Determining 6 or 4 pin firewire?

[John_Keats]

Hey people, thinking very seriously about getting a 3 gen ipod, and I had a rather ridiculous question primarily because I"m totally unused to working with firewire. Basically, I just replaced my motherboard and chip recently (a new NFORCE2) and I noticed that the mobo came with a bank of 2 firewire connections to the mobo... Naturally I installed them immediately, but the only thing I can't figure out is, and I know this sounds dumb, if they're 4 pin or 6 pin ports. If they're 4, I'll have to buy a PCI of 6 pin firewire, but if they're six, I'm fine and dandy. So anyone have a quick, surefire way to determine whether they're six or 4 pins (and whether I need to pay an extra 30 bucks for a couple firewire ports I'm unlikely to use otherwise)?

[theflyingbeagle]

I may be wrong, but I do not think it matters as the ipod comes with an adaptor to take 6 pin to 4 pin. From the size of the adaptor, the 4 pin looks much smaller like a digital camera input and the 6 pin looks bigger, longer and thinner.

Cheers,
Paul

[Timmy Yak]

The only thing is the Windows version iPod only comes with the 6 to 4 pin adapter. The 4 pin is much smaller than the 6 pin.

The difference between the two is the 6 pin firewire is powered. Does it really matter if you have a powered firewire? Not really. It depends on if you want your iPod to charge while it's connected to your pc. This is not recommended though. If you are going to be transferring many files at one time, I would say get the powered one so your iPod doesn't die when you are uploading.

[John_Keats]

Originally posted by Timmy Yak
The only thing is the Windows version iPod only comes with the 6 to 4 pin adapter. The 4 pin is much smaller than the 6 pin.

The difference between the two is the 6 pin firewire is powered. Does it really matter if you have a powered firewire? Not really. It depends on if you want your iPod to charge while it's connected to your pc. This is not recommended though. If you are going to be transferring many files at one time, I would say get the powered one so your iPod doesn't die when you are uploading.

Well, yes, exactly, I was looking to power+transfer, and regardless I'd like to use 6 pin firewire because it sounds like the consensus all over the internet is that using 6 pin firewire solves most of the potential problems the pod has with windows as opposed to USB solutions or otherwise. So does anybody know an easy way to tell the two kinds of firewire apart? Like I said, I have my firewire ports all installed and everything (after connecting some truly MINISCULE plugs to the mobo :rolleyes: ) but I just don't know if it's 6 or 4 pin firewire...

Unless I'm misunderstanding you and you're saying that the Windows IPOD does not have 6 pin support at all? I was under the impression it just came with an adaptor you could use or not, depending on your firewire setup.

[ashawley]

Go w/6 pin if you can.

Here is a picture of a belkin 4 pin to 6 pin cable. You should be able to see the 4 pin is square whereas the 6 pin is rectangular...

Adam

[John_Keats]

Wow, thank you. That's exactly what I needed. You're a gem.

[John_Keats]

6 pin it is after all that. Nice.