G5 1.8GHz PowerPC 3GB SDRAM FIREWIRE PORT PROBLEM

The firewire port on the front of my machine is bad. I can't transfer any kind of data using it. The port on the back as well as all USB ports work fine. Would this need a complete motherboard replacement? Would it even be worth doing? Could I build a dual processing machine or buy one cheaper? I bought this machine off ebay (never again) less than a year ago for around $800. Thanks for any ideas.
Darrell

Reset the ports first. Unplug all FW devices, shut down, remove pwoer cord & wait 5 minutes. If that won't help get a Sonnet PCI FW card to add additional ports vs. a repair if that is all that is wrong with it. Or for similar money get a LaCie Porsche FW DVD drive , put that on the desktop and use the other port in back to replace the front port that is dead.

Similar Messages

Mac G5 firewire porting problem.

Hello,
I am having a problem with my G5 Powermac firewire porting.
Everything was working fine until we physically moved the mac and peripherals to another office. Now the Firewire drive is not recognized and the Sony DSR45 cannot connect.
Whats really wierd is if I have the Sony DSR45 turned on and I go into the view menu in FCP Studio 6, I can checkmark the "all frames" and it won't change anything. If I turn the deck off, I can change the setting and it will stay changed.
I have tried shutting down the Mac, turning off the DSR45, wait ten minutes, turn on the DSR45, turn on the Mac, the Firewire drive is not recognized and neither is the DSR45.
How do I get the Mac to re-port the firewire ports?
I am using the 800 firewire connection for the Firewire drive.
This all worked fine before moving the system to another office.
Any help is greatly appreciated.
Ymir

Try resetting the PRAM. This resets the presence of all hardware devices. Start up holding the keys: command, option, P, R. Hold these keys for 3-chimes and release. Hope this helps.
Best Regards

Slow boot up of 2008 macbook pro - Firewire port problem?

My 2008 15" macbook pro mostly works fine, but whenever I shut it down or restart it (as opposed to just sending it to sleep) it gets stuck trying to reboot. It usually takes several attempts, and so far, eventually starts if I leave it for a while, like a few hours.
I try all the basic things, resetting Pvram, trying safety mode, checking the disk for errors in disk utility, but they don't help at all.
It's been like this for about 6 months now, I mostly just never shut it down as it wakes up from sleep mode fine. But I'd like to find out what the problem is as every time I need to restart it I panic that it will never come back on again. Recently I booted it in verbose mode to see what the problem is and I'm getting a never ending error message saying something like this:
FIrewire (OHCI) TI ID 8025 built-in: handleUnrecoverableErrorInt
Seems like it's a problem wth my Firewire Port? I have never used Firewire, so wondered if I could just disable it somehow? my problem seems similar to this guy:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/9001641?searchText=Long%20boot%20up%20time s%202008%2015%22%20Macbook%20pro%20-%20firewire%20port%20problem?
But I'm a bit clueless so I'm not sure if his problem is the same... mine seems to be mostly related to boot up rather than kernal panic (I have no idea what that is to be honest!) and I don't want to just try his fix and break my computer!
My cd/dvd drive also stopped working around the same time, coincidentally the above post also says his drive is not working, I'm not sure if the two issues could be related?
Any thoughts advice much appreciated!
P.S. The machine has already had a new motherboard and graphics card put in by Apple as per the recall on this model

Ok, I copied the guy in the above thread and disabled my firewire by deleting this file:
/System/Library/Extensions/IOFireWireFamily.kext
Tested it a couple of times and it seems to have solved my slow boot up problem! I'm down from a 3 hour boot up to a minute or so!
Now, bizarrely, it won't shut down properly... I get stuck at a grey screen when I try to shut down, so I just have to press the dreaded power button. No idea why, but still, I'd rather it powered up properly, so I guess I'll just leave it as it is, I rarely shut it down fully anyway.

