IMac firewire issues...

Hi all
I'm wondering, after having recent problems with using a Metric Halo Mobile I/O and a USB hard drive at the same time (massive latency issues, crackles, etc. in Logic Pro 7), if anybody has any more information on it.
I read that there is only Firewire bus on the iMac that I have and that is the problem - is there any way around this or is my second Firewire socket just a waste of time when the Mobile I/O is connected?
Any thoughts welcome! Or, of course, feel free to point me in the direction of any previous discussions I've missed.
Thanks.
Steve

Most (all?) Macs have only a single Firewire bus, but that doesn't stop me, or others, from using a FW audio interface and a FW hardrive together.
Your post says you were using a USB hard drive, that's totally different from Firewire.

Similar Messages

Late 2009 iMac firewire issue

I have tried installing an M Audio project mix on my late 2009 imac and its not recognised, tech support seems to think its the FireWire input on the mac. If I buy a repeater hub, will this work?
I have the correct drivers and firmware yet its not working
Have tried at 400 to 800 cable as well as an adapter with original cable

Hi Tommy,
At the Apple Icon at top left>About this Mac, then click on More Info, then click on Hardware>Firewire, what shows there?
If it says something like no FW detected...
Reset the Firewire bus
If your Firewire or USB isn't recognizing any device. A solution which has worked for some whose hard drive became invisible in 10.4 was simply to follow these four steps to reset the Firewire/USB bus:
1. Shut the machine down.
2. UNPLUG the power lead to the computer and any firewire/USB drive or devices.
3. leave it for 10 minutes.
4. Connect back up and reboot.
http://www.macmaps.com/firewirebug2.html

IMac firewire port is not working

iMac firewire port is not working
Hi everybody, Happy New Year.
I am a 72 years old semi-newbie in video editing, because Iedit only 1 or may be 2 movies a year since 2007 and I have only very little computer knowledge.
I received a new 27” iMac as a birthday gift 14 months ago. About 10 months ago, with help, I successfully use the Migration Assistant to transfer some datas from my old power G4 to the iMac including two Final Cut Express projects. I had one project successfully done; burned to DVD and I save it with Print To Video. Last week, I have my second project done, I burned the sequences into DVD but unable to do a Print To Videodue to the iMac is not communicating with my Sony camcorders DCR VX1000, this is the same camcorder I used on the last job which was working a couple of months ago.As a result, I try to switch the Easy Setup with different Format and different Use; I refresh the Canvas window; I did a Mix down; move the Screen Saver to NEVER as well as the Energy Saver set to NEVER SLEEP. I also trashed the preferences (plist) folders; run the Utility repair, I replaced the firewire cable (4 pines – 9 pines 800), but nothing work. Up to this point, I think that there is no signal from the firewire port to the camcorder because I understand when the sequences is ready, the firewire is connected between the computer and the recording camcorder, the Print to Video is activated, then the word DV- IN should be seen on the recording deck screen. This time, I don’tread such words on the recording screen. Therefore, I think there’s no out going signal from the iMac to the recording camcorder and the iMac is not receiving signal from the recording camcorder. At this point, I try to connect my iMac to the power G4 to see if I can do some data transfer. Follow the procedures, I hook up the data transfer cable between the G4 and the iMac, I can the fireswire icon moving on the G4 screen but no indication on the iMac screen (there should be some indications in the source bar), this shows me the iMac did not recognize the G4 which worked on previous data transfer. It looks to me the firewire port on my iMac is dead. What has gone wrong? Could I accidentally disabled the firewire port by some magic keystroke? (i.e. accidentally fat finger some thing to make it stop working? Oh, by the way, during the playing around, went to the Final Cut tool bar, I click the View >Video Out > Digital Cinema Desktop Preview – Main, the result was a black screen and the esc key was my rescuer - LUCKY LUCKY! Are there any other trouble-shooting techniques to apply before bringing to shop? Please help!
Sorry for such a long statement, forgive me for unable to make it shorter. Thank you for your patience. Thanks to all the folks in this board for being so helpful.
p.s.

