Firewire freezes

Is there a known problem with FireWire on G3 rev.2 motherboards? Mine will not get through a file transfer greater than about 200MB without locking up. Sometimes there is a kernel panic, sometimes just the Finder locks up. Short transfers are OK. It seems to be a handshaking problem between the drive and the Mac. This has always happened on this machine with previous versions of OS X and with the original G3/300 CPU.
Anybody tried a PCI FireWire card in one of these?
B&W G3 with G4/500MHz CPU, OS 10.4.11, PCI SATA disk controller, various FireWire drives using Oxford and other interface chips.

The known problem with built in FireWire on Blue & White G3 PowerMacs is that it's slow as compared to later model Macs with FireWire. You could see a pretty good speed improvement from a PCI FireWire card if you're using an external hard drive. If you also have your internal hard drive connected to a PCI hard drive controller you'll probably see an even bigger speed improvement. A FireWire PCI card will probably be good for about 40MB/s under ideal conditions. Your built in IDE controller should be good for about 33MB/s in theory. A PCI hard drive controller should be good for about 52MB/s in your Blue & White according to what I've read here from tests done in the past. I haven't heard of any stability problems with the built in FireWire though. You may have a problem with your FireWire controller. I bought a FireWire / USB2 PCI card for my Mac for $20 and it works great.

Similar Messages

Firewire freeze (T510)

I have an external harddrive which connects to T510 using the firewire interface.
It freezes once in a while. The lenovo diagonstics tool doesn't have an option to test the IEEE 1394 (firewire) interface. Is there anything I can do to determine the issue?
Yes, there's nothing wrong with the harddrive or the cabble. I used both with another Acer laptop without any problem.
Thanks.

I have an external harddrive which connects to T510 using the firewire interface.
It freezes once in a while. The lenovo diagonstics tool doesn't have an option to test the IEEE 1394 (firewire) interface. Is there anything I can do to determine the issue?
Yes, there's nothing wrong with the harddrive or the cabble. I used both with another Acer laptop without any problem.
Thanks.

Camera not recognized! Green image only.

Here's a mystery for ya... I've got a brand new Powerbook G4, 1.67GHz, 2GB of RAM with a 120G harddrive. A few of the applications I can hook up my DV camera to via firewire freeze up, freak out or just plain don't work. On my older Powerbook (1GHz, 1G RAM) - no issues.
The camera is a Sony TRV-11
The firewire cable works.
The firewire port works.
I am running Quicktime 7.03
Applications such as iMovie HD, iStopMotion and FrameThief, all of which work on the older Powerbook do not work.
I can, however, successfully capture and record back to the camera from Adobe Premiere.
I have tried deleting the Quicktime Receipts from the Library folder. I have tried downgrading to Quicktime 7.01. I have tried the magical GarageBand fix where you open it up, play a few notes and start up iMovie again. Nuthin. All I see in iMovie is a green screen. Neither iStopMotion or FrameThief recognize the camera... although, interestingly enough, the first time I ran FrameThief after downloading it, it recognized my camera. Restarting the machine with the camera on did not work.
I'm at a loss. Help!

everything is identical.
Rats.
OK, let's bring in the arsenal of fixes from here:
Prevent Mac Disasters
Eight Simple Steps You Can Take Now to Keep Your Mac from Falling Apart
http://www.macworld.com/2005/01/features/preventmacdisasters/index.php
(Article is in 3 parts, don't miss parts 2 and 3)

