[nyikaguy]

To all Apple wizards,

I sure hope someone out there can help me. I have posted this on other sites but no luck so far.

History of the PROBLEM:
I recently purchased Tiger from Apple on DVD and installed it on an AGP G4 Powermac (aka Sawtooth). This is a near stock computer with a 450 MHz processor and 512GB ram. It has a new 128 GB Seagate hard drive and an Apple Airport card. The computer drives one of the original apple cinema displays. The only other hardware attached is an old PCI card located in slot b providing two additional USB 1.0 ports. Until this install the machine had been running robustly (that is all systems, ports etc. operational) on OS 9.2.2

Since the install neither of my two stock FireWire ports work. The ports seem to be putting out power since the power indicator lights of devices light up when I try to connect them to the computer. However, the computer does not seem to be able to communicate with the attached devices. I am trying to set up this computer as a dedicated two-way iSight communicator and thus the lack of FireWire is a big issue for me.

When I plug in the iSight camera the green power light will illuminate for a second or so and then will shut off. iChat claims there is no camera attached. The camera and iChat work fine on three other Tiger enabled Macs that I have tried so this is not an iSight hardware problem. I have also tried connecting a portable, bus-powered FireWire hard drive to the ports. The power light on the hard drive illuminates but the disk never spins and the computer never recognizes that it is there. This hard drive works fine on the other three Tiger enabled Macs that I have tried. Again this does not seem to be a hardware problem with the hard drive.

When I installed 10.4 on this computer I did a clean install. I erased the entire contents of the Seagate hard disk. The hard disk was new at the time. During the install no other devices were connected to the computer’s FireWire or USB ports besides the keyboard and mouse via the USB port.

The USB ports (both the stock ones and the one’s on the PCI card) currently work fine as far as I can tell. I have tested these by plugging in the keyboard to each of the ports.

What I have TRIED:
After a day of searching the web, I called Apple support.
1) I have tried resetting the PMU on the G4 (twice) as per instructions from Apple (no luck)
2) I ran the FireWire firmware update as per the apple instructions, i.e. via OS9 (no luck)
3) I have reinstalled the system (no luck)
4) I have upgraded to 10.4.3 (no luck)
5) I have tried both external FireWire ports and even the internal FireWire port with the same results.
6) Thinking that maybe the FireWire ports had simple gone bad,
I purchased a third party PCI FireWire card from Q-Stor and installed hoping this would provide me a working FireWire connection (no luck)
note: I removed my old USB 1.0 PCI card and tried putting the FireWire card in its slot. (no luck)
7) I have booted from the Tiger install disk and “repaired permissions” and “repaired disc” (no luck)

Other Information that may be related:
a) The system profiler claims that the FireWire ports are capable of supporting 400 Mb communication.
b) The system profiler recognizes that there is a PCI FireWire card attached.
c) I have checked the voltage of the mother board battery and it is 3.6 V, i.e. up to spec
d) I have double checked Apple's iSight system requirements spec and the claim is that a "600MHz G3 or above, and any G4 or G5" should be able to establish and take part in a two way video chat using iSight and iChat on a 10.4 enabled machine.
e) This is the kicker. recently I connected my portable hard drive to one of the firewire ports and then performed an "option" reboot, i.e. held down the option key while rebooting. when the start up option screen came up, low and behold the computer indicated that there were "two" disks to choose from with respect to start up, i.e. the internal hard drive with OS 10.4 and an external hard drive. Unfortunately since the external drive does not have a copy of an OS on it and that was as far as I got. the net of this is however that the computer can power the port and can put and receive data via the firewire port at least during start up.


Any help is greatly appreciated!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks

Chris

[inkhead]

Why not return the firewire card for a new one?

[tr]

strange. i have the exact same machine, only with 1.5GB RAM, and no USB PCI card, but a 802.11g PCI card instead. 10.4 works fine here.

i was going to tell you to try the internal firewire port to see if that works, but it seems you've done that with no luck.

as was said above, maybe try another firewire card. and maybe you can try putting an OS on that portable drive you have, and see if it can boot. i mean, you said it did SEE the drive when you were choosing a boot disk, right? so it's not like your fw ports are completely dead.

do you happen to know if you've run the latest firmware update? it should be 4.2.8 here's a download if you need it:
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macos/8148

tr

[reader50]

You could partition your drive, and install your older OS version on the 2nd partition. Booting into it will confirm if it is an OS issue.

ie - if the FW ports continue to work on the older OS and continue to not work under Tiger, then you've positively eliminated hardware issues.

