Invisible firewire peripherals

Hello there, I'm having a problem with my firewire peripherals. I have an external hard drive that is either USB or Firewire. If I plug it into the USB port it shows up fine if I try to plug it in via the firewire the computer wont recognize it's presence.In fact if I go to system profiler to look for it I get the spinning 'beachball of death' if I select firewire and then when I go to force quite to get rid of system profiler it is in red and shown as not responding. I have another CMS firewire external drive plus a firewire DVD writer that are also invisible. I know they all work with my iMac as I have used them regularly in the past. I have tried swapping to another firewire cable, unplugging my iMac for half and hour, resetting PRAM, VRAM. Anybody out there got any tips or had the same experience. Thanks

Make sure the one you get has it's own power. I've seen one that is bus-powered.
The one I have is from TRENDnet, and it's a combo USB/FireWire 7-port hub. For the FireWire part, it only makes one port into two ports, but I needed the USB ports more. It's a good place to connect my iPod without constantly connecting and disconnecting on my iMac's port directly.
I wonder how I'm going to find out which is the rouge firewire device without ruining anything else?
I guess you'll have to risk it on a hub. If you get a six-port FireWire hub, you'll still have five (one to four) if one of the ports becomes non-functional. If you have an old FireWire external case with a second daisy-chain port, you can also use that port for this testing (although you may lose the ability to daisy-chain off that drive).

Similar Messages

Long-standing problem reading USB and Firewire peripherals

I have asked this question here before, but never really got an answer.
My single biggest problem with my Mac is getting it to recognise peripherals. This seems entirely a matter of caprice: sometimes I can plug in a Firewire peripheral and it will be recognised, at other times the same peripheral with the same lead goes unrecognised. Sometimes I can dowload images from my Nikon, at other times the computer stubbornly refuses to recognise its existence. Sometimes a peripeharl will appear on the desktop but not on the sidebar. Sometimes I have to plug the peripheral directly into one of the slots on the back of the screen, at others it can be read from my Belkin extension. USB connections seem particularly subject to capricious behaviour, but Firewire isn't always immune.
There appears to be no rhyme, reason or logic to any of this, nor does there seem to be any way of forcing a Mac to read the peripherals connected to it. Could somebody at least let me know whether this a well-known Mac glitch that nobody talks about, or do I have a bum machine?

The low power devices such as cameras often need a wall powered hub to connect correctly.
Digital cameras inherantly are better suited to have their media card connected to a USB card reader than directly from the camera. They lose less power on their battery by doing this, and you have much better compatibility with card readers than cameras.
Any USB device not following HID standard may fail as well.
Some low powered devices are not familiar with Apple's Energy Saver. If your Energy Saver is set to go off, the USB ports will remain in a low powered mode until a shut down or restart is complete.
Macs over 4 years old start having an array of peripheral and system difficulties as the PRAM battery starts to die. Replace the PRAM battery for those that do. This is not the same as the user replaceable battery on those that you can see the battery on the machine from the outside.

10.4.7, PB G4 550MHz, Firewire external peripherals

Hi,
I updated from 10.4.6 to 10.4.7 a few days ago and since then no more firewire periphrals are mounted. No external HD, no DV cam, no external DVD-RW. I tested all these peripherals on other PCs and Mac and there are recognized without problems.
I ran the bunch of troubleshoot like reset PRAM, NVRAM, PMU, let PB without battery for 2 hours and reinstall 10.4.7 from the Combo for PPC update but nothing.
System information application keeps showing the firewire port with the information its speed is 400Mbits/s but no firewire peripheral is detected or mounted.
I bought a compatible Mac OS X firewire/USB2.0 PC card and I plugged it into the PB G4. Ports are shown in System Information but when an external HD is plugged no drive mounted.
I'm quite sure the PB G4 firewire plug isn't down but it's like Mac OS X or Open Firmware refuse to mount any firewire device ?
Any luminous idea ?
Many thanks
PB G4 550MHz Mac OS X (10.4.7)