Temporarily freezing audigy 2 and firewire not working - sol

hi,
i had two problems with my audigy 2 using windows xp:
a) my firewire port didnt appear to work. i had only one device using firewire which was my creative jukebox zen. i could only transfer 95% of the first mp3 and then it would say that my mp3 player is not responding.
b) i experienced random and temporary freezes, not only while gaming but even when writing e-mails. everything would hang for a few seconds and then continue to work like if you write text it will appear after the hang.
firewire: i used my audigy 2 in my old pc with windows me and win 2000 without any problems. neither with firewire nor with the eax4 driver patch. under win xp i could only transfer mp3s via usb and that is slow as hell as you can imagine. i first tried if transfers using the firewire port on my mobo worked but it didnt, same prob. i found a fix from microsoft that is not listed in windowsupdate at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...DisplayLang=en (KB885222). that did not solve this issue but maybe you need that too so I mention it here. then i found some new drivers on the creative site. "oh you fool, why didnt you say earlier that you're using old drivers?" someone might say but these drivers dont work or more specifically, its setup routine sux. it quits with "an error occurred". wow cool... but it appears as it unpacks the driver to c:\program files\creative\jukebox3 or something (note, i have a zen and not a jb3...) so I uninstalled everything, rebooted and told the device manager manually to get the drivers from that location. now it works.
freezes: it took me many, many hours to search the internet, but i found absolutely nothing. sure i'm using the latest drivers (yea they actually work), put the card in slot3 and stuff. then i found a post on this board that mentioned that this guy's audigy had a heat problem. it became too hot and hung. hmm. i have 2x 2cm fans sucking heat out of the box through the radiator of my water cooling so heat is actually mostly get rid of through water and whatever else produces heat (harddisc, video card ram etc) is cooled by some really strong air flow. so wth, this card has worked for almost 2 years in my old box. so i opened the case and saw that air circulation around the audigy was impossible as its sandwitched by two other cards. those parts that i was able to touch were not that hot but i dont know how hot the main chip became and i have no clue why a sound card can become too hot from playing an mp3... anyway, i have left my case open and since then i havent had any freezes. now i also know why the freezes suddenly appeared and not since after i setup my box 3 months ago: it was open until i had cut a hole for the radiator...
oh yea, its good that my expensi've creative stuff works and that it was not creative's fault but that of a moron of a user. now honestly, how is an average user supposed to get their product working when the knowledge base is totally outdated and gives advice such as "update your bios, get the latest drivers and dont put your card into the microwave", when mods in this forum give advice like the knowledge base and the driver is not even installable? creative products are not bad at all, they're not cheap at all too. but the support page is absolutely not informati've and the knowledgebase does not give solutions to known issues. i was never ever able to find anything useful there and i'm really really not an average user but a very experienced one. not everyone wants to use a pre-installed dell box with el-cheapo components. i like to put my own high-end rig together and things must be pushed to the limit BUT still be absolutely rock solid. let me list my recent experience with creative products during the past 2 years:
-) bought an inspire 6. surround system and even replaced my audigy with version 2 for it. but unfortunately the subwoofer had a problem. it randomly made a popping noise which was so loud that it pushed your adrenaline level to that of a base jumper. i then found out that the whole batch had some faulty component. at least i got a replacement within a week, so i thought "yea, great support".
-) bought a jukebox zen, 20gb with firewire. it worked great for almost a year. then it died. when i switched it on, only the creative logo appeared, thats it. recovery mode was inaccessible too. it took me 2 months to convince the support lady to let me return this junk. first they sent me a new adapter because maybe it was damaged and the battery was low and therefore it didnt work anymore... then i was told, ok you can have a new one but we dont have firewire versions in stock anymore. you can have a usb one now or you wait until we get the firewire zen again. i said wtf, you produce this so why dont you have them in stock? and the usb version is sure not an equivalent to my firewire player. woot after 2 months i got a new mp3 player... had to rip 250 cds again (i really prefer having originals) and copy them to the player, but ok, i'm happy again. no, i'm not. this one doesnt work properly either. everytime i dont use the player for more than 24 hours i have to rebuild the database and scan the harddisc. that takes about 0 minutes for like 3000 songs!! grr... but i didnt want to argue with the tech support about that, i can li've with that. maybe i can flash to an older bios if i find one somewhere. from what i read somewhere it is caused by the zen going from hibernate into "off power" mode and then it forgets a few things.
and now i had the two issues described above and had to find a solution myself because the support pages dont help at all. sure you can say i should have thought of a heat problem but all important components are watercooled (even the north bridge) and i had some good airflow in general, but not around the sound card. and who knows that the audigy is that sensiti've to heat and that a sound card even gets hot at all. i've never heard of sound card cooling... i'm not that disappointed about the quality of the hardware because it is ok imo, but with the horrible lack of quality of the support and the buggy driver installation. hey, you get free advice by your customers, think about that. they tell you by themselves what the problem is and what they think may cause it. sure many posts are just flames but you should take ppl here more seriously. and if other manufacturers are to blame then put a list together like: msi k8n neo2 platinum - in this case upgrade to bios .2 or in that case install this or turn on/off that.
alright, i hope anyone can use this information. sorry for the length but i wanted to describe things as precisely as necessary. cheers from austria.
(edit: a typo)Message Edited by Temujin666 on 0-05-2005 03:49 AM

