How to Disable Only Internal Firewire port?

Question

How to Disable Only Internal Firewire port?

Hi!

It's my first post here, i have a mid-2007 MacBook Pro 2,2 and a defective cabe fried the Firewire at all. The problens begin with my MBP refusing and freezing when trying to put it to sleep or the system taking up to 5 minutes to boot up. I re-installed the system from scratch and the problem persists. Then, i have removed the firewire-related Kernel Extensions (.KEXT bundles) and the system was working perfectly after this... But always was a "But"! I buyed a ExpressCard Firewire controller to use my HDV camcorder, but the only way to make the external card to work is enabling the firewire-related KEXT's and doing this, all the issues returns.

My question is: There is a way to disable only the built-in firewire controller, in a way that i can continue to use firewire devices via ExpressCard devices?

MacBook Pro 2,2Ghz, Mac OS X (10.5.7), Mid-2007 Model - 500Gb HD 4Gb RAM

Posted on Jul 17, 2009 9:20 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Kappy

Level 10

362,007 points

Jul 17, 2009 10:50 PM in response to Rafael Fischer

No, the internal ports cannot be disabled as they are integral to the motherboard. You should have the problem repaired - will require replacing the motherboard.

Reply

Answer 2

Jul 20, 2009 9:10 PM in response to Kappy

Hi!

Thanks for the reply! The problem of replacing the logic bord is the cost of about 50% of a new MBP here in Brasil.

I was thinking to make a script using the kextload ans unload commands to load the drivers just in time and unload on the end of use, what you think? Another way is deal with the PCI ID onde the kexts, but i haven't found any references in the FW kexts as is common on others Kexts like video or sound hardware...

Reply

Answer 3

Kappy

Level 10

362,007 points

Jul 20, 2009 9:14 PM in response to Rafael Fischer

Yes, I suppose you could do that using AppleScript. Won't solve the problem of a defective motherboard.

Reply

Answer 4

Jul 20, 2009 9:18 PM in response to Kappy

Yeah, but is better than spend about US$900 on a repair, and i can use FW again without the sleep/wake issues...

Reply

Answer 5

Flip Mo

Level 1

0 points

Aug 3, 2009 6:47 AM in response to Rafael Fischer

Hi Rafael,

I'm having exactly the same problem with my MBP as you have. I tried the same things as you did with the same result.
Did you solve the problem with one of the ways you described you were going to try to solve it?

--
I was thinking to make a script using the kextload ans unload commands to load the drivers just in time and unload on the end of use, what you think? Another way is deal with the PCI ID onde the kexts, but i haven't found any references in the FW kexts as is common on others Kexts like video or sound hardware...
--

If it worked, could you maybe explain a little how to do that since I'm kind of a greenhorn concerning the Mac OS and never really got deep into it.
I'd appreciate that a lot - need my firewire nonstop and can't afford a new logic board 😉 !

Cheers,
Phil

Message was edited by: Flip Mo

Reply

Answer 6

Aug 3, 2009 1:51 PM in response to Flip Mo

Hi Phil!

I haven't tested my theory of unloading the extensions but o solved the problem with sleep just removing the IOFirewireFamily.Kext in Extensions folder.

I will try the trick of load/unload the Kext on the fly and tell here if worked.

Someone using SnowLeopard beta?

Reply