Q: FW800 port spits fire????
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Feb 3, 2011 1:29 PMby RickyDee,Can't believe how fast you answered even though you didn't have the answer THE FIREWIRE joke was well received. I was so involved in the "panic" that it caught me by suprise. If all I get is a firewire joke ... well I have a good sense of humor and it was well received. My unit is air cooled to the later post. I think its time to move to better drives. -
Feb 3, 2011 1:42 PMby javabob,so your firewire is not working now, right? I would imagine the buss is fried but try this - Unplug your computer from all peripherals and AC from the wall - absolutely everything, and let it sit for 15 minutes or so. Plug it back in and see what happens - this will allow the firewire bus to reset. -
Feb 3, 2011 1:57 PMby David Bogie Chq-1,You might want to try an extensive google session on sparking firewire ports. There's 30 volts at 45 watts on the circuit, a massive short and that much power will make awesome sparks! ONe reason Apple mioght be ditching FW is the inability of consumers to read the fine print: Plug'n'play? YES! Hot-swap? NO!
from wiki:
+FireWire can connect up to 63 peripherals in a tree chain topology (as opposed to Parallel SCSI's electrical bus topology). It allows peer-to-peer device communication — such as communication between a scanner and a printer — to take place without using system memory or the CPU. FireWire also supports multiple hosts per bus. It is designed to support Plug and play but not hot swapping. The copper cable it uses (1394's most common implementation) can be up to 4.5 metres (15 ft) long and is more flexible than most Parallel SCSI cables. In its six-circuit or nine-circuit variations, it can supply up to 45 watts of power per port at up to 30 volts, allowing moderate-consumption devices to operate without a separate power supply.+
bogiesan -
Feb 3, 2011 3:49 PMby RickyDee,Thanks for all input.
In my situation when connecting a drive the computer is on and the drive is off. (as the manuals say - plug and play).
+"FireWire, eSATA and USB external devices feature “plug &+
+play” connectivity, which means that your drive can be connected+
+and disconnected while the computer is running. To+
+prevent failures, however, it is important to unmount or safely+
+disconnect your drive before switching interfaces. See section+
+2.5. Disconnecting Your LaCie d2 Quadra, for proper disconnection+
procedures"
I never disconnect a drive while its on or mounted. When I plugged in the FW800 line from the ON computer to the OFF LaCie the "spark show" happened with that smell of fried wiring. The FW800 port below the one the cable was connected to did the spark/fire show. With the drive still OFF I disconnected the cable and reconnected to the original non-spark port. No problem. Turned on the drive and it mounted and played some HD on it and no problem. Later I unmounted the drive, turned it off and reconnected the FW cable (computer is still on) to the "spark" port and Sparkarama.
I think I'll call it solved and that for some reason the second FW800 port on the drive shorted out.
Here's what I've learned though .... and this is important .... even though the lying corporate ******** say you can connect the cables to drives that are off when your computer is on - which I've done millions of times over the last 6 years .... The safest policy is to have your computer off too. How could something short when both are off. It even makes sense in a way.
All your post were helpful and appreciated.
Thanks again. -
Feb 4, 2011 6:31 AMby Jim Cookman,Whenever I'm setting up a system I make every other connection BEFORE I plug anything into the UPS. Even though a computer (or most modern devices) is off, there is still a current present. Ever notice the glowing red "off" indicator? Also, the capacitors still carry a charge. That's why a lot of people will tell you to power a device off, pull the wall plug and wait 15 minutes. Those capacitors are trickling off their charge.
I think we should all start calling it "plug and pray." -
Feb 4, 2011 7:59 PMby harry3232007,It's bad news.
I've been there - on three occasions when connecting to an external device - a faulty Firestore camera drive. I ran around like an idiot plugging the **** thing into my three Macs and wondering why smoke and flames were belching from the various ports.
In my cases it necessitated the replacement of the 3 main logic boards.
Unless I am greatly mistaken, the replacement cost of that board costs about $1,500.
I truly feel for you.
Sounds like it might be a good policy to consider a new computer rather than chucking a whole bunch of money into what you state is a 6 year old machine.
Best wishes,
Harry -
Nov 12, 2011 2:44 PMby Kenjiito,Hello, Does this really mean that when handling 800/400 Firewire cables, You have to turn off your computer when you connect them?
That sounds like a very in-efficient way to work. What if you need to go through mulitiple different drives to look for certain files? Do i really have to go USB to do that?
Was this problem fixed on Apple's newer computers? I've been having the same problem with different drives at my production company, but the newer computers dont't show any signs of it.
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Nov 12, 2011 8:27 PMby harry3232007,Yes. It does mean that you have to turn everything off. I am as guilty as you and often connect a device like a Firestore or other drive when that external drive is off but the computer is on. But your post reminds me that there is a genuine risk involved - see my previous post above about how I fried my 8 core's main logic board at vast expense - I think it was a $1500 replacement.
Thanks for reminding me to be a good boy.
I have always understood that USB is more benign and does not carry the voltage of Firewire, but I wonder if it is truly safe to hot swap USB. Does anyone know definitively?
If you need to search for a file amongst multiple drives, can't you daisy chain them? Perhaps you could leave all Firewire external drives permanently connected and mount and dismount them as you need them ... ?
Harry.
