There’s an incompatibility between the NEC chip found in some FireWire cards and the MOTU FireWire line of interface.

If the FireWire installer warns you that you’re running a FireWire card with the NEC chip, you should replace said card with a card that uses the TI (Texas Instruments) or LSI (formerly Lucent/Agere) chip.

Keyspan, Sonnet, Miglia, and ADS are a few of the many brands using the TI or LSI FireWire chips. Note that not all cards by a given manufacturer use the same chipset, so please check with the manufacturer of the FireWire card before purchasing it to ensure it has a TI or LSI chip. Many combo USB/FireWire cards do not a use TI or LSI chip, so a dedicated FireWire card is recommended.

For additional considerations about FireWire cards when using the Traveler or UltraLite, please see this tech note.