Hi folks,?Initially my audigy 2 nx was not working. But after installing the drivers for vista it started to work. But unfortunately, the other application from creative media source is not working. When I press EAX it says '[color="#000099">the application with the device not found'. But the sound card is working fine.[color="#000099">?[color="#000099">I have even mailed creative with the details. They have sent me a mail with the drivers and an application driver. I have installed the application driver too, but still no luck.[color="#000099">?[color="#000099">Kind regards,[color="#000099">Jwell[color="#000099">?

4th Gen iPod only works with usb - freezes with firewire

After a recent iTunes upgrade my my 40 gig Gen 4 iPod started locking up and freezing my G4 and G5 when using firewire to transfer files until I unplugged the iPod.
I found several threads from people with similar problems and tried all the suggestions (with the exception of "dropping" the iPod.)
After a week of troubleshooting, I'm finally successfully transferring files using USB 1 - it also freezes with USB 2.
This is the troubleshooting process I went through to arrive at the above conclusion:
First did the 5Rs.
Deleted and reinstalled iTunes
Followed Mitch's suggestion for using Disk Tools to reformat the iPod (successfully)
Ran some of the internal iPode diagnostic test and they indicate no problem with the drive or USB or firewire.
Ruled out iTunes as the problem because I was having the same problem when I closed iTunes and just copied files directly from the desktop to the iPod. When doing the transfers in the Finder, the Finder would freeze/lock up and I'd have to reboot.
Rules out the computer because the same thing happened with both G4 & G5.
Ruled out something in the user profile because the same thing happened when using my wife's account.
Ruled out the firewire cables because the same thing happened with two different firewire cables.
I've seen several posts from people with similar problems but no solutions. Has anyone cracked this nut? It takes FOREVER to update 40 gig with USB
Dual Processor G4 & G5 Mac OS X (10.4.6) 40 Gig 4th Gen iPod
Dual Processor G4 & G5 Mac OS X (10.4.6)

It looks like the answer to my problems was a bad hard drive. Sent it to the ipod doctor and after a $159 repair, I'm back in business http://nycipoddoctor.com/

Our iMac (intel, 11.2) freezes up when using Time Machine for Back Ups. We have 16GB of RAM and the BU drive is 1 TB on firewire.

Our iMac (intel, 11.2) freezes up when using Time Machine for Back Ups. We have 16GB of RAM and the BU drive is 1 TB on firewire.

See Pondini's TM FAQs for starters.