No but usually there is no jumper to set if you want the 2.5" HD to be a Master drive.
Here is a funny thing. A friend of mine gave me his old PowerMac G4 400MHz. I took out from the PB G4 the 2.5HD, I put it in an external case Firewire and now I can boot directly from it on the PowerMac G4. All my firewire peripherals open OK.
It really looks like 10.4.7 update made the powerbook's logicboard got crazy or it's a strange " coïncidence " .
Now my next challenge is to try to get back to life the powerbook's motherboard... It could be I'm a dreamer....
Still any good advice is welcome.
Best
PM G4 400MHz (PB G4 550MHz) Mac OS X (10.4.7)

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

Firewire & OS 8.6

Doesn't Firewire require at least OS 9.x, or will it run under OS 8.6 if the 8.6 installation included a Firewire extention (driver)? I just installed a firewire pci card on my PM9600. The firewire all works when I boot into OS 9, but the firewire drive doesn't mount when I boot into OS 8.6. The firewire drive doesn't show up under Apple System Profiler under either boot, although the PCI firewire card does under both. (As I don't think firewire was even available, and I had no firewire peripherals, when I installed my OS 8.6, if firewire extentions were available, I might well have not installed them.)

Thanks. That confirms that firewire is supposed to work with OS 8.6, and I didn't have the download link for the extensions. It looks as if 3 extensions are installed (Firewire Support, Firewire Enabler, & Firewire CardBus Enabler); however, the FireWire hard drive is still not mounting under OS 8.6 boots. It does so without issue when the same computer is booted by OS 9.1 and without these extensions installed on that partition. Any additional ideas? I've tried rebooting, turning the drive on and off. ASP 2.4.4 sees the FireWire pci card but the drive doesn't show up anyplace; on the other hand, ASP2.4.4 may predate FireWire and not know to look for it.

Sound Library Storage on External Firewire Hard Drive

I'm planning on using the 3-drive configuration for Logic 8 -- internal system drive (500 Gig) in bay #1 for Logic install -- second internal drive in bay #2 for audio recording -- and an external firewire drive for sound library storage.
I've got the *Apogee Ensemble* which doesn't like sharing the Mac Pro Firewire Bus. Given the significant demands made on the Mac Pro's firewire bus by Ensemble, the tech at Apogee suggested a PCI-e firewire card to create a second firewire bus for the external firewire drive (and any other firewire peripherals I have in mind).
*Question 1:* Does it matter whether this external drive is firewire 400 or 800? Will it make a noticeable difference?
I'm planning on partitioning this external firewire drive into three volumes as follows:
Volume 1 -- one-time back-up/clone of my current OS X Tiger hard drive contents.
Volume 2 -- ongoing cumulative back-up of new OS X Leopard install (we're waiting for 10.5.3)
Volume 3 -- sound library storage
*Question 2:* Will Logic or the Mac Pro have any problems streaming samples from a partitioned external firewire drive? (assuming neither volumes 1 or 2 are active while running a Logic session)

Well, I don't know about the unmounting, Kitesurfer, but I thought it was worth bringing up. I also thought it was possible to unmount one volume without the other disappearing, even though they're on the same disk. It may just be my particular external disk but I find that hard to believe. Also, I'm not sure if, because your CCC clone will be journaled, OS X interacts with it in any way. Someone else may be able to answer that.
I'm not a pro so I doubt my equipment will be of interest to you, but it's a 500GB Lacie mini hub. I also have a Lacie 250GB external, which has a clone of my sample library partition. Nobody recommends Lacie but I've had the 500GB for almost a year and the 250GB for over two years I think, and I've never had a problem (except maybe the unmounting issue).