Firewire Port problem

For the past few months I have connected an Iomega Black Belt (Mac edition) external hard drive to my MacBook Pro with the Firewire. I use it for my Time Machine and also for backing up my photos.
On Sunday I went to plug in the drive to do my backups and the computer shut down. I didn't think anything of it at the time as I had just shut down mail and thought I must have had a "blonde moment" and shut down the computer instead. So I restarted the computer (and there was no warning saying that the computer had not been shut down properly) with the hard drive plugged in and the computer could not find the drive. So I unplugged the cable from the 1st port on the hard drive and into the second. The computer still couldn't find it. So I pulled the plug from the computer and went to plug it back in and the computer shut down again. Just went black. No warning.
If I plug into the USB, there is no problem.
So I was wondering, if anyone else has had this issue, if it was a hardware or software problem. I had done a software update on friday which included Thunderbolt and was wondering if that might have caused the problem.
I am running 10.6.8 on a MacPro.
Thank you for any help.

You seem to have a lot of peripherals, so I'll ask this question. Is everything that is powered connected through one power-strip that is connected to one wall socket? I know a person whose external FireWire drive started to become unreliable. Turns out, he had one too many devices connected to that power-strip. Spreading them out to two wall sockets and two power-strips resolved the problem.

Sony digital8 camcorder via firewire port, is it digital or analog?

hi all,
I was successful to view & record from my Sony digital8 cam via firewire port. I'd like to know, is this connection analog or digital? Has anyone been successful to record, back up and edit their precious home videos on a G4 PowerMac? And how many DVD discs will it take on a full Digital8 cartridge?
Thanks for your help
Web dude

is this connection analog or digital?
A Firewire port is all digital.
Has anyone been successful to record, back up and edit their precious home videos on a G4 PowerMac?
Yes. Before the G5 came out, many people used G4s (and some still do) to edit not only home videos, but commercial television programs as well.
how many DVD discs will it take on a full Digital8 cartridge?
A standard DVD-5 (single layer disc) will hold about two hours of DVD-Video ... video AFTER it's been properly compressed to meet the DVD-Video standard.
However, if you're asking about raw footage (not compressed more than it was recorded), you should be able to get close to 14 minutes of footage per 4.7gb disc. Digital8 uses the DV codec which requires about 13.3gb per hour of footage. If you recorded the tape in SP mode, you should be able to get just over 1 hour of footage per tape.
-DH

Firewire port previously working now not recognized

Hello,
I understand this particular issue has been discussed at length on this forum and in other places but none of the solutions have yielded any success for me and I see this is often the case for others. So, I'm posting the question again in hopes that there is an Apple guru out there who has figured this one out. (All relevant specs below.)
Problem: Firewire port was working fine for downloading video from a Panasonic PV-GS320 into iMovie 8.0 on an iMac 10.5.8. Then, suddenly the firewire port was no longer recognized:
FireWire Bus:
Warning:          Unable to list FireWire devices.
Maximum Speed:          Up to 800 Mb/sec
The problem cannot be with the camera or cable as I can swap them over to an iBook 10.4 and the camera and firewire download perfectly there.
I have run AHT. Test results show no hardware problems.
I've tried all of these suggestions:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=88338
http://macperformanceguide.com/blog/2011/20110808_0_Firewire800--howto.html
and quite a number of other solutions that involve rebooting SMC and PRAM but no dice.
I'm guessing this might be some kind of driver or software issue. There's got to be a simple solution to kick this thing in the butt and get it working again. I'd prefer not to do an OS re-install if I can avoid it.
Thanks much! Below are the specs:
iMac: 10.5.8
2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
Firewire: 800 Mb/sec

Hi Tom,
I've had an opportunity to try all of the options listed on those links. I did omit one however, the Combo Update for 10.5.8. I hesitate to pursue this one b/c from what I can understand this 1GB's worth of update is basically a reinstall of the OS. I'd prefer not to take such a drastic action b/c I'm in the middle of editing a documentary and I don't want any other hardware or software to malfunction or alter behavior while I'm in mid-stream.
Let me know if I'm mistaken about this. As it stands the Combo Update is my last option, otherwise I'm just going to move forward with a dead port.
Just as a sidenote: the behavior of the firewire recognition has changed. Now, the system does not recognize the firewire plugged in at all. I used to get an error message, now nothing.
Thanks Tom and BDAqua.
If anyone else is reading this post I'd like to hear from someone who has experienced the same problem and found a/the solution.
Best Regards,
-J Mann

BSODs lock ups and flakey firewire port - help ??