Firewire Target disc mode - icon is freezing

Looks like my old Powerbook is getting close to biting the dust. I've actually worn a hole in the track pad and the cursor is getting jiggy. It's running 10.3.9 and is completely full. Oh, and the screen glows a sickly color of yellow.
Honest, this thing should be in hospice.
Good news is - I have a very nice 17" Powerbook, and I've just purchased Leopard and installed it, so I can transfer a lot of my stuff from the old machine to the new one.
But... for some reason, when I connect the two with a firewire cable, and I see the icon floating around my old computer, the icon for the hard drive doesn't show up on the new machine. Also, after a few minutes, the icon that's drifting around freezes.
I've connected computers this way many times before and never had this problem, I'm guessing it's got something to do with competing operating systems. Anyway other way to get them linked, or am I going to have to transfer my data a different way?
Thanks for any help or suggestions.... I'm going to call an ambulance for my old machine now....
Jamie

In my experience, a Mac that will not run in target disk mode usually has either a hosed HD or a hosed MLB. Try Thomas's suggestion but if that does not work, you may need to pull the HD out of the "old" Mac and put it in an external enclosure. If the MLB is the issue, the drive should still work as an external. If it's the drive thats messed up, you may need to use a program like Data Rescue.

MacBook Air + Thunderbolt-Firewire Adapter + LaCie FW800 Drive = Freeze

I recently bought a new MacBook Air 13" including the TB-to-FW800 adapter from Apple. I own an older external LaCie FireWire 800 drive I want to use with.
From time to time (i.e. not always) when I connect the LaCie drive to the MacBook Air, OS X 10.8.2 freezes completely so that I have to hard reset it. Seems that someone here has a similar problem:
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1419956
Is there any solution available?
Thanks!

The only time my system freezes is if I try to boot with the thunderbolt/firewire drive connected.
I have had no problem connecting the drive after boot has been completed.
Which reminds me I need to retest now that I am at 10.8.2.

FME freezes when connecting Canon HV20 via firewire

Hoping someone can help me out. I'm using a Canon HV20 camera
as a live video stream via FME and every time I try FME will freeze
and my laptop will freeze and I have to restart. My camera settings
are DV standard and it should work.
The necessary drivers for the Canon HV20 are installed and
I'm using a firewire card in my PC laptop that to connect the
camera feed. Restarting several times still results in the same
problems.
Is there something I should modify/check on my system to
ensure it's working correctly?

Some more troubleshooting tips.
Cheers
Eddie
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PowerMac G4 FireWire 800 freezes/crashes-post modification 300GB drive

wondering if anyone one had any insight into this problem:
I recently installed a 300GB internal drive into my G4, running on the same carrier as the one that came with the computer, both on the ATA/100 bus, the rear carrier.
The system software and apps are still on the original 80GB drive and I'm using the new drive for storage.
Occasionally the computer crashes/freezes, mostly when I'm trying to shut down the computer, forceing me to force a shut down.
Wondering if moving one of the drives to the front carrier, ATA/66 bus might solve the problem? I would appreciate any help/insight anyone could give me.
-Steve Hastings
PowerMac G4 (FireWire 800) Mac OS X (10.3.9)

Apple Hardware Test is not Disk utility. its a separate ROOT type test that checks everything with your computer. normally some version of AHT came with your system discs.
Diskwarrior just checks the drive index, its like a "roadmap" program, when your run DW it checks this roadmap and will allow you rebuild the map which tells the Drive where to look for stuff. sometimes those directions get fuddled. instead of actually moving the "roads" or building new ones, DW changes the map to reflect how the data on the drive appears. DW DOES NOT physically alter your HD.
if you are having other system stability concerns you might download YASU 2.0 from versiontracker or macupdate. its donationware app that allows you to clear all sort of system caches and logs and safari junk, and run various CRON scripts from a simple GUI.

Powerbook freezes when I connect maxtor firewire drive

Ever since I installed tiger and upgraded to v 10.4.6 my G4 powerbook freezes when I connect a Maxtor firewire drive. I also recently installed Final Cut Pro Studio v 5.1. The maxtor drive mounts fine on another PB OS X 10.1.2. A Lacie firewire drive mounts fine on both computers. I can't figure it out. The powerbook with tiger crashes on startup when the maxtor firewire drive is attached or when it's just turned on. Does anyone have any solutions??