Not sounding good.
If the system Profiler does not see it then there is a basic communication problem between camera and the Mac.
I'm thinking the Firewire port is the culprit as some 800 ports were faulty.
I'd suggest taking the Mac, cable and camera to your nearest Authorized Apple Service Centre and get them to diagnose the issue. eg. let them try to connect the two devices.
Right (control)click the Sequence icon in the Browser and select Item Properties, do the same for a clip.
You can also post screen shots for the Properties.
Al

27" iMac Firewire Port fails after 300 days of use

I had to take my 27" iMac (purchased in 2012) to the "Genius" bar today because the firewire port failed.
Prior to this:
My Apogee Duet Firewire Sound Interface has given me all kinds of errors with the iMac. I wrote emails to Apogee complaining about the Firewire issues and they gave me a long list of possible fixes, all of which did absolutely nothing. Apogee claims that the problem is Apple's, but when I connected a MOTU Traveler to the firewire port it performed flawlessly. Many people had complained online about the awful performance of the Firewire Duet with Lion OSX so I wrote back to Apogee demanding that they replace the device with their newer USB "Duet 2" and they chose to ignore my email. So I went back to dealing with the intermittent cutting out of the Duet which is only remedied by either restarting the machine or unplugging & reconnecting the Duet.
2 days ago:
The Apogee Duet stops working (like so many times before), so I unplug the Apogee Firewire 400-to-800 cable and this time when I reconnect, it starts rapidly blinking and clicking, so I quickly shut the iMac down. After a waiting for a few minutes I plug the Duet in and it's dead -no lights & no click. To determine if I'd just killed my Duet, I plugged it into my 2009 Macbook with a Firewire 400 cable and the Duet works. So I think.."Maybe it was the Apogee FW400/800 cable". Next day I bought a new Firewire 400/800 Cable and connected the Duet to the iMac and I still got absolutely nothing. So I booked an appointment at the Genius Bar.
Today:
The helpful gentleman there quickly discovered that the main-board needed replacement because the "newer" iMacs have all the I/O stuff attached to the motherboard. It would have cost me 800 bucks with out a warranty. While I was there, I tested my original Apogee Firewire 400/800 cable with a Macbook pro and it worked fine, ruling out the possibility that my cable could have caused the Firewire port to fail. Lastly, I asked him to connect a Thunderbolt-to-Firewire Adapter to my iMac and - yes - the Apogee Duet worked fine through the Thunderbolt Port.
In Conclusion,
I'm glad that they are going to repair this problem but it would appear I really have no choice but to extend my "Apple Care" since, in my experience, the Firewire port can spontaneously fail. As a full-time musician it's lucky for me this happened while it was still under warranty, otherwise I probably would have just bought the Thunderbolt-to-Firewire Adapter and hope the Thunderbolt ports last longer than the firewire did.
Has anyone else had their main-board replaced due to Port Failure?

Not because of Firewire, but yes, my 2007 iMac had to have extensive things replaced twice under extended AppleCare.
I personally think $2,000 dollar items should come with more than a one year warranty, unless you expect them to die shortly after a year.
Didn't need any warranty on my Quadra/630, still runs every day, they don't make Macs like they used to.

FireWire Issues - anyone else?

Have a PB G4, 1.67, with an Apple-repaired logic board [from Nov 08]. After latest Security updates, I have had trouble connecting either 800 or 400 FW drives. I've tried them on an iMac and iBook; both work. Tried different cables, three different drives [2 OCW, one Verbatim]. Nothing works. Wiggled cables. Used both bus and external power.
HELP please. I don't want to spend another $350 [plus postage from UK via APO] to fix this a third time [was a refurb, used from PowerMax, they looked at logicboard once, and then I used Apple's fix it service]. The Apple repair warranty expired in Feb 09.
I might try an $80 cardbus FW800/400 if I can find one still.
Thanks in advance.