Okay I'm really getting fustrated over this laptop it's nearly 2 weeks old
and I've already had 2 BSODs the odd crash where the mouse moves but nothing
else around it works so a forced reboot was needed.
Today I had a BSOD all i did was run some untility from the taskbar called
network doctor or something.
error message:
PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA (no address information supplied)
STOP: 0x00000000050
someone suggested that I may have a memory problem or my page file is corrupt.
anyway here's a run down on what i've installed so far with my laptop.
- Installed all XP security updates and patches
- Installed Firefox 1.0.1 (don't trust IE6.0 yet)
- Installed iriver download manager (my mp3 player)
- Installed winamp 2.0 and Creative Notebook Cam.
I've ran a forced boot chkdsk and no problems found.
Another thing I found interesting was nearly everytime my laptop bsods I usually
find a a yellow marker over my 1394 net adapter (firewire port) in device mananger
("cannot start device") don't know if that's related or not. A reboot seems to
clear this yellow marker but I am rather unhappy BSODs are no laughing matter.
My laptop model is the Equium A60-181 (Intel P4 HT 3.2Ghz 512Mb RAM)
Anyone else had similar problems or recommendations?
cheers,
Richard S.

Hi Richard
I understand you that you are unhappy with this all problems but there can be a lot of reasons for that. In my opinion this can happened because of some unnecessary update or some drivers installed by third-party software that you installed on your notebook.
Please reinstall OS using Recovery CD. After firs boot check in device manager if there is some hardware problem. If not you than try to start Config free (Connectivity doctor) and some other Toshiba tools to check if everything is ok.
If everything is ok try to install SP2 if you dont have it on your machine (just SP2 and not separately updates and patches). I am not sure but some of A60 are delivered with SP2.
Install all your programs slowly and follow carefully what happened after every step that you done.

Why would the Firewire Port and/or External DVD-RW suddenly not work?

Hi, it's me again. I swear, I must be destined to just use Windows machines...
Anyways, I have a used/refurbished iBook G3 500MHz 320MB RAM Dual USB (1 Firewire)laptop running OS 10.2.8 that I bought a few months ago. I went and purchased an external Firewire/USB 2.0 DVD-RW drive as I only had a CD-ROM drive on my machine and I wanted the option to burn CD's or watch/read data from DVD's (I know that with my slow processor writing DVD's -other than data- would be a stretch and have other machines to do that with anyways so it wasn't a concern really). I received it and installed it, also installed the free version of Toast that came with it, and the drive worked fine. I have not needed to use the drive since then and have not used the laptop much at all since then really, but I do need to say that I did end up adding a new user account, though I can't remember if I changed the original Admin account and then still have the one I created myself when I first started the laptop after I bought it (had a fresh install of Jaguar on it, but I have no disk to re-install with if needed) or if I created a separate (new) account and ended up deleting the Original Admin accout (I know in Windows, you cannot delete the original Admin account but I do not know if that is the same for OSX or not). I did this as I wanted a master Admin account that I just wouldn't really use and then wanted the other as my main account (and use it to connect to my home windows network) and for some reason it would not let me put a check in the box to allow that account to do so (from either Apple or my user accounts) and so I know that my main user account now is set up to allow it (was it the old Apple user account or a new one, I can't remember- sorry).
Ok, so that is the back story to my problem, which happens to be this:
I just bought a new chip of RAM (512MB to make it a machine with 576MB RAM total) and as I had been looking at getting OSX Tiger (but didn't want to do it without the extra ram and had been considering Panther instead as well), I thought it was necessary if I wanted to not bog down my machine. I bought the Install Disks on DVD for Panther, as well as an upgrade disk (DVD again) for Tiger, therefore letting me use the External Firewire DVD-RW to install Panther, and if I liked I could go ahead and upgrade to Tiger (and if I didn't like it too much, or it slowed things down too much etc, then I could always go back to panther and have both available for future options). The extra RAM coming in handy here definitely.
So I was going to install the RAM today, and decided to go ahead and test out the External DVD to make sure it could boot from it (before making any changes to my system) and then go and install the RAM, and after that, install Panther to start... But I plugged all the cords and cables in, used my laptop with AC power even, and I could not get the External to show up at all... (kinda like the very current post right below mine but for the G4- it worked before, but now the firewire External just does not show up).
I only have USB 1.1 on this laptop obviously, and I don't even know if you could do a boot from an external with USB 2.0 if my laptop had it (the DVD player does). I was recommended to boot with an external firewire DVD or firewire to another machine with DVD capabilities to do the install. So my problem right now is getting slightly bigger, as of course, I can't seem to momentarily find the stuff that came with the External (spare USB cable to check and see if the laptop will recognize it at least with that and to show it is the firewire that is not working properly, or the disk that I used to install it -might have been only used to install Toast free version if it didn't need any drivers, but I don't know where that or the instructions for installation sheet currently is -- I am looking for it, but I have switched bedrooms just last week and I also seem to be missing a few other Windows laptop disks as well so there is a good chance that they are all together, I just need to figure out where, heh.)
I am waiting currently before installing the memory, though if I don't get the External working tonight, I may go ahead and do it first as at least I will have more memory on my laptop then, until I can get other stuff functioning and be able to do the Panther install.
But my main question is, is there something that would cause an installed external to suddenly not show up in OSX? Since I hadn't used it since that one day, and it was unplugged from the laptop itself, would that end up doing it, or more likely, the changing of the user accounts (though I have been trying to test it with different types of media and through both of my user account (which are both "admin" ones), though I do still have one of those being an account that was on there when the External DVD was first installed, so it really shouldn't have done this at all (one would think). So how big of a chance is it that the firewire has somehow gone dead and this is the main culprit to my wasting the past 4 hours on this???
I am currently scavenging around for an extra USB cable to try and test the External that way and will post the results when I can... I love the look and idea of macs, now I have a mac and want to upgrade it even, but why is it that whenever I attempt to use it after having not used it for a bit (and try to make the iBook feel better by using it more as I am sure it feels sad and alone sitting on the shelf while my Windows Laptop gets more attention), or try to fix it when it can be made better (and therefore used more often), the mac (all macs really), just seem to get all pissy and cause problems and make me spend hours upon hours trying to get things to work again??? You have to admit it, I am "mac cursed"... sigh I can program in 4 or 5 computer languages and am very advanced at many tech things (the ones I am not as good at I am still usually Average or Medium skilled) so it makes me wonder why I have so many tech problems with Macs when they are supposed to be the "easy" OS to use...