Welcome to the Apple discussion forums.
This isn't a guaranteed fix, however, did you update to 10.4.6 via software update or the combo installer? There have been some odd happenings recently when people have updated via the software update function. If you did the upgrade that way, you might try clearing your system and kernal caches (I use OnyX to do that, and other maintenance. It can be found at http://www.titanium.free.fr/pgs/english.html ). Then download the 140mb combo updater, which can be found at http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/macosx1046comboforppc.html .

Migration freezes at 3.2 gig, using firewire target drive or USB HD

I fell down the stairs while carrying my Powerbook. Screen bashed, case bent. Bought new Macbook Pro and tried to use firewire to migrate files, system always hangs when I get to about 3.2 gig. This is while using migration manager, or target drive and drag/drop. Then removed HD from old laptop and connected with USB external drive enclosure. Same exact problem. What gives? I can copy smaller folders, and I will do that if there is not a fix for this. Any ideas?
BTW, it does not matter what folder I copy, it always freezes at about 3.3 gig and locks up the finder. Thanks!
Macbook Pro Mac OS X (10.4.6)

Thank you everybody.
I just tried to copy from that HD via USB to another Mac, a 2 year old Imac with OS 10 whatever (non Intel). The really weird thing is that it also locked up at 3.24 gb; exacty the same as with the other computer. And exactly the same as if I copied another folder that was over 3.24 gig. So, 3.24 gig is magic number here.
I am almost sure that the 3.24 gig was the same spot where the trnasfer would lock when I was using target mode and firewire while this drive was still in the old broken Powerbook.
Any thoughts?
BTW, I am not a computer expert, just a Mac user for work and home applications.
Thanks again!
-Doug

Firewire drives freezing intermitantly

When I upgraded to my current G5 in 2004 I took the old drives out of my G3 and stuck them in cheap firewire cases, these never worked well but I assumed that the problem was the cheap cases.
This winter I finally got around to buying a nice dual case from OWC thinking that this would solve the problems. But it didn't.
When the drives mount they will work fine for a while, diskwarrior etc can see them and say there are no problems, but after about five minutes the drives will freeze, and lock up the OS, the only way out is a re-start or turning off the drives. (This problem is the same with either the nice new case or the old cheap ones) What is wrong?

Hello! When you ran Diskwarrior did you go ahead and replace the directory? Directory problems can cause such behavior as can firewire cables. Have you tried a different cable? Sometimes even using a different port makes a difference. Tom

IPod fails to mount or freezes iTunes through Firewire

I have an iPod Photo that I connect to my Macbook via the Firewire port. The iPod Photo supports Firewire and has worked like a charm for the past 8 months.
Recently, when I plug the iPod in it fails to mount. The iPod screen indicates that it is connected and says "Do Not Disconnect" but iTunes either fails to launch or fails to actually connect to the iPod when it is open. Further, the iPod doesn't mount on my desktop.
Other times iTunes or my entire computer will freeze up when I plug the iPod in via Firewire. My iPod hard drive makes loud noises and clicks. I suspected this was an issue with my iPod but I ran disk utility on it and it didn't find anything. I also have not had any issues with errors, harddrive failure warnings or battery failure warnings on my iPod. I also tried connecting it to my Macbook via USB 2.0 and it works flawlessly again without any issues.
Sometimes when I unplug the Firewire cable from the Macbook and plug it back in, the iPod connects to my computer and syncs to iTunes perfectly. But then after awhile it starts acting up again and I have to unplug the cable and plug it back in to get things working again.
Obviously the solution would be just to use USB 2.0 with my iPod, however I worry about my Firewire Bus. I planned on getting an external Firewire hard drive to use with my Macbook but am concerned that my Firewire Bus has gone bad.
Is anybody else having similar problems? Are their any solutions? Any way to diagnose a bad Firewire Bus? I have AppleCare, what is the replacement ordeal like?
Thanks for any help.

