FW400 and FW800

Hi.
Okay, so recently I got a FW400 PCMCIA card to give me a dedicated buss for running FW400 devices off of, so that I could utilise the full potential of my FW800 external hard drive on the internal buss.
But, I've noticed that, when the FW400 PCMCIA card is connected, the connection speed on my FW800 internal buss drops down to FW400 (I am checking this via the System Profiler).
I am stumped, since as far as I know, this shouldn't happen, since both busses should be independent of each other.
As soon as I power down and remove the PCMCIA card, the internal buss speed goes back up to FW800.
Does anybody have any ideas why this is happening?
Thanks,
onlyone-jc.

Yes, you'll find that here: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=442212&tstart=30
It has been archived for some reason, thus no more posts can be added to it, otherwise I would have posted there instead. It seems no resolution was found either, so maybe somebody can post a resolution up in here?
Both busses (the Powerbook's internal FireWire buss, and the FireWire buss provided by the PCMCIA card) should remain independent, and thus allow the internal buss to remain open at 800Mbps transfer speeds. But, that doesn't seem to be the case here?
The only way that a FW400 device should prioritise itself over a FW800 device, would be if they were both connected to the Powerbook ports, in which are both connected to the same FireWire buss, thus meaning that they are not able to act independently of each other.
As was said in the linked thread, surely there's a way to prioritise either buss, or something similar?
Can anybody help? Are there any official Apple technicians around here? Or, somebody with the right know-how?
Thanks,
onlyone-jc.

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The much debated FW400 and FW800 issue, my final verdict.

Ok, so there has been many conflicting theoretical opinions on how FW400 and FW800 work together on the Macbook Pro's. So I went ahead and conducted some tests with my Triple Interface WD Mybook Pro 500GB and M-Audio Firewire Solo using XBench 1.3
You can see the figures at http://memo.tv/mbp_fwtests.htm. (If I had used a FW800 Stripe set such as the Mybook Pro 1GB the difference in performance would probably be much bigger as the current bottle neck in some of these tests is probably the disk and not the interface).
My results indicate that:
Running the disk on its own in FW800 with no FW audio interface provides by far the best HDD performance
As soon as you connect a FW400 device, the FW800 performance drops to FW400 levels. It does not matter whether the FW400 is daisy chained off the FW800, or connected to a seperate FW400 - the disk always drops to FW400 - and for a £2K 'professional' machine that s*cks big fat donkey b*lls
Even having the disk on its own on FW400, seems better than connecting it on FW800 and having another FW400 device connected (that makes sense I guess).
I had no audio dropouts in any config while the tests were running.
Running iTunes and streaming audio (from radio) while the tests were running had no/minimal impact on test results
USB2 performance for disks are a helluva lot slower than FW400 and should be avoided if any kind of disk performance is needed.
I guess this clears up the myth that if you daisy chain a FW400 device off a FW800, the FW800 works at full bandwidth.
Now of course these are the results that I got. I don't know if I have a healthy mac or not! So I am very eager to find out how other people's mac respond to similar tests... so if you are in doubt, please go and download xbench, try a few different configs, run the Disk Test every time, and lets see the results!
cheers,
MacBook Pro C2D 17" Mac OS X (10.4.9) Week 46 Build

to be fair, not even the desktop macs come with more than one firewire buss built in. many ports, yes. but one buss. so, when you realise that your requirements will outstrip the bandwidth you can get from that one buss, you have to consider your other options. luckily for you, you have a macbook pro, which has a PCexpress card slot. this means you can actually add another _totally independent_ firewire 800 buss, via a card. you'd have to do the same thing on a mac pro tower if you needed it, just with a different kind of card.
I doubt that there are many if any laptops available that come with more than one firewire buss built-in, regardless of how many ports they put on them. so your £2K machine isn't really the ripoff that you are feeling it is.. particularly given that it has this vital expansion capability via the PCexpress slot, which will resolve your firewire issues perfectly via the addition of an inexpensive card.
you can even choose to buy an eSATA card instead of a FW800 one, and use an external drive with an eSATA connector. this will give you even faster disk performance than FW800, and still leave your built-in firewire buss free for your audio interface.
btw, one thing you should know. m-audio are notorious for bad drivers. it's quite common for users of other firewire audio interfaces (like RME for example) to have far less, or even no drop out issues at all in sharing a drive and the interface on the one buss. it's possible that it's just your m-audio device that refuses to make any effort to share the buss bandwidth with your drive. and it's also possible that your western digital drive is not a good player on mac firewire either. I recall reading somewhere about WD drives having some issues or less than optimal performance on macs.
in any case, the suggestion of using an inexpensive card to add another high speed buss to your machine will work regardless of what your devices are and how bad or good their firewire use is, cos they'll then have their own uninterrupted buss.