Actually, I think I have it all working now. After going back to the Plextor Website, I found out that the switch between the USB and 1394 ports only gets activated (switched over to the other) with you turn the device off first, move the switch and then turn it back on. I was sure that I had done this with the ibook, but maybe not as when I went back and did it with first the USB and then the Firewire cables, it did work. I definitely knew that I had not done this with the Windows laptop, the reason it would not have the USB work for me on it.
but back to the iBook, I was confused as it was only showing up as a DVD-ROM (which I guess is what they do until you actually open up the burning software to then be able to burn to it), and it also had the wrong Model #, which after more research, showed that it was the Internal DVD drive model version (PX-708A) compared to the actual model version (PX-708UF) which is the USB/Firewire (External) model. The firmware was really out of date as well (from June 2004 I think, v1.06) and they had v1.12 from Spet/Oct 2006 available so I went to get that (which was a hassle). They had nice easy Windows self extractor/installer packs, and then the BIN files for use for all systems (Sun OS/ Mac OSX/ Mac OS/ Linux etc as well as usable for Windows), and those needed a special Firmware Updater Application which was OS specific. Only I had the hardest time trying to get the OSX one as it would send me to a FTP site and not give me any clues as to which file(s) I needed to get and the Mac OS version was just for older 9.2 or below versions and didn't want to install under the OS Classic mode.
I ended up using my windows computer which made it easier to view with the FTP stuff as I have FireFTP in Firefox, and downloaded the files I thought I needed (to test out), and then realized my silliness, and just downloaded (as well) the Windows Auto Extractor/Installer as the Firmware is the same for all OS's, just the way to install/update it was different... So I hooked the DVD drive to my PC and updated the firmware, checked it out on here before moving it back to the ibook, where I checked that it still worked and had the new update version showing, which it did, and now I have my fully working and newly updated drive ready for the OSX installations... I had attempted to update my Jaguar system as well while online, but it had no new updates available (I guess those were all mostly Tiger updates that were just recently released).
I am now off to install my additional RAM, and after checking that it all shows up correctly, I will go ahead and do the Panther Install (and test it out and see if I like it or not).
For anyone that currently uses Panther on any mac, are there still any major problems I should know about before hand, or know about things that they have mostly fixed (like the issues with Firewire ports and External Drives that they had around the time Panther was first released for example)???
Thanks to all that helped... I now know to attempt an "eject" of any external HD (which I do have one that I will setup to use after I get Panther on the ibook) or CD/DVD drive instead of just unplugging the USB/Firewire cable.