Frustrating trying to get it to work .... You can zap the PRAM as well as reset the PMU anytime. At this point, if you haven't go ahead and do the PRAM and might as well do the PMU again. Reset PRAM. Note the effects are immediate, there's no advantage to waiting overnight:
1. Shut down the computer.
2. Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command, Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
3. Turn on the computer.
4. Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.
5. Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
6. Release the keys.
It sounds like you may have had hard drive issues that Drive Genius fixed for you. For comparison, did you run the Disk Utility disk repair after Drive Genius fixed the hard drive .. just to see if Disk Utility gives the drive a clean bill of health?
When you ran the Apple hardware test, did you run the extended test? Do you have either of the TechTool programs available? They do similar testing to the Apple hardware test, it would be interesting to see if they also say the hardware is OK.
You've reloaded the operating system a couple of times. Did you use the combo update to update to 10.4.11? I prefer that to letting Software Update make the updates, as sometimes it doesn't update correctly. Repair disk permissions before and after the update, too. Then run software update to pick up any other required updates.
You've, by this time, reset PRAM and PMU, I assume the PRAM reset didn't change anything? If so, sorry, but I don't know what else you can do. At this point, I'd take it to a genius at the Apple store, and get their opinion.
I didn't address sleep as I think you need to resolve the Firewire issue first, then see if there is a sleep problem.

Firewire Issues: External Hard Drives & DV Deck Sony DSR 11 not recognized

So, I have this brand new $6000 Mac Pro that will not recognize a simple DV deck, nor the external HD's.
Thus, after spending seven hours searchig around last night, trying every configuration possible from updates, unplug power source, and everything else, I began making calls as of 4 am this morning.
I was referred to FCP Europe where I was informed that I needed FCS friver updates. (unavailable for 1.0.1) or perhaps it was a Sony issue. The deck & drives work fine with my G4 & Powerbook G4. With six fire wire ports on the Mac Pro, and nothing being recognized via a single fire wire port, does anyone have a simple, expedient solution? Thank you.

Ahhhh. Firewire issues. I'm convinced that these Macpros have some serious problems here. I am running a sony dsr11 also with a digi002. MY issues is bootup. . I have a mac pro with Tiger installed. My issue is I intermittently get a prohibitted error on bootup. The error looks like a no smoking sign without the cigerett. I have to re boot and sometimes the os boots right up othertimes not. I have sfound that I have to boot my sytem with noting hooked up first. It seems when you have high end firewire devices that the Bus just can't handle it. Real ****** for thos who bought the system for A/V work. Everything woks fine on my powerbook and my G5. Problem is with MACPRO! Do you also have other firewire devices hooked up? Are they daisychained together?
Vito

CS5 support is falling down - the famous firewire issue

As a loyal user of Adobe professioanl editing solutions for the last 10 years this past month has been a nightmare. When I inquired about upgrading to CS5 from CS3 I was advised during an online chat with an Adobe person here on the site to upgrade to CS4 and because of the timing I would get a complimentary CS5 upgrade. I purchased CS4 on April 14th and had so many issues it was never even used in the edit suite. When CS5 became available I decided to cut my losses and decided if I was going to have to go through all the hoops I might as well only go through them once with CS5. I have had numerous long discussions with Adobe "support" regarding various problems and now I am at the end of my rope. Even though they say the are taking notes during our conversations each subsequent "support" person claims to not know most of the pariculars discussed in previous phone calls. I didn't think I had to follow up each phone call with a note here but evidently that is the case. Today I have a deadline to deliver content on TAPE to a national cable network and the series contract could be in jeapordy if I can't deliver the first of 26 episodes. I CANNOT PREVIEW ON AN EXTERNAL TELEVISION MONITOR OR EXPORT THROUGH FIREWIRE TO MY MAIN DV DECK. It is a deck I have used for YEARS with Premiere CS2 and CS3 and i NEVER had an issue like this. I have been told repeatedly that the issue would be resolved and most recently on Tuesday of this week I was promised a callback between "1PM and 2PM" Central Standard time on Wednesday, THAT CALL NEVER CAME. When I followed up with another call MOST of the days previous discussion was NOT in my case notes. I was told my main Sony VTR and secondary JVC VTR were not HDV decks even though I have been using BOTH for many years for just that purpose and even though that didn't address the most pressing of all my issues which was just getting output through firewire to tape. After a very frustrating call I was promised another callback "in an hour" by a "supervisor". That call NEVER came. Both Adobe "support" and PNY Quadro "support" claim that they have "never" heard of the firewire issue even though it is all over the forums at Adobe. I will be posting this and every subsequent communication between me and Adobe on the forums, at Yelp and any other web sites that take reviews of professional video products. For the record just some of my other issues include the inability to capture HDV from the Sony HDV deck I have been capturing from for years, Alpha Glow not working and no split screen when doing color correction in a number of effects where it is offered. Also for the record I have tried turning off the MPE GPU acceleration to export to tape and that doesn't work either. System is a Supermicro dual processor motherboard with lots of ram and a Quadro FX 3800 operating with 64 bit Windows 7.