Daisy chain fw400 and fw800 bad?

I have two lacie rugged external hds that I want to connect to my mbp. Both drives have 1 fw400, 1 fw800 and 1 usb2 connection. I was going to daisy chain the drives via fw800 and then connect one of the drives to my mbp via fw400. I was told by a reputable professional that mixing ports when daisy chaining will cause problems and prove to be unreliable. What do you guys think?
Thanks,
Dave

When chaining always have the fastest drive first (closest), otherwise it will run at the slower speed i.e. MBP - Firewire800 - Firewire400

Mixing HDs with FW400 and FW800 in a daisy chain

I have a 360GB with two FW ports and two Quadra D2s with one FW400 and two FW800 ports. Using the three HDs -
Can I Connect FW400 to FW400 then out via FW800 into FW800 then out via FW400 into my eMac?

So it would seem that no matter how the two FW types are threaded between the three HDs the route is open and the chain runs at the 'slower' speed..
As I have yet to format one of the Quadra's can I put it into the chain and then Format it, or should it be formatted with the orher two HDs diconnected from the chain?
Cheers

Using iMovie6 with projects on external FW400 and FW800 drives ...SLOW!

Shouldn't iMovie6 work smoothly with movie projects stored on external Firewire 400 or 800 hard-drives?____ ...or am I expecting too much?!!
With the FW400 drive, the performance I'm experiencing is unacceptable. It's excruciatingly slow (even simply mouse/slider movements take forever) and the playback is so choppy, it's useless. (this is after converting an iMovie3 project to iMovie6 -- could this be a factor too?__)
Those on FW800 seem to work better (as they should) but even though the audio seems OK, the video playback is very jerky and it still takes a few seconds for it to respond to any mouse action.
Is FW400 simply too slow for iMovie?____
I presume USB2.0 would be just as bad.

Is FW400 simply too slow for iMovie?
Both types of FireWire drives should work fine. I'd look for another cause.
If your camcorder is a Canon, search the forum for how to avoid FireWire conflicts.
Otherwise, perhaps there's a clue here:
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=1852869#1852869
Try resetting your FireWire ports? Disconnect all FireWire devices, do a Shut Down, disconnect your Mac's power cord from the wall outlet, wait 15 minutes, then reboot.
Karl

Using FW400 and FW800 devices simultaneously

I noticed that as I am using my external FW400 iSight camera that Time Machine suspends backups on my FW800 G-Drive. Is the FW800 logic sharing logic resources with FW400?

There's only a single Firewire Bus ... when connecting two devices of different speeds always connect the fastest to the MBP first then the slower one into that i.e. put the fastest link in the chain first or all devices will operate at the slower speed.

Firewire Problem - But which Interface (FW400 or FW800)?

I'm running 10.4.11 on a Dual 2.5 GHz G5. I've recently started getting errors like the following:
Feb 4 20:45:11 G5 kernel[0]: /SourceCache/AppleFWOHCI/AppleFWOHCI-253.4.1/AppleFWOHCI.cpp 3539: ERROR: FireWire (OHCI) Apple ID 42 built-in: handleUnrecoverableErrorInt
Feb 4 20:45:24 G5 kernel[0]: FireWire (OHCI) Apple ID 42 built-in: 151 bus resets in last minute.
Feb 4 20:48:36 G5 kernel[0]: FireWire (OHCI) Apple ID 42 built-in: 94 bus resets in last minute.
Feb 4 20:51:48 G5 kernel[0]: FireWire (OHCI) Apple ID 42 built-in: 73 bus resets in last minute.
I have numerous hard drives connected to both FW400 and FW800 ports. I also have an EyeTV 500 connected to FW400.
My question is, to shorten the troubleshooting process, does anyone know if this message is specific to the FW400 or the FW800 bus?
For that matter, does this suggest a software issue, or a hardware issue with an external device, or a hardware issue with the FW interface inside the G5?
Any thoughts on a fix would be most appreciated!
Thanks!
-- Jim