Full Firewire Port Failure (three different machines : iMac Intel, iMac G5, Black Macbook)

I'm experiencing a failure of all FireWire ports on all of my three machines. I believe this problem began with a faulty external, FireWire powered hard drive from G-Tech. Here are all my specs, followed by a rundown of the order of events that has lead to this situation, followed by the various troubleshooting I have done.
Equipment :
iMac Aluminum Intel - 24" Mid 2007 - running OsX 10.5.8 - currently 1 FW400 and 1 FW800 ports disabled
iMac G5 - 20" - running OsX 10.5.8 - currently 2 FW400 ports disabled
MacBook - 13" black Early 2008 - running OsX 10.5.8 - currently 1 FW400 port disabled
2 500GB G-Drives (by G-Tech) - AC powered
1 5TB G-RAID Drive (by G-Tech) - AC powered
1 250GB G-Drive Mini (by G-Tech) - FW powered
Initial Setup :
1 500GB G-Drive connected directly to iMac Intel via FW800
1 500GB G-Drive connected to first 500GB G-Drive via FW800 (daisy chained)
1 250GB G-Drive connected to second 500GB G-Drive via FW400 (daisy chained)
1 5TB G-RAID connected directly to iMac Intel via FW800>400 adapter
Sequence of Events :
I had transferred some files to my G-Drive Mini in order to move them to my MacBook from my iMac Intel. I copied the files to the G-Drive Mini and ejected it normally and plugged it into my MacBook via FW400. The drive would not mount, and the power indication light would not go on. After experimenting with various connections and cables I was able to get the drive to power with FW400 and USB connected at the same time, but the drive would still not mount.
I then plugged the G-Drive Mini back into the 2nd 500GB G-Drive as it was previously connected via FW400. This action caused the G-Drive to immediately reboot and eject itself from my iMac Intel.
I then attempted to plug the G-Drive Mini into my older iMac G5 via FW400. Immediately upon plugging in, the computer shut down, and would not restart.
At this point I kind of started to freak out. I was unaware of the extent of the damage, but was upset that the FW powered G-Drive Mini had shutdown my iMac G5. I contacted G-Tech Support and they offered to replace the drive and instructed me how to manually reset the computer's SMC by opening up the iMac and finding the Cuda switch. This worked and the computer was able to start and function again, but the FW400 port seemed to be disabled.
I then tried to swap out configurations and drives on my iMac Intel to see if there was any cable problems, but doing so, slowly rendered all my FireWire ports useless. It's almost as if the act of plugging in the FW-powered G-Drive Mini started a kind of shortout chain reaction. I soon learned that none of my hard drives would connect to any of my three machines, with any kind of cable combination via FW400 or 800.
I am currently able to connect my 5TB G-RAID drive to any machine via USB, as well as my G-Drive Mini. I am unable to access the other two external hard drives, as one has only FW400 and 800 ports and the other's USB connection is not functional as well on any machine.
Troubleshooting Steps Taken :
I have on all machines, reset the SMC in the following methods. iMac G5 - manually, by opening the case and pressing Cuda switch. iMac Intel - unplug, hold power button, restart method. MacBook - unplug, hold power button, restart method.
I have also on all machines, reset the PRAM by the Cmnd + Opt + P + R method at startup.
I have also unplugged all cables / removed battery, from all machines and left alone for a period of at least 12 hours, then re-plugged in each device one at a time.
I have also restored my hibernate mode (through Terminal) on my iMac Intel to mode 3 and also turned on Virtual Memory in system preferences and set hibernatemode to mode 7, the restarted and attempted to plug in devices. The reason I even began to deal with the hibernate mode was because I had around the same time my ports began malfunctioning, installed the DeepSleep widget, which allows you to control your computer's hibernate mode. I thought that tweaking with this setting may have made my computer incapable of recognizing devices that were plugged in. I have since uninstalled the widget and experimented with different hibernatemodes to no avail.
I also have Repaired Disk Permissions and Repaired Disk on all my machines, from within my Admin User as well as from the OsX Install Disk.
Sometimes in my System Profiler (like right now for example on my iMac Intel) my computer is "Unable to list FireWire devices," but sometimes, no warning message comes up and it simply displays the appropriate Bus speed.
I also conducted a system restore using a backup from my 5TB G-Raid Drive via USB, to a date before these problems started, but my ports are still not working.
Summary :
I am looking at a situation where all my FW ports on all my computers appear to be disabled, and possibly also on my four external hard drives, with one possible USB port malfunction on one external drive. The only root of this seems to be a malfunctioning FW-powered external hard drive.
Is this possible? Has this happened to anyone else before? G-Tech assures me that it is impossible for my 250GB G-Drive Mini to draw enough power from a computer to permanently disable any ports, but I have tried all of the FW port problem troubleshooting steps and am at a loss.
I do not have AppleCare and would like to avoid bringing two iMacs, a MacBook and four hard drives to the Apple store and take my chances with the geniuses.
I would appreciate any help or advice you all have. Thanks for reading and for your support!