Non training for tech support folks in store or on line for no firewire

Has anybody else found that the Apple support people themselves have no idea what to do without the firewire?
I went through four different people and four different opinions at the store about how I could migrate from my old iBook G4 without firewire with some telling me wireless or ethernet was impossible.
WIth no thanks to the apple people or support documents on their site, I got a wired ethernet network created between my two computers using a ethernet crossover wire. But then I couldn't get migration assistant to work because my old computer runs 10.3.9. I got on line with a woman who did not listen (I said off the bat there was no firewire -- though she should have known without my telling her from knowing it was a new macbook) and that I had set up the ethernet connection. I followed hersteps for 10 minutes before she said, "oh wait, you don't have a firewire cable" and put be back on hold. After she came back again, and finally transferred me over to a "specialist", all he could tell me was that I had to do everything manually and that it was my fault because my computer was too old and because I had chosen to buy the MacBook and not the MacBook pro.
I have been with Apple since the IIe. I got to play once on the proto type for the first little Mac. But now I am very very angry with a company that I think no longer cares for its customers. To not provide needed documentation (I found documents on line that spoke of 10.3 and migration assistant and no where in them did I find useful information, like this just isn't possible) and not to provide training so that your so-called support people have clue one is outrageous.

Yes, the omission of a FireWire port on the new MacBooks is definitely going to be an issue with many of us loyal Apple products users and owners, especially the ones holding the bag with FireWire HDs, Audio Interfaces, high end video, etc. Even if FireWire is going to be omitted because of future upgrades to faster USB and other port based systems, now is not the time to stop installing FireWire ports, especially without a technical alert for customers.
Most lower end PC laptops, Dell, etc. have FireWire ports available on those systems and probably will continue to offer them until new technologies take hold.
I was really excited about the new, more powerful Aluminum MacBooks and was looking into an upgrade from my older white MacBook 2.2 MHz, until I read the specs about no FireWire port and from reviews in MacWorld and various posts I have read about other customers concerns about this same issue.
Actually I use the FireWire port everyday, more than USB, like 8-12 hours to hook up my Tascam FireOne FireWire audio interface. The better audio interfaces are mostly FireWire supported presently anyway.
Companies are still manufacturing FireWire peripherals and some music software requires FireWire audio interfaces for best performance and lessen latency problems. Although some USB audio interfaces are better than others, Apogee and other fine audio interfaces are still designed to be connected via FireWire.
My little MacBook runs GB and other music software just fine, and I don't see a need to invest in USB products, nor buy the more expensive MBP just because it still has the FireWire 800 port. Unless there are USB/FireWire based adapters made available that work flawlessly, workarounds to connect Firewire peripherals to the new MacBooks, many of us that are buying FireWire hardware are being left out in the loop. We already have made substantial investments in FireWire based hardware and shouldn't have to purchase other USB peripherals because the new MacBooks don't have the ports available anymore.
I have been supported and buying Apple products since 1992, so I guess that makes me a loyal Apple customer. I feel I have to address the FireWire issue, because this issue alone puts a real roadblock in upgrading to the new MacBooks. Hopefully Apple will address these concerns, which seem to be many from their customers. Hopefully a solution will be offered, such as the ports being installed in the next generation of MacBooks. Then I can justify an upgrade.

Firewire Missing with 10.4.9 update

I can't communicate with any of my Firewire peripherals (M-Audio Ozonic), Epson scanner, Epson R800 printer, AcomData external drive, etc. Checked under "About this Mac", clicked on "More Info" and then clicked on "FireWire" under the Hardware component of the System Profiler. All that shows up is: Firewire Bus: and the page is blank.
Clicking on "USB "shows lots of info including the connected printer, scanner, mouse, hub, etc.
I have connected the previously mentioned items via USB 2 cables and am able to use them, except for the M-Audio Ozonic which connects only via FireWire (a MIDI interface music keyboard), and it's what I use 90% of the time. Presently, I'm stuck with the problem of no FireWire communication, and only since I downloaded the 10.4.9 security update. Anyone else? Is there a solution?

I believe a diagnostics disc is among the discs that came with the computer. Boot from the diagnostics disc and run the extended diagnostics to find out if there be a report of defective Firewire ports.
If not then it's possible your upgrade to 10.4.9 was not done successfully.
Repairing the Hard Drive and Permissions
Boot from your OS X Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Installer menu (Utilities menu for Tiger.) After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer. Now shutdown the computer for a couple of minutes and then restart normally.
If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior (4.0 for Tiger) and/or TechTool Pro (4.5.2 for Tiger) to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.
Now download the 10.4.9 Combo (PPC) Update and re-apply the update using the combo updater.

