[Gulli]

I have a powerbook 15'' 1.67ghz with a firewire port failure. The firewire bus does not show in system profiler.
Interestingly, this prevents the computer to sleep and shutdown. I can only shut down the computer by holding the power button until it hardware shuts down.

The console shows "FWOHCI Error trying to clear PHY ports" at startup.

This problem comes and goes for apparent random reasons, or at least, reasons I cannot understand. After doing endless maintenance routines (yes, I did everything that is posted online) and even an erase and install I conclude that I have a hardware problem. However, my Apple Care expired in June so I am facing a $800+ repair.

The thing is that I do not really need the firewire port working but I do need the computer to sleep and shut down normally. I am wondering if any of you know if there is any way to not load the firewire port at startup and trick
the computer to believing that there is no firewire port installed. I speculate that if the computer does not try to clear these ports or issue a bus reset then the problem might go away. If you know for sure that this cannot be done, it would also be helpful to know it. Also, if you don't know the exact answer but have a hint on where to start looking for the answer I will also appreciate it.

I will really appreciate any input you may have in this regard.

[Tenacious Dyl]

When I first read this, I was going to just suggest a PCMCIA F/W card, but I don't know about telling your computer not to look for something that it does have. Perhaps its just looking for F/W at all because it expects it (I doubt this) but just to make sure, see if you know someone with a F/W card, and try it out. If it doesn't fix the problem, you've at least gotten rid of a possible solution.

As the F/W stuff in your laptop is just on the logic with everythign else, I don't see another fix except a logic board replacement.

[Waragainstsleep]

Somethings can be disabled by removing the relevant .kext files. Firewire unfortunately is initialised before most of the OS since it works in firmware to allow for target disk mode. Worth trying a PRAM and/or NVRAM reset. Other wise you are going to have to find a way to disable it in open firmware.

[Eriamjh]

You could try removing the FW chip altogether.

Here is some information: Hardmac.com : Le "Macbidouille" in English