Ok. So if that was too confusing, I've re-labeled this post with letters for my hard drives and some mapping of the connectivity configurations I have attempted.
Equipment :
iMac Aluminum Intel - 24" Mid 2007 - running OsX 10.5.8 - currently 1 FW400 and 1 FW800 ports disabled
iMac G5 - 20" - running OsX 10.5.8 - currently 2 FW400 ports disabled
MacBook - 13" black Early 2008 - running OsX 10.5.8 - currently 1 FW400 port disabled
1 500GB G-Drive (by G-Tech) w/ no USB port - AC powered : A
1 500GB G-Drive (by G-Tech) w/ USB port - AC powered : B
1 5TB G-RAID Drive (by G-Tech) - AC powered : C
1 250GB G-Drive Mini (by G-Tech) - FW powered : D
Initial Setup :
C > FW400-800 adapter > iMac Intel
D > FW400 > A > FW800 > B > FW800 > iMac Intel
Sequence of Events :
D > FW400 > MacBook
I had transferred some files to my G-Drive Mini D in order to move them to my MacBook from my iMac Intel. I copied the files to the G-Drive Mini D and ejected it normally and plugged it into my MacBook via FW400. The drive would not mount, and the power indication light would not go on. After experimenting with various connections and cables I was able to get the drive to power with FW400 and USB connected at the same time, but the drive would still not mount.
D > FW400 > A > FW800 > B > FW800 > iMac Intel
I then plugged the G-Drive Mini D back into the 2nd 500GB G-Drive A as it was previously connected via FW400. This action caused the G-Drive to immediately reboot and eject itself from my iMac Intel.
D > FW400 > iMac G5
I then attempted to plug the G-Drive Mini into my older iMac G5 via FW400. Immediately upon plugging in, the computer shut down, and would not restart.
At this point I kind of started to freak out. I was unaware of the extent of the damage, but was upset that the FW powered G-Drive Mini D had shutdown my iMac G5. I contacted G-Tech Support and they offered to replace the drive and instructed me how to manually reset the computer's SMC by opening up the iMac and finding the Cuda switch. This worked and the computer was able to start and function again, but the FW400 port seemed to be disabled.
I then tried to swap out configurations and drives on my iMac Intel to see if there was any cable problems, but doing so, slowly rendered all my FireWire ports useless. It's almost as if the act of plugging in the FW-powered G-Drive Mini D started a kind of shortout chain reaction. I soon learned that none of my hard drives would connect to any of my three machines, with any kind of cable combination via FW400 or 800.
D > USB > AnyMachine
C > USB > AnyMachine
I am currently able to connect my 5TB G-RAID C drive to any machine via USB, as well as my G-Drive Mini D. I am unable to access the other two external hard drives, as one has only FW400 and 800 ports (A) and the other's USB connection is not functional as well on any machine (B).
Troubleshooting Steps Taken :
I have on all machines, reset the SMC in the following methods. iMac G5 - manually, by opening the case and pressing Cuda switch. iMac Intel - unplug, hold power button, restart method. MacBook - unplug, hold power button, restart method.
I have also on all machines, reset the PRAM by the Cmnd + Opt + P + R method at startup.
I have also unplugged all cables / removed battery, from all machines and left alone for a period of at least 12 hours, then re-plugged in each device one at a time.
I have also restored my hibernate mode (through Terminal) on my iMac Intel to mode 3 and also turned on Virtual Memory in system preferences and set hibernatemode to mode 7, the restarted and attempted to plug in devices. The reason I even began to deal with the hibernate mode was because I had around the same time my ports began malfunctioning, installed the DeepSleep widget, which allows you to control your computer's hibernate mode. I thought that tweaking with this setting may have made my computer incapable of recognizing devices that were plugged in. I have since uninstalled the widget and experimented with different hibernatemodes to no avail.
I also have Repaired Disk Permissions and Repaired Disk on all my machines, from within my Admin User as well as from the OsX Install Disk.
Sometimes in my System Profiler (like right now for example on my iMac Intel) my computer is "Unable to list FireWire devices," but sometimes, no warning message comes up and it simply displays the appropriate Bus speed.
I also conducted a system restore using a backup from my 5TB G-Raid Drive C via USB, to a date before these problems started, but my ports are still not working.
Summary :
I am looking at a situation where all my FW ports on all my computers appear to be disabled, and possibly also on my four external hard drives (A, B, C, D), with one possible USB port malfunction on one external drive (B). The only root of this seems to be a malfunctioning FW-powered external hard drive.
Is this possible? Has this happened to anyone else before? G-Tech assures me that it is impossible for my 250GB G-Drive Mini D to draw enough power from a computer to permanently disable any ports, but I have tried all of the FW port problem troubleshooting steps and am at a loss.
I do not have AppleCare and would like to avoid bringing two iMacs, a MacBook and four hard drives to the Apple store and take my chances with the geniuses.
I would appreciate any help or advice you all have. Thanks for reading and for your support!