New MacMini + Old FireWire = Sad face

I just bought a new Mac Mini to replace my dying MacBook Pro (both 10.6.3). Once I got a FireWire 800->400 converter pigtail, everything transferred over OK using Target Disk mode from the old Mac, so I know that the FireWire is working. However, the MacMini doesn't see two of my older FireWire peripherals: a LaCie external drive and my Mackie Onyx Satellite audio I/O unit. They don't show up at all, even in System Profiler. Just to verify, I brought the LaCie drive into work and hooked it up to an older Mac I have here, and it's behaving fine.
Anybody got any insight?

OK, half the problem is solved. I did a little sniffing around and discovered that there was no FireWire Audio support installed. For some goofy reason, it apparently isn't included in a 10.6 installation. (The extension is called "AppleFWAudio".) I signed on to the Apple Developer site and downloaded the FireWire developer package, which includes a folder called FireWireAudio inside FireWireComponents inside FireWireSDK26. In there we can find several different AppleFWAudio extensions. Installing the experimental AppleFWAudio-2.4.1fc1 driver appears to have fixed my Onyx audio problem.
Still no answer on the LaCie drive. I've opened a trouble ticket with LaCie.

Firewire ports wont work

My Firewire ports have suddenley stopped working.
I have several firewire peripherals and none of them will work.
Maybe a connection insde?

Thought you could use this info about getting FireWire to work!
First, you should always Repair Permissions in Disk Utility before and after any update; I would do that now. If you installed your update with FireWire plugged in, your Mac may not recognize it anymore.
Try resetting your FireWire ports by disconnecting all FW devices, shut down your Mac and unplug it from AC power (wall socket) for 30 minutes. plug it back in and try FW.
If that did'nt work, download the combo update from this site (yours may be corrupt), not Software Update, disconnect all firewire + USB devices except keyboard + mouse, Repair Permissions, re-install update, Repair Permissions again + try. Yours is the 10.4.5 Combo update. Others reading, download the Combo that applies to your system.
If that still did'nt get it Zap the PRAM. While restarting Mac hold down the following key combo Command-Option-P-R. Keep holding those keys down till you hear the second start-up chime, then release.
For those of you with Macs that are not PowerBooks or iBooks, a bad internal battery can cause FireWire to not be recognized, so make sure it's good!
Good Luck!
Cheers!
DALE

Strange Big Firewire Icon on Startup

I am on a 24" iMac and I am randomly getting a grey screen with a big scrolling firewire icon on startup. There seems to be a pattern. I start up and the icon appears so I restart hitting the power button (keyboard and mouse don't work) 3 to 4 times and the computer boots. I have no firewire peripherals plugged in. Aaaah, help

Just to make sure there are no issues with the startup volume and give it a clean bill of health, do a Repair Disk, Repair Permissions and Check for Preference File Corruption.
Repair Disk: boot from the installation DVD, once past the language selection initial screen, run Disk Utility off the Utilities menu and do Repair Disk. If any errors appear, repeat until none. If unable to get no errors, you will need something stronger, like Disk Warrior.
Repair Permissions: boot normally, run Disk Utility off the startup volume, do a Repair Permissions. Beware, Leopard takes an awfully long time to finish this. You don't need to repeat.
Check Preference Files: get a third-party utility such as [Onyx (free)|http://www.titanium.free.fr/pgs/english.html] or [MacPilot (shareware)|http://www.koingosw.com/products/macpilot.php]. If using Onyx, follow the path Verify/Preferences. If using MacPilot, follow the path Tools/Disk & Files/Verify Preferences Files Integrity.
You can also try purging all caches, user and system. Also, how old is the iMac? Cause the internal backup battery may be dead or dying, causing PRAM corruption.

