[SunHawk]

On 1/10/06 I took delivery of a refurbed 15" 1.67 GHz Powerbook (stock model), which replaces a prior PB that was terminally ill upon delivery and RMA'd to Apple on 1/5. The new unit is a std res model that is currently running OS X 10.3.7. I have some Qs re the FW & USB port info showing in Sys Profile. Are the below issues things that can be easily fixed, or does this PB need to go back to the Apple Hospital?

-->1st, re FW ports: Sys Profile shows only 1 FW port, and that is listed as an 800Mbs port. There are 2 FW ports on the R side of the laptop and they look like a 400 & an 800, but nowhere is the 400 port shown or listed. I don't have any FW devices to check the ports. Shouldn't Sys Profile show both the 400 & 800 FW ports? Does the absence of the 400 port in Sys Profile indicate that port is dead? Any ideas how to fix this?

--> 2nd, re USB ports: In addition to one USB Bus entry for BT, Sys Profile shows 3 other USB entires. 2 of those 3 entries are described as "USB Bus" and have the same info of "Vendor: Apple Computer, Inc; Speed: Up to 12 Mb/sec; Product ID: 32773 ($8005); Bus Power (mA): 500". The 3rd entry is shown as "USB High-Speed Bus"; "Vendor: Apple Computer, Inc; Speed: Up to 480 Mb/sec; Product ID: 32774 ($8006); Bus Power (mA): 500 ". Is this normal info in Sys Profile for 2 USB ports, or does this info mean there are actually 3 USB ports on this PB - 2 at 1.1 and 1 at 2.0 - even though I can visually see only 2 USB ports?

Thanks in advance for any & all help.

[B Gallagher]

I've never used my FW800 yet, but here's the message I get in System Profiler > FireWire with my FW400 working fine:

FireWire Bus:
Maximum Speed: Up to 800 Mb/sec

Which, in other words, means that the FW on your PB supports any form of FW up to and including 800. Which means it supports 400 just fine.

And as far as I can tell, at least from System Profiler > USB, is one USB Bus which has Bluetooth HCI on it, another which has Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad on it, and a third USB High-Speed Bus. The first USB Bus is the USB plug on the left hand side, the second is the one on the right. If I plug anything into either one (eg. Mighty Mouse), the list below each one changes to two itesm to include the device which is plugged in.

From this I am assuming that each USB Bus is being used for two USB ports each, just that one port on each is being used by Apple for the keyboard and bluetooth.

As for the third, USB High-Speed Bus which appears in System Profiler > USB, I'm not sure. Hopefully someone else will have more idea.

Hope this helps - now you've got me curious about it too!

[SunHawk]

Thanks for checking your Sys Profile & posting the info. I do appreciate it.

FWIW, I spoke with Apple Care today & described what my Sys Profiler was showing re the USB & FW ports. The tech couldn't shed any light on it other than saying, "Hmmmm; that's really odd." This PowerBook has so many additional issues that the tech said he wasn't even going to try to troubleshoot them. He deemed it a DOA and it is going back.

I'm having horrible luck trying to escape MS-He*l. I've had 2 refurbed PowerBooks in the past 3 weeks and both were DOAs. I guess I'll need to buy a brand new one if I want to switch to Mac.

[B Gallagher]

No problem SunHawk - I'm happy to help!

Unlesss I misread something it seems to me that what is showing in your System Profile is normal. At least, that's what is showing in mine as well, and my PB is working fine.

I guess we need someone else to check theirs and compare - perhaps there's something about my PB which I'm not aware of... :O

[crouchingtiger]

my Powerbook (AlBook 1.5 GHz) shows the same information... And I know the FireWire 400 port definitely works because I just used it 5 minutes ago. (While something is plugged into the FireWire 400 port the information will change to reflect that device).