Read here:
http://kc.flex-radio.com/KnowledgebaseArticle50433.aspx
It may get firewire working again on your older deck with Windows 7. If the solution on that page works, then the problem is down to Microsoft, not Adobe.
FWIW, it's getting to be pretty well known around these parts that the current implementation of Adobe Customer Service is awful. That said, several Adobe employees, including some Premiere Pro engineers, have been hanging out in the forums recently. This is a big change from earlier releases of Pr, where an Adobe presence was rarely seen at all.
These same folks have also said that Adobe is working to improve their Customer Service. Like the inertia of a large ship forcing it to take a long time to change course, I suspect that it will take a bit longer for Adobe to make that improvement than it would for a smaller company. Don't give up on 'em just yet.
-Jeff

10.8.4 update firewire issues

10.8.4 update is not fixing the firewire issues that 10.8.3 caused with my macpro. my printer (professional Epson)
hard crashes when accessed. I'm reporting this because there are many people having firewire issues with firewire
printers and 10.8.3.

Use the workaround until the FW issue is resolved: use a USB cable.
OT

IMac Freezing Issue -Need Confirmation...

Hey all,
I need confirmation on whether or not zapping the PRAM seems to stop the iMac freezing issue. I have had 3 freezes within 10 minutes. I restarted after my last preparation to installing Leopard and the screen saver kicked in, which is the 'Cosmos' slide show and the graphics froze up. Screen went black and I left it for a couple of minutes. I came back to it, and had an image on the screen, but it was still locked up. So I restarted it. After boot up, I opened Activity monitor, and locked up again.
So I zapped the PRAM on this 3rd restart and have not locked up since. I'd bet 100 to 1 that if I were to restart, without the PRAM reset, I would crash within 5 minutes of the start up.
I really believe without a doubt these iMac reboot issues are related to specific EFI versions failing to initialize graphics correctly.
Can anyone confirm this? If your iMac crashes, does Zapping the PRAM fix it?
I'll be calling Executive relations contact and telling her the bad news.
Okay, so first off, this isn't a solution to this iMac plague, but it should prevent the freezing and NO, it does not have to do with removing the ATI drivers.
I was asked to install Leopard by Executive relations at Apple and told her that, as soon as I do, my iMac will freeze. So, I have been preparing the Leopard install and have crashed 3 times, in a row... at that point I said, Leopard is going to be a no go but I needed to use my iMac without it crashing. So, zapped the PRAM like I did before and immediately the graphic freezes went away.
So

Here is my experience, iMac 24:
I bought in JR NY 2 weeks ago. I had to use it without internet connection (so no updates) and no freezes.
Then I connected to internet and installed the available updates and start to get the freezes, even trying the PRAM reset.
I tried to remove the extra memory, change memory slot but no lucky, video artifacts (like pixels not refreshing) when moving the mouse over the dock icons then freeze.
I had no other softwares installed at all, only the OS applications.
I formatted the HD and reinstalled the Tiger and didn't accepted any update, so I could use the imac for 2 days without a single freeze, but some black screens when screen saver starts.
Since no freezes, I decided to update the OS again and after the first boot the freezes came back very fast, I could start a freeze in about 10 seconds.
I tried the PRAM reset without sucess and my machine was ready to go to a tech person.
Yesterday I updated the OS to 10.4.11 and did a PRAM reset after the update and tested the machine for 2 hours without a freeze or video artifacts, looks very stable, but I have to test it more.
You guys tried the Tiger last update ?
Ulisses