Firewire quit

After a momentary power outage, computer does not connect to firewire peripherals. Utility lists nothing on Firewire bus, even after reconnecting devices and rebooting. Is this a hardware failure needing Apple service?
iMac 1.8 GHz G5 Mac OS X (10.4.8) 1.5 GB Ram, 80 GB disc

Open up your OS Help Menu. In the search menu type firewire.
For starters click on "My FireWire device isn't working".
If the above troubleshooting topic, or none of the other troubleshooting topics work and your warranty has not run out or you have AppleCare, suggest you contact Apple for further help. Unless other knowledgeable users come along to contribute of course.
EDIT: DaddyPaycheck beat me by 7 minutes!

Firewire connections on my Power Mac G$ DP don't work

Yesterday the two Firewire connections at the rear of my Power Mac quit sending or receiving signals. My Firewire peripherals are fine from another computer, so the fault doesn't lie there. The USB connections are still working normally.
Any ideas and advice?
Thanks in advance.
Ed

Sometimes you can restore balky FireWire connections with an Open Firmware reset. Shut down your computer and remove all the peripherals other than mouse and keyboard. Startup and immediately press and hold the Command-Option-O-F keys until you get to the Open Firmware screen - there will be a command-line prompt. Type in the following exactly, pressing Return after each line:
reset-nvram
reset-all
reboot
After it restarts, open System Profiler and check if your FireWire ports are responding correctly and if so, hook your peripherals back up.
-Douggo

Firewire problem, not recognised!

Last week, I was censored by the Apple discussion staff board for being off-topics or not using technical terms. So I will try once again to expose my point of view. Don't forget, a discussion is when 2 people can have an argument,if you slap the door at me, it's not a discussion!
Technical statement:
My firewire port stop functioning. It happens when we probably try to hook hard drive in it. I didn't notice till I try to hook my firewire audio interface in it. The apple system profilers say « Attention : Impossible de répertorier les périphériques FireWire » in other words could not find any FireWire peripherals!
A technician told me that I would need to replace the motherboard.
In other way I would have to 1500$ over de 3300$ that I paid to repair that fundamental part of my laptop.
Here's a question;
What can I do?
I need to be able to input music from my Firewire(only) audio interface!
A FW to USB gadget with lost of signals?
Here's another question would you pay half the price of a car you bought a year ago to fix the engine so you can use you investment?

Have you "reset" the Firewire ports, Path::x?
Shut down and remove all power to the computer (ie both the power adaptor and the battery when a notebook is involved) and remove any firewire devices.
Wait 15 minutes (some people say 30 minutes with some systems but 15 has done the job for me in the past) . Then hook everything up, preferably with a new FW cable, and check the system.
The FW ports on Macs are protected by a self resetting fuse. You have to go through this process to reset them if they get "triggered" for one reason or another (usually caused by a defective cable or device).
Cheers
Rod

Usb/Firewire question

Ive had my ipod mini for about 4 months and for 2 of these months i had a completely blissfull relationship with it. One day i plugged it in to charge it and all was fine and dandy untill about 20 minutes later when it suddenly stopped charging and wasn't recognised my by computer. Over the next 2 days when i plugged it in nothing happened and on the 4th day the same thing happened as the first day.
Having read though this board and trying all suggestions i could find not helping, i gave up and ordered a firewire card which i'm currently waiting on.
However, i have noticed now that if i plug my ipod in it actually charges, despite the screen being blank and my usb not recognising that anything is plugged into it.
Because of this i was wondering if a firewire card will actually help, i'm hoping it will but i would like to be reassured about this. While its all fine and dandy that my ipod will actually charge, i can't actually do anything to it, i can't use itunes and i can't restore it.
Any answer to this would be greatly appreciated.

brtaus wrote:
I am pretty sure I have narrowed down the issue on my iMac to my USB ports being bad or having low power. I do have two Firewire 400 ports that are not being used though.
Is there an adaptor, cable or hub that goes from firewire to USB?
No.
Can I replace the USB hubs on my iMac?
Yes, but expensive as this means, basically, replacing the entire Logic board.
If your iMac is older and no longer covered under AppleCare, it's not worth the cost.
Other options?
If your iMac has Bluetooth, use Bluetooth keyboards and mice. Purchase external FireWire peripherals instead of USB ones.
WiFi printers.
Possibly consider new or newer iMac as replacement.

Invisible firewire peripherals

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