firewire not working

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Jules's picture
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firewire not working

One of my computers (eMac, Ati Graphics) firewire has stopped working over the past few days. I have tried everything I can think of and it would appear to me that something has fried in the firewire controler.

2 days ago I put it to sleep (as per usual) and when it woke from sleep it would no longer recognise the external LaCie hard disk I use with that machine. The disk powers up when the computer wakes from sleep as normal (the drive is mains powered but it detects the power from the firewire ports to wake itself up). Innitially I thought it might be a problem with the external drive or a cable or something, but after testing the disk with other machines (from powerbooks to G4 towers), I can safely say that it is not a problem with the disk.

Now, I don't have any other firewire devices so I cant test them but what I did do was boot the eMac into target disk mode and plugged it into the pismo I use for travel to see if it was detected by that machine as an external drive. To my woe I found that it was not detected by the pismo either.

Also, when I go to system profiler, and select information for firewire, it simply says "No information" or something similar. The only time I have seen that before is on the SCSI information section and on my friend's iBook after he ripped the ethernet port out accidentally.

So basically what I'm asking is what do you guys think? Something blown internally in the firewire circuitry, or could it be something simple that I havent thought of yet? And is the firewire build into the mobo? I'm almost 100% sure it would be, but there is still an element of doubt.

Ideas or recommendations?

moosemanmoo's picture
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The firewire is built into th

The firewire is built into the motherboard, yes. It would sound like the firefire controller, but just to be sure try resetting the CUDA.

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Joined: Feb 28 2005 - 15:15
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same problem here

I am having the same exact problem with my emac, as described to a T. What was the result of your problem? Does anyone else have any suggestions?

TheUltimateMacUser's picture
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PRAM & CUDA

I'd try a PRAM reset, and a CUDA reset. Although it does sound like a blowen FireWire controller.

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Joined: Feb 6 2005 - 09:30
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Must read

Read these reports http://www.macintouch.com/firewirereader.html. There are quite a lot but it is a must read. Lots of very weird cases. Some people reported that only leaving Macs turned off and unplugged for 12 hours brought FW ports back.

There is lots of experiense there, I hope you find something that will help you fix yours.

FW chip in eMac is FW802B from Agere. Yes, it is soldered on.

dankephoto's picture
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reset the nvram

Maybe resetting the nvram might help, that can clear up all sorts of problems.

to reset the nvram . . .

Start up into OpenFirmware by holding down key combo cmd-opt-O-F right after startup.
at prompt type
"reset-nvram" (without quotes of course, and then enter)
it'll say "OK"
"reset-all" (and enter)
and it'll restart

dan k

coius's picture
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I have had similair problems

With my iBook Dual USB 900MHz G3. in referenc to my post:
http://www.applefritter.com/node/5846

It seems to be a firmware problem. Cause apple had me download a firmware update for it. (i think apple has hidden the update. :p) I know there was no update for me to download on Software update. But apple emailed the update to me. I applied it and have had no problems. I think apple fixed it permanantly by update the Firmware from then on. Contact apple. This needs to be brought to the attention of apple. It seems apple has been getting sloppy on their firmware code

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Joined: Feb 28 2005 - 15:15
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I found the problem

I was told that if you restart the computer and hold down command+option+p+r and let it ding(reboot) 4 times it might solve the problem. Unfortunaterly it just left me with a black screen that does absolutely nothing. I contacted Apple to ask them a few simple questions but they refused to speak to me unless I paid them $40.
I ended up on the phone with the place I purchased my mac. They told me to disconnect all of my firewire ports and restart. Finally my computer came back up.
I then tried to remount my external firewire drives. My Ipod and lacie Porsche drive both mounted, but my Lacie D2 did not mount. I was told that it was probably that device that tripped out my firewire. Turns out it was most likely the firewire card in my D2 that is going out. I just recently got it back up.
anyways I just hoped I could help any of you from the headache that this caused me.

Jules's picture
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Just Started Working Again

Well, it didn't work for weeks on end, but when I took it back up to University after Christmas and set everything up it just started working again. Maybe a wire was loose, or something went weird for a while, but it is working again now so I'm not overly concerned why... Still, going to be selling the machine soon just incase it happens again.

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