Hi-
My question is, to shorten the troubleshooting process, does anyone know if this message is specific to the FW400 or the FW800 bus?
Not sure which port is using the ID 42.
I do know that all ports, FW400 and 800 use the same controller and power supply.
The total power available to the combined firewire ports is 15 watts.
It could very well be that you have an excessive power draw on one of the ports, thus causing the continual reset of the bus.
I have numerous hard drives connected to both FW400 and FW800 ports. I also have an EyeTV 500 connected to FW400.
Of these, how many have their own power supply? If relying mostly on bus power (no external supply) then the power draw could very well be the issue.
As well, daisy chaining can result in oddities and errors due to various external device controller chips.
Rather than daisy chaining, placing a powered hub (repeater) between the tower and the devices can eliminate power and controller conflicts.
For that matter, does this suggest a software issue, or a hardware issue with an external device, or a hardware issue with the FW interface inside the G5?
My initial feeling is that this is due to external hardware factors.
Unfortunately, disconnection of all devices, and adding one at a time is the only way that I know how to troubleshoot.
I've checked all the Developer pages available, and cannot find a document describing the FW port ID assignment.
BTW, I don't care how many makers say that you can daisy chain 62 devices per port. This may be the capability of the FW controller to ID each device, but *does not* address power draw and controller conflict issues.
I have seen too many reports of trouble with daisy chaining, or overloading the FW bus power supply, to believe the marketing hype regarding this matter......

Lacie Extreme mounts with USB and FW800 but not FW400

Shows as USB and FW800 only on Powerbook G4 1.67 15" 10.4.9 2Gb
I'm not being dismissive but I have explored all obvious options;
Drive mounts OK FW400 on another Mac with the same cable.
Shows in System Profiler on all three interfaces on other Mac.
FW CD writer exhibits identical symtoms.
Any ideas please?
Cheers

Hi,
I've just bought a brand new LaCie rugged 80GB USB 2.0 hard drive. It came with 2 cables. One for power from the powerbook and the other to transer data. The manual said "no drivers or installation is required. The drive should mount in a few seconds after plugging it in." 3 attempts - LaCie just doesn't mount. I have no idea what to do. Please HELP!!
Thanks
Powerbook G4 Aluminium Mac OS X (10.4.10) 1GB Ram

Mac Pro USB and FW800 ports not working

I've been reading tons of forum entries in the Apple Support Community and in other forums. Nothing seems to answer quite what's going on with my Mac Pro Tower.
Here are the details and steps taken up to now:
- I'm running a Mac Pro Tower (MacPro 3,1, 2x 2,8GHz Quad Core, Early 2008 model), currently running OS 10.6.8
- I moved before the holidays in December and left my computer unplugged for over month while away. Didn't have any issues before the move.
- up until the last couple of weeks, I had actually been running on Leopard (yes, I'm a luddite!, please, no teasing )
- I was trying to update my ipod touch's iOS and kept getting errors preventing it from completing the process. At first I thought it was an ipod app causing the issue after having read a few threads on that topic...
- Also, on startup, the Mac started searching for a Bluetooth keyboard, of which I don't have, and would not detect my usb keyboard. I would disconnect and reconnect the keyboard and the majority of the time, the Mac would then recognize my USB keyboard.
- I decided to upgrade to Snow Leopard, which didn't help with the iPod update. I did not do a clean install.
- Then I noticed that my USB stick wasn't working and tried it in all the usb ports (except the ones on the keyboard)
- Also, I had removed and then reinstalled printer and scanner drivers for my All-in-one printer. After this I kept getting constant communication errors between the mac and the printer via the usb port, although I was able to print a test page.
- I've used Hardware Test once which didn't detect any issue.
- I reset the SMC
- I reset the PRAM, and for a few seconds I was able to read from my USB stick, then never again, even after another PRAM reset.
- I've cleaned the whole inside of the computer and checked for loose cables. Cables are in so tight it's so hard to loosen them!
- I now tested all the ports:
     ∞ the 2 front and 3 back USB ports are unresponsive to my usb key and to my VoyagerQ dock
     ∞ the front and back FW800 ports are unresponsive to my VoyagerQ dock
     ∞ However, the keyboard works in any fo the back ports and my USB stick is recorgnized by the USB port of the keyboard.
     ∞ I also plugged in my Logitech webcam into the keyboard and it works there but not in any other port.
     ∞ When I plug in USB powered speakers into any of the ports, they work fine
     ∞ And the FW400 ports are also working fine with my VoyagerQ dock
- a few times, including once today, my mac restarted by itself. The times before today, I thought it was because I was sort of moving back the computer in place, but today I was nowhere near the computer.
So what does this all mean? Should I do a clean install of the Mac OS? Or is it a problem with my Logic Board?
Any insight please would be helpful. I had Apple Care and missed the reminder to renew it so I really hoping not to spend more money than necessary.

