definitely not an expectation I have.

I bought another card NOS, an Adaptec Duoconnct AUA-2030. It looks nicer than than the D-Link and definitely has Mac OS 9 support. One thing that neither of the cards I will be receiving has is a molex/floppy power connector, does this mean I won’t be able to power a portable FireWire drive off the card?

 

[CC_333]

It may also come down to whether or not you plan to boot from a Firewire device, as there are specific chipsets that will boot a firewire drive and some that do not. As far as USB booting I'm no sure.

I think it would need to have its own bootable firmware (not unlike a SCSI, IDE or SATA card), and I've never heard of any Firewire card that had a bootable firmware on it, but I guess they do exist, at least in theory?

c

 

[macintosh2002]

I‘ve a working Sonnet Tempo Trio in my G3 desktop, firewire works with 9.2.1 and it powers my Lacie Ego hardisk.
I haven't tried whether you can boot from it.

 

[croissantking]

I bought another card NOS, an Adaptec Duoconnct AUA-2030. It looks nicer than than the D-Link and definitely has Mac OS 9 support. One thing that neither of the cards I will be receiving has is a molex/floppy power connector, does this mean I won’t be able to power a portable FireWire drive off the card?

Update:
The D-Link works better than the Adaptec. This is surprising as the Adaptec looks like the better quality card. Both have enough power to spin up my OWC portable FW drive (it has an Oxford 944 chip onboard) but the Adaptec suffers data corruption issues so is unusable. Although the D-Link only seems to have one functional port, so, hmm.

 

[AssortedSordid]

Pro-tip: this might be silly and common knowledge but it caught me by surprise. I installed an orange micro usb/fw combo card under OS 9 in my beige G3 and at first only the FireWire worked and not the usb, even though I had the newest extensions installed. I knew the card was fully functional since I pulled it from my G4 dual 1GHz. Turns out the newer versions of USB extensions dropped support for some? most? addon cards, idr the version but I’ll check when I get home. Installed the old extensions and it worked like a charm.

 

[croissantking]

Pro-tip: this might be silly and common knowledge but it caught me by surprise. I installed an orange micro usb/fw combo card under OS 9 in my beige G3 and at first only the FireWire worked and not the usb, even though I had the newest extensions installed. I knew the card was fully functional since I pulled it from my G4 dual 1GHz. Turns out the newer versions of USB extensions dropped support for some? most? addon cards, idr the version but I’ll check when I get home. Installed the old extensions and it worked like a charm.

That’s bizarre. I’m pretty sure I have the latest USB card drivers on my Beige with OS 9.2.2, and it’s worked with every USB PCI card I’ve thrown at it.

 

[AssortedSordid]

Indeed. I also kind of wonder if it has anything to do with the rev A ROM but who knows, it just works and that’s good enough for me. Stranger things have happened…