Win XP SP2 "turns Firewire 800 into Firewire 100"

THE MODERATOR of the RME forum has warned that installing Windows XP SP2 can lead to the bus speed being limited to 100Mbit/s.

Matthias Carstens posted the message on the RME forum yesterday, but says it's not a problem particular to RME products. He said: "It affects any Firewire 800 device. If you have a FW800 PCI card and an FW 800 hard disk, go see the bits come one by one through the Firewire cable".

RME, he said, was aware of the problem for some time, but "didn't really imagine that Microsoft would have the guts to try to bury an existing standard. We just downloaded the final public version and it is simply unbelievable".

He said that some companies are trying to sell Firewire 800 drivers so everything will be hunky-dory. But, he said, these drivers probably won't work correctly with a Fireface 800.

But phew, there is an answer. He said after the SP2 update, if you install the old SP1 Firewire drivers all will be well. "In our tests this solved all problems and brought back the old performance and compatibility".

He said RME will release detailed instructions on how to do this today. µ

See Also
The problem with Windows XP SP2
Teething troubles hit Windows XP SP2

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