Thanks Grant,
The battery is a start and something inexpensive to replace.
I did do a PRAM reset (command + option + P + R) and was able to hear the chime 4 times. I tried resetting it a number of times over the past week, as well as yesterday with no success in reviving the USB ports. But isn't it weird that my USB powered speakers work by plugging them in any USB port (with the mini jack pugged in the back or front earphone plug)?
I did not use the USB ports on the keyboard until yesterday, so that is not the cause of the other USB and FW800 ports failing. But I'll follow your suggestion and not use them except for the mouse.
Another weird thing that happened yesterday, I have 16GB of RAM and I spent all day trying to troubleshoot a RAM issue that is magically fixed after leaving the computer on overnight to do an extended Hardware Test. The issue was:
- Only 8 RAMS were being recognized
- a red LED light appeared on the top riser
- first I thought I had isolated the faulty RAM bar, and then a second one
- Then going pair by pair again, I no longer saw the LED light
- Put back all 8 bars, only 8 GB of RAM recognized
- Left computer overnight running Hardware test (said it took almost 3 hours, with no errors)
- Now all 16 GB are recognized!
Thanks again for the tips

Fw800 --- fw400 and dependability

How dependable is it to use a fw800 connection with an adapter for fw400? The 15" macbookpro, lacking the fw800 needs to be connected to a fw800 external drive for use with final cut pro. If only I had waited for the 17"......I presume that the drive will then function as a fw400....thanks

I have a portable 7200 rpm drive connected to firewire 400 and unless I am transfering a large drive I really do not notice much of a difference. It has been cnnected for a week and it works jsut fine. I have a cable that is fireweire 800 on one end and fw400 on the other, works great!
Mark

Logic board swap fw400 to fw800

My 867Dual died and all indications seemed to point to the logic board.
So I swapped the cpu into a FW800 1ghz (shell from parted psu) because they share the same 133 bus.
It works and I haven't had anything strange happen
Anyone else do this?
Now I can use the newer wireless card.
I also want to try this with my main unit a dual 1mhz mdd fw400.
Any reason not to be doing this?

Running fine, and I found out it was the AGP card that failed causing the no start.
Anyways, I have a dual 867FW800 waiting for an airport card

Possible to swap MDD FW400 for FW800 logic board?

Hello all,
I'd thought I would ask this question because I have been thinking about this. Currently, have a dual 1.25 2003 model(not earlier MDD!) MDD G4 with the 2MB L3 per processor.
I just received today my airport extreme USB netgear device and I must say plugged into the USB 2.0 5-port card I have it is even faster than the Belkin PCI F5D7000 card! But, my question is concerning something else.
FW800 logic board - is it really worth it for me to swap current FW400 board with the FW800 board? 2ndly, can I use my existing MDD case or do I have to find another case? My power supply is a 360w power supply. I am not sure if it is a quieter one or not. The date on my power mac G4 2003 says: copyright June 2003(or was it July?) Apple computer. - Does this entail that the FW800 machines came out the same time as mine did? Again, I don't have the original MDD(867,1gh,1.25), I have the last dual bootable OS 9.2.2 MDD machine from 2003.
Also, is the airport extreme card going to produce faster results that the netgear WG111V2.0 USB device I currently have plugged into my USB 2.0 pci card? One thing I did notice is that I can no longer put my computer into hibernation or deep sleep, since I now have the USB 2.0 netgear wireless device attached.
Can anyone confirm if there is a way around for the sleep/hibernate function to work even with the USB 2.0 device plugged in? I also removed the Belkin wireless PCI card(FD57000). Before the USB 2.0 device, my computer would goto sleep and hibernate normally.
Thanks!