Firewire issue--Backup drive not found w/Time Machine after imac sleeps

I've had a lot of problems with Time Machine on my G4 imac since starting to use it a month ago. I think I have isolated the problem:
Time Machine functions properly while the computer is in use, and it has no problem after a restart or shut down, but if the computer goes to sleep and then TM runs its hourly backup, I get an error that it cannot find the Backup Drive. Once this happens, TM will no longer work until I've deselected the drive in TM, unplugged it, plugged it in again, and reselected the drive as the backup Drive. Sometimes this requires a shut down or restart too.
Here's what I've tried:
1. connected the drive via USB--it operated without a problem
2. unplugged all devices from the computer, shut down, waited, 20 mins, restrted, plugged the external drive back in via Firewire--the problem persists as described above.
3. deleted the TimeMachine.plist file, restarted--problem persists.
I've read that the Firewire port can be reset with other procedures such as zapping the PRAM or updating the firmware. I've also read that new problems can arise after reseting the PRAM so I'm hesitant to do this. Can anyone shed some light on the PRAM option?
I cannot find where the firmware updates are located on the mac site. Could someone point me in the right direction? I've looked under downloads and after searching, came up with a long list, but nothing was labeled clearly. Each listing mentioned firmware in the header, but it seemed to always pertain to a certain issue (eg. superdrive, or installing appleworks). I could not tell what was the most recent firmware released for my machine, and I fear installing something retrograde that will create new problems.
If anyone has any thoughts on how to deal with the firewire problem, or if you think my issue with using a FW connected drive with Time Machine might be rooted with something else, please comment.
Thanks!
HM
Message was edited by: imaginary_forest

fzgy wrote:
"Mac OS X can't repair the disk. You can still open or copy files on the disk, but you can't save changes to files on the disk. Back up the disk and reformat it as soon as you can."
It's possible a heavy-duty 3rd-party disk repair app can fix it, but they're expensive (DiskWarrior is about $100), and there's no guarantee it can do it.
Am prompted to reformat but I don't have a good understanding of what this means and how to do it.
That will erase it. See Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #5.
It sounds very much like the disk is beginning to fail, although it's possible there's a bad port, cable, connection or power supply (if it has its own).
I'd suggest getting a new one, and using it for your Time Machine backups; once you have a good backup there, reformat the old one (and select Security Options to write zeros to the whole drive -- if that fails, you know the drive is toast). Use it for secondary backups, per FAQ #27. If it has failed, get a second new one for secondary backups.

IMac, Firewire 800 issue

I am using a 24-inch iMac with 1GB RAM, Intel Core 2 Duo Processor and running Mac OS X 10.4.11. Since I edit video, I am using Final Cut Pro HD and dealing with files that take up a large amount of space. The LaCie Rugged External Drive that I am using has a FireWire 800 Port, but when I plug in this way, the drive does not show up. The drive does however, work with the regular FireWire 400 Port. This is a problem since the external camera I am using for video capture requires a FireWire to DV cable, and I only have one 400 and one 800 port on the iMac. Using the camera or an external DV deck is also a problem in itself since it is not recognized in Final Cut whenever an external drive of any kind is plugged in. This happens with the LaCie and a Western Digital MyBook that I have. Strangely enough, the Western Digital sometimes does not work with a 400 cable, but works with 800. As soon as the drives are ejected, the camera is recognized. I was curious if someone had an answer to either of these issues, since I do not wish to use the Main Hard drive for these large video files. I am thinking it is some type of issue with the ports but I am not sure. Thank you in advance for any assistance you can provide.

I think that there are, in general, a number of issues with the FireWire drivers for the Intel Macs. I had submitted several bug reports with observations and logs of the behavior. I don't think it's the hardware since, if you, say, run a different operating system on the same machine, there are no issues with the drives or cameras (under Linux anyway, never tried Windows).
The behavior changed when I upgraded to Leopard from Tiger. In particular, I could daisy-chain the camera off a FW drive after the upgrade. However, FinalCut experiences more frame-drops on transferring DV video than it did in Tiger. iMovie does not drop any frames at all, and I suspect the two applications are using different frameworks/libraries for accessing the DV video stream. Whereas, under Linux, frames are never dropped.
I'd contact LaCie, though, about the drive not appearing. A lot of those problems stem from firmware problems on their drives (or at least have in the past). You might find a firmware update for your drive on their web-site that would fix the problem.
In the meantime, though, I still maintain that there are issues with FireWire on Intel Macs related to the FireWire drivers.

