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Green circuit board with silver bracket and four FireWire ports

HP FS-FW400 4-Port PCIe FireWire 1394A Card

SKU CH-MDDX-MNA3R

Adds four FireWire 400 ports via a PCIe x1 slot for legacy cameras and storage

  • Connection types1 x RJ45
  • Key featuresClassic
  • Product dimensions14.33 in W × 12.83 in H × 9.06 in D
  • Product weight0.109 kg
  • In the box1 x FebSmart x FS-FW400
  • Adds four FireWire 1394A ports to a desktop PC via a PCIe x1 slot
  • Texas Instruments TSB43AB23 controller delivers 400Mbps maximum transfer speed per port
  • Compliant with IEEE 1394-1995, 1394A-2000 and OHCI 1.1 standards for broad device support
  • Plug-and-play on Windows 11 through 98, macOS 8.6+ and Linux kernel 2.4+ without extra drivers
  • Includes both full-height and low-profile brackets to fit standard or slim chassis

Four-Port FireWire 1394A Expansion

The HP FS-FW400 adds three 6-pin and one 4-pin FireWire 400 ports to a desktop PC through a single PCIe x1 slot. It is built for users who still operate legacy DV camcorders, industrial cameras, external hard-disk enclosures or audio interfaces that require an IEEE 1394a link. The card targets editors, archivists and hobbyists who need to keep older FireWire peripherals alive on modern Windows, macOS or Linux systems.

Texas Instruments Host Controller

A TI TSB43AB23 controller drives the four ports at 100, 200 and 400 Mbit/s while an ASMedia AS1083 bridge connects the card to the PCI Express 1.1 bus, providing 2.5 Gbit/s total bandwidth. The combination is fully compliant with IEEE 1394-1995, 1394a-2000 and OHCI 1.1, so the operating system sees the card natively without extra drivers on Windows 98 through Windows 11, macOS 8.6 and later, and Linux kernels 2.4 and newer. Up to 63 daisy-chained devices are supported on the bus.

Full-Height and Low-Profile Brackets

The board ships with both a standard full-height bracket and a low-profile bracket, letting it fit full-size towers or slim small-form-factor chassis. Because the interface is PCIe x1, the card works in any x1, x4, x8 or x16 slot but will not function in a legacy PCI slot. No dimensions, weight or power-draw figures are provided beyond the 0.109 kg unit weight, so builders must verify physical clearance and slot availability in their own case.

How it compares

Measured against everything we stock in Ethernet Cards & NICs, at today’s prices. Recalculated every night.

Price $46.99
Cheaper than about 69% of the 1,505 comparable items (median $90.99).

Specifications

Product
Brand nameHP
Part numberFS-FW400
Ports & slots
Connection types1 x RJ45
Size & build
Product dimensions14.33 in W × 12.83 in H × 9.06 in D
Product weight0.109 kg
In the box
In the box1 x FebSmart x FS-FW400

Questions about this item

Will the Texas Instruments TSB43AB23 controller need a firmware update to stay compatible with newer Windows or macOS releases?

The card uses the TI TSB43AB23 host controller and ASMedia AS1083 bridge, both supported by in-box OHCI 1.1 drivers on Windows 11, 10, 8.x, 7, Vista, XP, Server 2003–2022, macOS 8.6+ and Linux 2.4+; no separate firmware updates are issued for these chips.

Does the PCIe 1.1 x1 link limit sustained throughput when all four 400 Mbps ports are active?

The PCIe 1.1 x1 slot provides 2.5 Gbps total bandwidth; combined FireWire 400 traffic can approach that ceiling, so the bus becomes the bottleneck before the individual 400 Mbps ports saturate.

How much heat does the card produce when driving four FireWire devices continuously?

The low-profile PCB draws power only from the PCIe slot with no auxiliary connector; the TI TSB43AB23 and AS1083 run without a heatsink, so heat output stays minimal during all-day operation.

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