*9.x and Internet*: shouldn't be a problem with Ethernet. Forget which control panels you'll need to play with TCP/IP, Network? So if you want faster Internet with the MDD in 9.x, go with Ethernet -- the regular Airport card will work in 9.x by the way. That's the reason why for faster wireless, I'm going to buy the new Airport Express (with wireless -n), and connect via WDS to my Airport Extreme -- the MDD will connect to the Express via Ethernet which should be fine in both 9.x and OS X.
I did this once before my the original Airport Express (wireless -g) and an old Linksys all-in-one that supported WDS. But the Linksys blew its ethernet ports, so I replaced it with a newer model that doesn't support WDS.
*Copper heatsink* should fit any MDD CPU card, I've tried mine on both a Dual 867 and 1.25GHz cards, although I'm using a Verax cooler on the 1.25GHz Dual. The copper contact plate while narrow (about 1.5 cm) is a long piece, so it would contact both single and dual CPUs. As for the 1.25GHz dual in particular, see here.
Just a tip, use some good thermal compound, like Artic Silver. You'll need to clean off the old compound on your CPUs. I used Articlean (also made by Artic silver), works great. They sell a kit with both cleaner and purifier (preparation compound for the thermal compounds).
*Dual 1.25 2003*. I think the best way may be to check the model number. According to everymac.com, it should be M9145LL/A. I'm sure the info's also on Apple's site somewhere. The last 2003 1.25Ghz have 2MB L3 cache, which is easy enough to see in say System Profiler. If you're seeing 2MB L3, then you know you've got the CPU from the last 2003 model. As for the motherboard, you'd probably have to check the assembly number under the modem to insure a 2003 motherboard, but I don't think that matters as much as the CPU.
The CPU cards from MDDs and G4 XServes are pretty much interchangable --setting aside the issue of 133MHz and 167Mhz front side buses, which could overclock or underclock depending on CPU card & motherboard combination. And reading around there's an incompatibility with certain MDD Dual 1.0GHz on certain motherboards.
You could put an early 1.25GHz dual with only 1MB L3 on a 2003 MDD motherboard; for that matter you could stick a 1.42GHz dual from a FW800 MDD on your 2003 MDD motherboard, which some people have done. I guess if you're seeing Dual 1.25GHz w/1MB L3 advertised as the last 2003 MDDs, then people might not know what they're talking about, or may have replaced the CPU. The 1MB L3 versions cost less.
FW800, indeed if you want it, you can always add a card later. Since the MDDs don't have USB2, for that you'll need a card as I think you've already done. But there's always a worry of eating the slots. While rare, there are some combo USB2/FW800 cards. Problem with a combo cards over separate cards is that there's usually a performance hit on the FW side. A friend of mine has one that suffers from this -- like 7-10MB/sec hit. I recently bought a Siig combo FW800/USB2 and there's not nearly the performance hit; FW800 is only a few ticks less in MB/sec compared to my FW800 only card. In my DA, I didn't see any deep sleep issues with the Siig card, but every Mac is different. I've haven't tested it in a MDD, yet.
I'm working on getting two MDDs working (long story), so I have my hands full. Can't say I love the MDDs yet, but I certainly been bit by the tinkering/upgrading bug. So I'm have fun getting my two MDDs together that are both very close to being ready -- I need to stress test them before moving over my HDs/data, cards, etc.

FW400? FW800? Nah.. Try FW3200 for speed...

4 times FW800 speed, with the same cabling and connectors.. Nice... maybe soon enough we won't have to worry about FW bottlenecks...
More info:
http://www.sonicstate.com/news/shownews.cfm?newsid=5783

Geez,..... I think about what was going on 20 years ago.. what we have now, and what we will get in maybe a year or two.... scares the pooey outta me...! but it sounds exciting...!

Cables and FW800

does anyone know if there are cables that can transfer between a Canon HV20 (4 pin FW) and the FW800?

Australian sources:
http://www.macfixit.com.au/shop/index.php?_a=viewCat&catId=127
http://www.cablechick.com.au/cables/computer-cables_firewire-1394-cables.htm?ref =1007&tc=firewire&gclid=CNHxrvSHhJkCFRBbagodwGo8lg
https://www.lindy.com.au/online/arrshop.exe?anonymous=true&cat=qb

Connecting FW400 disconnects FW800 device

I bought a 2 bay FW 800 drive box which uses the Oxford 924dsb which is a highly regarded chipset from what I have read. I use one drive for Time Machine, the other was to be for video capture.
I have captured from my FW 400 DV camcorder successfully to the internal drive.
If I connect the camcorder to the FW 400 port (on either the drive box or the iMac) it disconnects my FW 800 drives AND the camcorder won't show as available.
Is there a problem using the these firewire buses at the same time?
I can capture to the internal and then transfer iMovie 09 events to the external later, but that isn't really what I wanted to do.
Thanks,
Jeremy

I believe the two ports share the same total available power. I was thinking about the fact that the hard drive may supply power to its daisy-chain port. But since a hard drive is NOT a hub, and a hub is more than just wired connections (it acts as a distributor and a repeater), maybe the daisy-chain makes total connection length too long and/or does not supply additional power. I'm not sure... I guess you can test the power part by turning on the drive while it is disconnected from the iMac and attaching the camcorder (to the daisy-chain port) to see if it receives power (but maybe the drive is smart enough to not turn on if there is no live connection to the iMac).
The FireWire hub would be a good thing to have. I have one because I have a video camera and an iPod that I attach and detach often, and I don't want to wear out the port in the iMac. And FireWire ports have been known to fry (it happened to me once with a Power Mac G5), so I'd rather risk the hub with hot-swapping instead of the iMac's direct port. The other port is always connected to a FireWire drive, and if I ever need to remove that direct connection (or the other connection to the hub), I power off the iMac and then remove it.

FW400 and FW800

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