Firewire ports dead

[EHeiberg]

1 Ghz Dual G4... today the firewire ports just stopped working. Anybody ever heard of this? I tried Firewire drives, Firewire burner, iPod and a digital video camera. nada..zip... dead.
System profiler just acts like nothing is plugged in. Oh yea, I tried 3 different cables that all worked with the same periphs yesterday. Mystified...

[The Chinese]

1 Ghz Dual G4... today the firewire ports just stopped working. Anybody ever heard of this? I tried Firewire drives, Firewire burner, iPod and a digital video camera. nada..zip... dead.
System profiler just acts like nothing is plugged in. Oh yea, I tried 3 different cables that all worked with the same periphs yesterday. Mystified...

E-

Shut your system down, unplug the power cable, and let your computer sit for 15 minutes. Then plug it back in and fire it up. should come right back up.

Yes, this happened to me, I got the fix off Apple's support site.

I swear.

-Todd A.

[mu-tron-kid]

The Apple Fix doesn't always work.
(even the PMU reset button trick....)

The G4's Firewire ports seem to fry from those little Bus Powered Firewire Pocket Drives!
At this point I always have a Firewire Drive with Internal Power Supply plugged in first and will mount any "pocket Drives" onto that drives Firewire ports....

We ended up having to install FireWire PCI cards in 2 of 3 G 4's !!
they are cheap and easy to install and we haven't noticed any significant drain on the PCI bus when PT is running.

[myshell]

I own a M-Audio Firewire Audiophile for my live performances from Laptop. And I got a warning from M-Audio that if you hotplug the audiophile the wrong way you could potentially fry your firewire port.

So some devices can harm your firewire ports.

Myshell

[mu-tron-kid]

Of course!
If you plug in ANY firewire cable the wrong way (it doesn't quite fit), it will fry your ports and possibly the device.

[myshell]

Hahaha...I may be blonde...but I'm not that stupid. Maybe I didn't explain myself clearly. Here is the warning from M-Audio:


Caution: Do Not Hot-Plug FireWire Devices

Reports have come to our attention of isolated problems when hot-plugging IEEE 1394 (aka “FireWire”) devices. (Hot-plugging refers to making 1394/FireWire connections when one or more of the devices—including the computer—is on.)

When hot-plugging, there are rare occurrences where either the FireWire peripheral or the FireWire port on the host computer is rendered permanently inoperable. While M-Audio products adhere rigidly to the FireWire industry standard and pass stringent internal testing, the possibility remains that hot-plugging your M-Audio FireWire interface with some computers may result in the type of problem described here.

We strongly encourage you to protect your equipment by refraining from hot-plugging any bus-powered FireWire device, including the M-Audio family of FireWire products. Connect your FireWire device while both the computer and FireWire device are powered off. Power on the FireWire device, then turn the computer on last. If you are using bus power (systems with IEEE1394 6-pin connectors) make sure you make the cable connection first, then turn the FireWire device power switch on, and turn the computer system on last.

M-Audio is being proactive in investigating any issues that may adversely affect our customers. Please consult the Knowledge Base in the Support section at www.m-audio.com for updates on this important issue.


That's what I meant, of course

Myshell

[Rail Jon Rogut]

There are certain Mac.. manufacturered before January 2003 I believe which are susceptable to this issue.

I fried my FireWire ports on 2 notebooks while following Apple's directions to hook them up in Target Mode.

Both computers were repaired under warranty by Apple.. even though one was outside waranty. I had to spend a week with them on the phone and do my research to get them to fix them though. The logic board will need to be replaced.

I would highly recommend you not consider FireWire a "hot swappable" technology.. it definately isn't.

Rail

[BDWillis]

Hmmmm... so I'm somewhere between flummoxed & depressed.

We've gone from being able to hot-swap SCSI drives & hot-swap the new holy grail of such (Firewire) in OS9... to the current reality of OSX which doesn't allow hot-sawp SCSI - plus now we find out that the whole FW hot-swappability, so highly touted, has the makings of a bus-bomb??!! When I've got 4 workstations going on a record and we're throwing drives & data back & forth every couple of hours, these are BIG steps backward!

Rail, just to clarify - you're saying there's even a bus-frying danger to the practice of: when the computer is already up & running, cabling up a LaCie or Granite Digital (i.e. NOT bus powered) FW drive, THEN powering up the drive... when done, unmounting the drive, THEN powering down & disconnecting the drive. Is my understanding correct? if so, that's gonna slow down some projects around here Do you know if the Macs manuf'd after Jan 2003 are okay with this practice?!

Thanks for your first-hand wisdom!

Warmest Regards,
Brian

[Rail Jon Rogut]

My understanding is that the FireWire circuitry was improved in models after Jan. 2003

Mine smoked on both laptops even though one was powered down during the whole process. Just use a hub and you'll avoid the issue.

Rail

[mu-tron-kid]

Yes, Sorry to jump to the dumbest conclusion, but they seem to be making that "wrong Cable Direction" warning on alot of stuff now.....