IMac capture Firewire issues

Greetings, all.
I'm having difficulty digitizing video to my iMac 24".
I'm trying to capture Dv footage from a Canon ZR800 via the firewire 400 port, to a external WD MyBook Firewire 800 drive.
I have the Canon connected an on, MyBook drive at the ready to capture.
Then, I launch FCP (6.0.2) FCP can't see the camera then the MyBook disconnects and shuts down.
Any insight?

Your canon camera is likely hogging the firewire bus.
You have three options.
1. use a different camera to capture - canons are notorious for not playing well with other devices (aka hard drives) on the same firewire bus. And, since all firewire ports on your computer are on the same bus it will do no good to hook up the camera to a different port.
2. disconnect the external drive and capture to the internal. After capturing, disconnect the camera, reconnect the external and move the media to it for editing. Reverse the process when you wish to write back out to tape.
3. get a computer with expansion capabilities - a MacBookPro or MacPro - and add a PCI firewire card to create a second bus to isolate the camera from the external drive.
good luck,
x

Firewire Issues Caused By Apple Isight!

For months, I've been having an intermittent Firewire audio problem, which I initially thought was A) Quad G5 or B) RME Fireface 800!
Testing the RME on another Quad G5 resulted in no errors, though for piece of mind a replacement RME was given! Back home the same intermittent problems occurred, it had to be the Quad G5???
Livid, this time I persisted on Google searching for FW issues, (a few hours later) to my amazement I came across an article on MacFixIt, that pointed the finger to Apple's own iSight FW camera, which I had connected!
The transcript below explains how to resolve this problem, it worked for me!
Mini-Tutorial: Dealing with FireWire problems (drives not mounting, devices unrecognized, etc.)
As an Apple-invented technology, FireWire (IEEE 1394a and IEEE 1394b) should be (and usually is) one of the most solid and efficient means for interfacing with external peripherals. Indeed Apple's "i"-branded devices -- the iPod and iSight -- have, in large part, been made possible by the quick transfer rates, power sourcing, and hot pluggability offered by FireWire.
Occasionally, however, conflicts between FireWire-connected devices arise and can result in a variety of issues including DV cameras dropping frames, FireWire drives not mounting, and erratic behavior from the iPod (disappearing from iTunes, etc.). In the midst of these issues, you might also experience "buffer underrun" errors when trying to burn CDs or DVDs with FireWire-connected recorders.
The iSight is especially notorious for causing issues of this nature, and exhibiting symptoms.
There exist a number of methods for dealing with FireWire device interference, a few of which are explored here.
Switching Ports The first procedure you should try when experiencing a problem that you believe to be caused by device interference is to simply reconfigure the arrangement in which your FireWire peripherals are connected.
Try switching each device to a different port, or temporarily disconnecting one or more of the devices. In particular, if you are a PowerMac G5 owner, trying switching devices from the front to back ports or vice versa.
Adding an external hub In some cases, it appears that FireWire devices are not drawing enough power from the computer. This can cause a sundry of strange issues, including apparent conflicts between devices and unexpected power-offs during device operation. In these instances, adding an externally powered FireWire hub can clear things up.
One of the reasons an "under-powered" situation can occur is that different Mac models have varying power capacities available through their FireWire ports.
PowerBooks and iBooks have the least, generating around 7 watts. The iMac G5 also generates a relatively low amount of FireWire power, sharing 8 watts between its two FireWire 400 ports.
The Power Mac G5 shares 15 watts between its one FireWire 800 port and two FireWire 400 ports.
Place devices on different FireWire busses/Isolate the iSight Similar to the above procedure, adding another FireWire bridge -- via an extra PCI-based FireWire adapter or another means -- can eliminate conflicts from devices that reside on the same bridge.
Power cycling the system Simply cycling the power on your system may be enough to temporarily eliminate a few FireWire conflict issues.
Shut down your Mac, and disconnect all FireWire devices as well as the computer's power cord. Leave the system off for about 10 minutes, then plug it back in. First turn your Mac back on, then re-attach the FireWire devices one at a time and check for the conflict to resurface.
Disconnect the iSight As noted above, the most common cause of interference is Apple's own iSight. In case after case, simply disconnecting this single device has eliminated problems with other FireWire devices.
Disconnecting the iSight has proved particularly successful for an issue where the iPod disappears from the Desktop and from the iTunes playlist, while the iPod status screen cycles from the Apple logo to a "Do not Disconnect" message over and over.
The exact reasons why the iSight causes more than its fair share conflicts with other FireWire devices are many, and sometimes unclear. One potential source of conflict, however, could be the unit's high bandwidth usage.
The iSight captures video at a 640 x 480 pixel resolution, at 30 frames per second in millions of colors. Such throughput uses a significant chunk of the standard FireWire port's 400 Mbps bandwidth. As such, when other devices are connected, the bandwidth requirements for satisfactory performance may not be met.
Apply the latest updates Make sure that your FireWire drives are using the latest firmware (check the manufacturers' Web site) and the most recent iPod update has also been applied.
Of higher importance, if you have an iSight, is the iSight 1.0.2 updater. In a large number of cases it has resolved conflicts caused by the camera.
Re-apply the most recent Mac OS X combo updater In some cases, re-applying the most recent combo updater can resurrect seemingly defunct FireWire ports and allow devices -- drives included -- to be recognized again.
The most recent combo updater is available from Apple's download page.
Clear caches Try using a tool like Tiger Cache Cleaner or Cocktail to remove potentially corrupt system caches. Restart, then check if your FireWire devices are recognized.
Ps. There was no iSight connected when testing the RME on another Quad!
Power Mac G5 Quad 2.5 GHz Mac OS X (10.4.4) 2x 2.5 GB HD, 2.5 GB RAM, iSight, iPod, RME Fireface 800 Audio Interface

