Adaptec USB 2.0/1394 Combo Card PCI 3-Port USB 2.0 & 2-Port Firewire MAC/PC (1923200)

by Adaptec

Product Details

Product Manual [1.42mb PDF]

• Item Weight: 1 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B000062STR
• Item model number: 1923200
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
  • #77 in Electronics > Computers & Add-Ons > Computer Components > I/O Port Cards > FireWire Port Cards
• Date first available at Amazon.com: February 18, 2002

Product Description

The Adaptec DuoConnect empowers your Windows or Mac desktop with both current high speed connectivity options, without requiring that you purchase two cards or sacrifice two available PCI slots. With FireWire and USB 2.0 connections on a single card, you're ahead of the curve in several ways. With included Sonic MyDVD 3 software plus an optional disc writer, you can transform and arrange home video in a few short minutes into finished works, with navigable DVD menus, and even thumbnail buttons, on CD-R or DVD-R media. Memories you can keep alive for a lifetime!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

50 of 52 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great product with great tech support back-up., April 28, 2002

By 

"robinkenneth" (Wisconsin) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Adaptec USB 2.0/1394 Combo Card PCI 3-Port USB 2.0 & 2-Port Firewire MAC/PC (1923200) (Personal Computers)

Let me try to make a long story short.

I bought a Dazzle Firewire card with Ulead software so that I could capture video. I didn't work when I got it and I never got it to work in spite of multiple attempts. Dazzle Techs said it was Ulead's fault and Ulead said it was Dazzle's. Neither company tried to help me out.

I bought the adaptec combo card, hoping that it would work.
I installed it and the accompanying software. It didn't work.
I called Canon. They helped me by sending me to Microsoft for
a plug-in. The card still didn't work. I just about gave up but decided to call Adaptec for help.

It was a toll call but the Adaptec Tech walked me through the
entire process of getting the card working. I'd guess that he spend a good 45 mintues with me as we checked my system out and straightened out all the problems that the Dazzle card and drivers left in my system. I am a business owner so I know exactly how important good customer care is. You can have the best product in the world but if you don't care about your customers, you're business is going to eventually fail.

Adaptec makes a great product AND they have one of the very best Tech Support teams that I have ever dealt with to back the product.

Buy This One !

28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Works Flawlessly But Make Sure You are Up to Date, January 14, 2003

By 

"rreuling" (Bear, DE USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Adaptec USB 2.0/1394 Combo Card PCI 3-Port USB 2.0 & 2-Port Firewire MAC/PC (1923200) (Personal Computers)

Another review writer mentioned overlapping IRQs - which suggests they were out of the loop when the entire computer world changed to Level Triggered IRQs. In a nutshell, current systems are designed to share IRQs, this is a critical function for any system. If you have older PCI based cards or a computer older than 4 years this is when you can see problems, as they use what are called Edge Triggered IRQs and are not shareable.

Still, installing add-in cards to your PC is not for the faint of heart or the uninformed, even with the advances in Plug and Play technologies. Get your friendly neighborhood computer genius to help if you don't feel you're savvy enough.

That being said, this card from Adaptec works flawlessly, and has some nice features designed into it. The bus mastering PCI functions work reasonably well, unlike some lower priced cards that seem to cause more lock-ups and pauses. The addition of an internal Firewire and USB connections are a great help to case modders and others who build their own systems yet still want ports on the front side of their machine so they don't have to reach around the back. Having USB and Firewire on the same card is handy, since most older systems using USB 1.1 use a riser card that can be replaced easily with the Adaptec.

A good value for a complete high-speed hot pluggable I/O solution.

34 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Buyer beware ..., May 29, 2002

By 

Christo "montxsuz" (Vancouver, Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Adaptec USB 2.0/1394 Combo Card PCI 3-Port USB 2.0 & 2-Port Firewire MAC/PC (1923200) (Personal Computers)

This is a great card and a great idea from a reliable company - as long as you don't have a complex system running Windows 2000.

After I installed this card on my system, all chaos broke loose. This eventually caused Windows 2000 to become corrupt and crash and burn. I had to totally rebuild my system from scratch, wasting many hours. So it is buyer beware.

It turns out that this card needs four IRQs. Now I already had a soundcards, a couple of Adaptec brand SCSI cards, and a graphics adapter. Problem is that under Windows 2000, all of these PCI cards are assigned IRQ 9. (The only way to prevent this (on my system anyway) is to disable ACPI Power Management - a job bigger than Ben Hur). Result: hardware conflict, system freeze-ups, driver corruption, and BSODs (Blue Screen of Death).

In summary: The DuoConnect 3121 is a good card. But if you run Windows 2000, have a lot of PCI cards, and you don't know an IRQ from ACPI or BSOD, then better stay away from it. Go for something simpler, like an Adaptec 4300. I am told that the DuoConnect 3121 installs without problems on Windows XP, which is more flexible with IRQs.

Yet I do not entirely blame the Adaptec company for the problem - though they could have warned me, the unsuspecting consumer, about the insallation risks in the marketing brochures! So therefore only 3 stars.

I can't fault Adaptec on their very good support. Adapter cards from other companies are cheaper than Adaptec brand, but the Adaptec support is worth the extra money. Which is why I replaced this card with another card from the same company. Adaptec refunded my original purchase price (but not the many wasted hours). So therefore at least 3 stars.