It's sort of hard to tell where the problem may be. If you have an iPod Photo with firewire support... it has got to be a number of years old now. There is an equally good chance that it's the firewire interface on your iPod that may be bad. The only way to confirm if it's the port on your MacBook is to try another firewire device. To me, the behavior sounds more like a problem with your iPod... but it's impossible to say for sure without being able to try something else on the port in your MacBook. If you have an Apple store nearby... I'm sure they would be able to connect a firewire "something" up just to confirm if you're having a problem with your port or not. You might want to give them a call before you go... just to be sure they have something that you could try. Now that iPods are all USB... they might not have anything on display that uses firewire (although, I doubt that).

Ipod update freeze, firewire problem, possible fix for many.

Hello all,
I've been having a problem with my ipod 3rd gen updating in much the same way as many in this forum have throughout a number of topic threads.
PROBLEM:
During song/playlist/content (not software update or restore) updating function one of two things would happen:
- update would freeze at some point of the transfer (5, 74, 687 songs in to the update) and I would have to force quite itunes and, not being able to dismount the ipod through recommended procedure, I would physically dismount the ipod and receive a scolding for improper dismounting of device.
- system would crash at some point of the transfer yielding the shaded screen and a prompt to restart the computer by depressing the front panel button for two seconds.
In each of the above cases, no matter how many songs that itunes thought it had transferred, I would only have about a dozen songs on the ipod itself, perhaps indicating a bottleneck on the G4 end of the transfer.
DEADENDS FOR ME THAT MAY STILL SOLVE PROBLEM FOR SOME:
- swaping out cables
- ipod software restore or restore to earlier version
SOLUTION:
After contacting Apple support, I was led to the opinion that the problem was with the firewire port itself. This was confirmed by attaching my ipod with my cable to a roomates G5 resulting in a faultless transfer of his song library. I was ready to go out and purchase a new firewire PCI card but decided to research firewire problems in the G4 folder of Discussions. This is where I found the fix to my problem (see links at bottom of document). It would seem that Mac ports, both firewire and USB, have a tendency to bog down after awhile and need to be reset. This can be a addressed by one of three possible solutions. The first and easiest was the solution that worked for me (for other solutions please follow links at bottom of page):
- powered down and disconnected all firewire and USB cables from the G4
- disconnected power cable from G4 (for laptops I would guess that the battery would need to be removed, not sure if that causes any other problems though, please research)and let sit for about 30 minutes.
- reconnected all cables and restarted computer. Ports should be reset at that point
- I took the added measure to restart my computer once with nothing attached to USB and firewire ports and then powering down with front panel button before connecting cables and proceding with final restart.
RESULT:
Faultless transfer of 37.6 gigs of content in less that 45 minutes.
LINKS:
http://discussions.info.apple.com/webx?128@@.68bb1cb3
Dale Weisshaar, "Security Update killed my firewire ports" #1, 08:28pm Sep 27, 2005 CDT
Good Luck
GKE

This worked perfectly for me!!!
SOMEBODY PLEASE TAG THIS POST!!!
i have had the problem that everyone has posted about (i.e. - updated iTunes/iPod software and had the update/freeze problem, tried all solutions, to no avail, and was pretty much screwed.)
JUST DO EXACTLY WHAT HE SAYS TO DO (powermac g5, by the way):
1) power down the computer
2) unplug EVERYTHING (usb, firewire, power, monitor, etc.)
3) leave unplugged for 30 minutes
4) plug power back in
5) power up from main power button
6) wait for computer to start back up, then shut down from power button
7) plug everything back in and power up
8) restart once more for good measure
9) update your ipod
10) take a sigh of relief!
you are seriously a godsend...only one thing...I BOUGHT A NEW ONE ALREADY!!! i literally bought it the day that you posted this solution. After a month and a half of trying to fix this problem, i finally gave up and bought a 20GB iPod Photo with applecare...cost me about $380.
no matter, i think i'm gonna sell my "older" ipod to my mom or dad. they'll use it doing whatever they do. plus, that way, if there's any problem, i can fix it for them without feeling bad about screwing over some stranger.
thanks again, this solution worked perfectly.

Firewire freezes

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