TA

Another iMac Freezing Issue - pls help a newbie out

I understand this problem is not uncommon - I've been trying to read the many threads I see on the issue. However, most posts outline problems, suggestions are made, but then reported to not work. Also, many threads are 2 years old.
Could someone please suggest a step-by-step troubleshooting solution?
Here are my pertinent facts:
* Bought 20" iMac in July 07.
* Processor: 2.16 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
* Memory: 3GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
* Hubs installed the second memory stick a while ago (over a year and i don't remember this problem correlating with the new memory).
* Video: ATI Radeon X1600
* OS: Mac OS X 10.6.2
* HD: 250GB capacity, 31GB available
* I am using an external harddrive to back up my stuff (LaCie, connected by firewire)
* Frequently used apps: Firefox, iPhoto, Photoshop Elements, Parallels (Quicken for PC), MS Office for Mac, etc.
The problem starting occurring several months ago, while I was still running Tiger. Have since upgraded to Snow Leopard, with no improvement, in fact, things are getting worse.
I get display distortion ("artifacts"?) - horizontal lines, blocks of the screen distort, usually clearing after dragging that part of the app off the screen of view and then back.
Typically, if I start seeing display issues, a freeze up is imminent.
Sometimes I get a sense it's coming soon - things run more slowly. Other times, it seems without provocation. I click on a window and nothing happens.
Sometimes it's the wheel of death other times screen completely locks up with no spinning wheel. No option to force quit. Mouse is unresponsive. Keyboard appears to be, although I can toggle the Caps lock button on and off (light toggles). If I am streaming video, the screen will lock up, but the audio continues. If I wait (have gone to bed and come back in the am) it is still frozen.
If I am streaming video (i.e Hulu on Firefox) or working in memory intensive applications (Windows, Parallels, Photoshop Elements, etc.) Problem is more frequent.
I can go a day or so without problems, but if I am doing anything slightly involved, it happens much more frequently, as often as every 10 minutes or half hour or so.
Steps I have taken:
I always have to do a hard reboot. I have run disk utility multiple times, occasionally it finds and corrects stuff, but no fix seems to be permanent.
I have seen suggestions of resetting PRAM as well as doing a clean re-install, but also seen that those fixes haven't endured.
I don't have Apple Care and I'm not sure what steps I should be taking to fix this. Is there hope? I mostly see lots of problems reported, but not successful resolution.
It's aggravating because I can't use the system for the stuff I bought it for (ex: digital scrapbooking) without worrying about losing my data. I switched to a Mac because I heard they ran so great and were "cool" to boot. While there have been many features of the Mac i enjoy, *if this kind of performance is typical after 2 yrs of use, I will not remain loyal to Apple.*
If you have been successful in resolving the issue with Apple, what did you tell them and what did they do?
I am competent system "user", but not as good when it gets into the weeds. Would appreciate any advice, feel free to spell it out as tho I were an idiot.
I would appreciate a "try this, then try this" approach, especially if you have tried it and it has worked for you.
Thanks for the help,
Kendra