Firewire port not working Mac Mini (G4 1.25ghz)

Hi,
The firewire port isn't working on my mac mini, I've tried several devices, but none are connecting. I was wondering if anyone else was having this issue and possibly a solution. The only software installed on the computer since the firewire worked last was Apple updates, so maybe other mini's lost firewire somewhere along the way.
Thanks, and Thanks
W

This worked from Smokerz in the Power Mac G4 forum:
1. Shut-down your Mac, and unplug the power cord
2. Turn the power off on your external FireWire devices
3. Unplug the FireWire devices from the Mac
4. Wait for 5 min.
5. Plug the power cord to your Mac only
6. For PPC Macs: Restart the Mac while holding the Option-Apple-O-F, and keep holding until you get the ">" prompt, then release the keys
7. At the ">" prompt type:
reset-nvram and hit the Return key
set-defaults and hit the Return key
reset-all and hit the Return key
the last command will restart your mac
8. Shut down your Mac
9. Connect all your FireWire devices to the Mac and turn them on
10. Restart your Mac.
Works fine now thanks Smokerz!!!!!
also repaired permission and reset PRAM, nothing worked until I did this.
W

How How can i install Mountain Lion with faulty firewire ports??

Basically the firewire ports are fried on my MBP 3.1 (2007). My mac used to take hang on blue screen and take 10 mins to boot but I solved this problem by installing an ssd and deleting the following kext file...
/System/Library/Extensions/IOFireWireFamily.kext
My MBP now boots in under 20 seconds so if anybody is having the same issue then there is the resolotion..
Anyway these are the steps I have taken but failed to properly install ML.
Dowloaded Mountain Lion at least 3 times from the App store to make sure the download wasn't corrupted.
I even tried making a Lion Bootdisk so I can install Mountain Lion on a USB drive (Install ESD.dmg).
I have even tried installing Lion first thinking I would take it one version at a time but gets stuck on boot screen too.
I even changed my hard drive to a new blank SSD drive to see any difference.
Each time I install Mountain Lion or Lion, everything is good until the installer has to restart the laptop.
Laptop gets stuck at the grey boot screen with the Apple logo and the loading circle. Nothing ever happens after.
I always had to use/boot to the Snow Leopard CD so I can restart the laptop back to the Snow Leopard OS and then update to 10.6.8.
I am guessing it is the ML dmg reinstalling the above file ( /System/Library/Extensions/IOFireWireFamily.kext ) which is leading to the same issue because of the faulty firewire ports.
Is there anyway I can resolve this because its doing my head in and Snow Leopard is old and doesnt support newer software that I would like to use.
Any help would be kindly appreciated. Thanks

