firewire port failure

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Level 1

9 points

firewire port failure

Hi all... first post here. Have been scope-ing out the posts here regarding loss of firewire port recognition, and haven't found any that seem to exactly fit my situation. Seems my 2.7DP does not see either the front or rear FW port. SP does not say "No information found.", just shows the heading "FireWire bus:" then is blank. This seems to have happened after the power went out at my place (have UPS, but didn't seem to work - that's another thread!). USB is not affected, and all FW peripherals work on my Pbook. Physical exam of the cables and connections do not show any damage. No ozone smell of death. When the machine boots and runs there is now a very faint high pitched whine(?) now that was not there before. Have unplugged the machine from the wall by removing the plug from the back of the machine (my understanding from reading posts in other forums is that this re-sets some fuse if one waits 10-15 mins.), have zapped P- and NVRAM and PMU. None of these seem to have fixed the problem. TechTool Pro also does not see any FW ports during its hardware test. Any other thoughts on how to troubleshoot this prob? Hoping the fix is not a logic board or FW controller replacement... Have Apple Care, but its a real hassle taking the machine in, and would love to find a fix among you folks here. 🙂

Cheers!

Posted on Nov 1, 2005 6:32 AM

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Answer 1

Gossamer

Level 4

2,090 points

Nov 1, 2005 9:17 AM in response to nathan lowe

Have you tried an open firmware reset?
Hold the Command Option+OF keys during startup. That will put you into Open Firmware. At the '>' prompt type:
reset-nvram
press Return
set-defaults
press Return
reset-all
press Return
and your computer will restart

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Answer 2

nathan lowe Author

Level 1

9 points

Nov 1, 2005 12:54 PM in response to Gossamer

Hi Gossamer... thanks for your reply! Yes, as I indicated in my inital post I reset the NVRAM (using the OF short cut) as well as the PRAM (BTW I let the PRAM cycle thru the three times before letting the start up sequence proceed). Frustrating! Any other thoughts?

N

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Answer 3

Nov 1, 2005 2:42 PM in response to nathan lowe

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 15 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.

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. You will lose some of your settings so do this only if all the above fails.

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
Have you checked your battery and applied the Combo update yet?

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Answer 4

nathan lowe Author

Level 1

9 points

Nov 1, 2005 3:06 PM in response to Dale Weisshaar

Thanks for the post Dale... but I didn't do any update... as I believe I said in my first post, I lost FW when the power went out... I have gone thru all the steps you outlined... no fix 😟

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Answer 5

Nov 5, 2005 8:42 PM in response to nathan lowe

Try this:

1. Download Mac OS X 10.4.3 Update a standalone version. Shut down the computer.

Note: If you install any third-party applications that are an in-kernel memory resident type, un-install them temporarily.

2. Disconnect the power cord.

3. Disconnect external peripheral devices and internal PCI devices.

4. Reconnect the power cord and start up the computer.

5. Overwrite the Mac OS X 10.4.3 by the downloaded standalone Mac OS X 10.4.3 installer.

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Answer 6

Nov 7, 2005 2:33 AM in response to Fumiaki Kawashima

Hey, same problem here.. if you find anything let me know!

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Answer 7

Jan 23, 2006 12:01 AM in response to nathan lowe

nathan, did anything ever come of this? i recently experienced the same problem, and am at a loss as to how to solve it. i noticed in the crash log i'm receiving the following error:

Kernel loadable modules in backtrace (with dependencies):
com.apple.driver.AppleFWOHCI(2.5.2)@0x736000
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOPCIFamily(1.7)@0x479000
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOFireWireFamily(2.0.8)@0x669000
kmod scan stopped due to missing kmod page: 00000000

and it seems as though there's a driver missing that should be installed.

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Answer 8

Jan 23, 2006 3:42 AM in response to monkeymeetsrobot

hi.
had this happen to me twice in the last year,first time packed lot up and returnd to store next day.
on power up all was fine.
2nd time a couple off weeks ago just left power off 24hrs all fine again seems the 10-15 min power off is not enough for me.
hope this helps.

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Answer 9

Jan 23, 2006 7:30 AM in response to Anthony massey

ugh...i probably should have tried that.

ok guys, here's what doesn't work:

when looking through my extensions folder, i noticed that one of them had been modified today! IOPCIFamily.kext was the name. i also have a powerbook, with the exact same file which hadn't had the file modified since the machine was last updated in March of last year I believe.

so, being the silly person that i am, i decided to replace the IOPCIFamily.kext file on my desktop with the one on my laptop.

needless to say, fun kernel panics every time i boot up.

at this point, i've got it booted off the 10.4 install dvd, and am now working on an archive and install. i'm outside my warranty, so if this doesn't work i'm not sure what i'll do...probably get a PCI firewire card. it's kind of...a bummer.

install is finishing up now...lets see how things go...

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Answer 10

Jan 23, 2006 7:46 AM in response to monkeymeetsrobot

ok, and update. it looks as though i'm back to where i was before. i'm in the OS and everything is working fine, except for the firewire still. no more kernel panics, no more problems.

i've done all the steps listed in this thread, and still no luck.

next is going to be turning it off for a while.

in the meantime, anyone have any other ideas?

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Answer 11

Jan 24, 2006 11:36 AM in response to monkeymeetsrobot

just an update for everyone. after doing an archive and install, everything worked again except the firewire. i turned off my computer, unplugged it and the firewire hard drive i had connected, and took a shower.

when i came back after around 15 minutes and turned it on, the firewire drive worked perfectly, and has continued to for the past day or two.

i don't know what changed. when i had tried unplugging it and leaving it alone before nothing was fixed.

anyway, problem solved. the best thing to try first if encountering this issue is to unplug the computer as well as the firewire device, and leave the computer off for a while.

thanks for the help guys.

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Answer 12

Jan 24, 2006 12:21 PM in response to monkeymeetsrobot

Yes, unpluging everything resets the FireWire ports.

Perhaps it did'nt work before because you had something wierd in your OS that the Archive and Install corrected. Usually it is something funky with the incremental OS software updates acquired from Software Update. They are either incomplete for your model or become corrupted during the download.

That is why Fumiaki and I suggested downloading the Combo update from this site which has the full version. I think if you had tried that, you would have the same result as the Archive and Install has given you (even though you still had to reset the ports). The Archive has brought you to a version before any incremental updates.

Cheers!
DALE

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