OK, Mean, I mean Meanest, we have the same system (mine was purchased late 2006), and I can say we have identical symptoms. I agree with Paul_31 regarding disk space, but in addition, from all the posts on various Apple forums, it seems clear that the problem is due to the Radeon X1600 graphics card AND heat. These elegantly-designed Macs that we all love have a lot of stuff packed into a small package. Consequently they run hot, and over time the result is components bake and deteriorate. In our case, the weak link seems to be the Radeon card and since it’s not easily replaced, repair costs are nearly as much as the cost of a new iMac. A contributing factor is that over time dust will build up inside your Mac, and this serves as insulation, retarding heat transfer, and causing components to run hotter still.
OK, so that’s the sad tale, but what can you do? Assuming your system is not too far gone due to the ravages of heat over time, there are things you can do to help prolong it’s life, and hopefully get it to behave itself better until the time it finally fails completely.
In my case, the steps I’ve taken have resulted in a system that now “generally” runs for days at a time without locking up/crashing. A caveat: these are bandaids, not true fixes. I’m convinced the Radeon card will eventually fail and I’ll be faced with shopping for a new Mac – I’m only hoping the steps taken will give me a few more years of use before that happens. So, here’s my suggestions (basically they all have to do with getting your Mac to run cooler and being able to monitor temps so you know just how hot things are getting):
1. First of all, if you don’t already have one, get one of the free programs available to monitor your Mac’s internal temperatures. One of the most popular ones is a widget, iStat Pro. As I type this iStat Pro is showing my temps are as follows:
Hard Drive 92 deg. F
CPU 85 F
Ambient Air 69 F
GPU Diode (graphics card) 92 F
Hard Drive Bay 95 F
Memory Controller 90 F
Optical Drive 81 F
If you have iStat Pro and see that your temps are about the same as these, I would say don’t bother to read further – you may have a different set of problems. If your temps are 10-20 F (or more) higher, keep reading.
2. Try to clean out the internals of your Mac with compressed air. After 3+ years of use, I used an air compressor with an air gun attachment and blew through the vents at the back and bottom of my Mac with 60-80psi and actually saw a cloud of dust come out of my Mac. A more effective approach would entail cracking open the case of the Mac so you could really blow directly on the different boards/components. I haven’t done that, but I’m tempted to give it a try. Note: Some have suggested vacuuming and/or using a can of compressed air. I don’t think that approach is all that effective. You need a really strong flow of air to get that dust out of the inards.
3. Download the free program SMC Fan Control (v 2.2.2). It will allow you to adjust the fan speeds higher for each of the 3 internal fans. The Mac has firmware that ramps up the speeds of these fans as internal temps rise, but the general consensus is the Mac firmware is “too little, too late”. With the standard Mac firmware, the fans will run at their default settings well beyond the point where the components are already way too hot. SMC Fan Control allows you to set the minimum fan speeds higher than the Mac default.
Once you've done these steps, I'd suggest doing a SMC reset, then re-boot while keeping your fingers crossed.
This is getting too long so I’ll stop for now. Good luck...

24" iMac display issues

OK, the display brightness issue exsists. There is some software out there that does help (Gamma Control). So it seems like it can be fixed. Is Apple going to address this issue?
Some people are saying that Apple is catering to the average consumer (watching movies, web, etc.) Is that why they came up with the riduculous glossy displays on their laptops?
Give the graphics professionals some options!
1 Ghz 12 PB w/Superdrive, 24" iMac Mac OS X (10.4.8)
1 Ghz 12 PB w/Superdrive Mac OS X (10.3.5)

Hello Stan
"OK, the brightness issue exsists."
Have you tried this yet?
http://www.splasm.com/products/productbrightness.html
"Give the graphics professionals some options!"
Someone here maybe able to offer more options, what are you looking for?
Dennis
17" iMac Intel Core Duo 1.5GB Ram Mac OS X (10.4.8) Maxtor 300GB FireWire 2G Nano

IMac firewire issues...

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