Kurt Lang wrote:
Just some thoughts.
I presume you already partitioned the new SSD drive as GUID?
Is there anything on the new drive at all yet, or anything that isn't already backed up? If not, you could try erasing the drive and then installing OS X from the bootable flash drive installer you made.
Ive tried that and yes it is GUID. Im going to get grey hairs soon and Im not even 30 lol .... yet
I am not going to buy a new logic board as its just not logical (sorry for the pun) I got the mac for free and I want to spend as little money as possible. Im running out of ideas though

My MacBook Pro can't find the FireWire port

My MacBook Pro (OSX 10.6.8) can not find the FireWire port. Until now there hasn't been any problems using the FireWire, but now it just deny any knowledge of it, so to speak.
The audio device lights up when I connect it to the MBP (yes, I did connect it when in off-mode), so it seems to work in a way.
Does anyone recognize this problem and knows how to solve it?
/JohanLaMar

Have you tried following through the trouble shooting tips in this knowledge base article on Firewire?

I have a MacBook Pro Mid 2012. I have a sony DCR-PC350E . How do i transfer the video to the laptop ? I have firewire cable. But not able to find the firewire port in the video camera.

Need help.

The DCR-350e is a miniDV camcorder. It has a FireWire port, but it's not on the camera itself, it's on the cradle (aka "Handycam Station") that should have come with your camcorder. You need to insert the camera into the cradle in order to capture video via FireWire.
Here's a link to the Owners Manual. See p. 142 for a diagram that shows the DV (iLink) port on the cradle.
You also need an appropriate cable to connect to your MacBook Pro. Check your MBP to see what port(s) it has:
Some 2012 MBPs have a FW800 port, in which case you need a 4-pin to 9-pin FW cable like this one.
Some 2012 MBPs only have a Thunderbolt port, in which case you need the Apple Thunderbolt-FireWire Adapter in addition to the FireWire cable.

How can I tell if my firewire port is faulty?

I recently cannot import video from my canon elura 100 which connects using a 4-6pin firewire cable. I thought maybe it was the cable so I grabbed my brother's black macbook and it seems to import fine, it still isn't 100% smooth like I think it should be but when I plugged the camera back into my black macbook, the video that was being imported just kept freezing and it seemed warped. I tried this process a few times and kept getting the same results. I feel as though I may have a firewire port issue. How could I check on my own. I know that when I use my firewire 410, I have no problems so I don't know what could be wrong. Any help?

Did any of your problems start with Snow Leopard, is your brother's machine running the same version of SL.
Over in the audio forum there are those having some problems with their firewire interfaces. (glitches, static...etc)
pancenter-

I can't sync with FireWire port and I can't charge with USB port!!

Hi. I've a old model of iPod (M9244Y). After the last update, my iPod does sync with the FireWire port.
I tried with another PCs and Mac but it does work. Finaly I buyed an USB cable and this one syncs but not charge.
I've restored to early versions of iPod Updaters but it does not work again. Can I do somethig to fix it?
Why I can't sync with the FireWire port?
Please help me, I can't live without iPod, I can't live without music!!!

Do you have other Firewire devices? Do they work? Could be the FW ports are not working right.
First thing to do is reset the FW chip set on the mother board. Unfortunately, when you power down the computer there is always a bit of power still applied to the motherboard to keep things alive and this usually includes the ports to do stuff like detect when a device wants to wake up the computer. The downside of this is when a bus/port chipset goes into a weird state, power cycling the computer won't work.
So first thing to try is resetting the chipset and to do this you have to power down the computer and completely unplug the computer from the wall power (unplug the power cord to your Mac). Also unplug everything from the Mac's ports (USB, FW, Ethernet, etc.) to make sure no parasitic power is still there to keep the chip alive. Now let it sit for ten minutes (give those big power caps in there time to discharge). Now plug it back in, start up the Mac and see if your FW ports and the drive work any better.
Patrick

G5 1.8GHz PowerPC 3GB SDRAM FIREWIRE PORT PROBLEM

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