I routinely partition or use multiple HDs. A new OS always goes on a different partition, so my old system install remains available.

[dave49er]

Updating to 10.4.3 using System Update is killing FireWire ports. You need to download the 10.4.3ComboUpdate from Apple, install it, and restart. More info:

http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?...51107082716836

Finally, MacFixIt reader Shawn reports that a double-punch of re-applying the Mac OS X 10.4.3 combo updater and repairing permissions from an alternate startup drive allowed FireWire devices to operate properly again.

Shawn writes:

"I am running a Blue/White Power Mac G3 upgraded to 500MHz G4. After applying 10.4.3, I no longer have FireWire. These are the steps I took:

I reinstalled 10.4.3 from the Combined Updater
I rebooted to the 10.4 install DVD.
I ran Disk Utilities > Repair Disk
I rebooted to the internal drive.
I ran Disk Utilities > Repair Permissions
"FireWire is now functioning properly."

[tr]

Originally Posted by dave49er

Updating to 10.4.3 using System Update is killing FireWire ports. You need to download the 10.4.3ComboUpdate from Apple, install it, and restart. More info:

http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?...51107082716836

Finally, MacFixIt reader Shawn reports that a double-punch of re-applying the Mac OS X 10.4.3 combo updater and repairing permissions from an alternate startup drive allowed FireWire devices to operate properly again.

Shawn writes:

"I am running a Blue/White Power Mac G3 upgraded to 500MHz G4. After applying 10.4.3, I no longer have FireWire. These are the steps I took:

I reinstalled 10.4.3 from the Combined Updater
I rebooted to the 10.4 install DVD.
I ran Disk Utilities > Repair Disk
I rebooted to the internal drive.
I ran Disk Utilities > Repair Permissions
"FireWire is now functioning properly."

i don't know if this information may apply to nyikaguy's situation. first, i've had no problems with firewire and 10.4.3 via software update. i've updated 3 machines (G4 450 sawtooth, exactly like nyikaguy's, iBook G3 700, iMac DV SE G3 400) with no problems with firewire.

as for MacFixIt's Shawn, he's running a B/W Powermac G3 PCI upgraded to a G4, not the same machine as the one affected here. now, i'm not saying that his methods wouldn't work, but nyikaguy stated that he has already tried booting from the Tiger DVD and ran disk utility, with no change.

the only thing i can think of is to try what reader50 said, to get an OS on your firewire external drive, and try to boot from that. from what you've said, i'm sure it's not a hardware issue.

tr

[nyikaguy]

Originally Posted by reader50

You could partition your drive, and install your older OS version on the 2nd partition. Booting into it will confirm if it is an OS issue.

ie - if the FW ports continue to work on the older OS and continue to not work under Tiger, then you've positively eliminated hardware issues.

I routinely partition or use multiple HDs. A new OS always goes on a different partition, so my old system install remains available.

Thanks for this idea. It took a while but I now have two partitions. One with OS9.2.2 and one with Tiger 10.4.

Booting to the 9.2.2 partition makes the PCI firewire card functional. the internal firewire ports, however are NOT. they put power out but do not communicate.

Booting to the 10.4 partition (I have not yet updated this partition to 10.4.3) results in non-communicative firewire ports all around, i.e. power on the ports but NO communication.

I guess this is a combination hardware (internal ports) and software problem (for the external ports). are there any reports of PCI cards not functioning under 10.4? system profiler correctly identifies my firewire card as an IEEE 1394 device but does not see the drive hung off of it.

Still seeking working 10.4 firewire solution.

[nyikaguy]

Originally Posted by tr

i don't know if this information may apply to nyikaguy's situation. first, i've had no problems with firewire and 10.4.3 via software update. i've updated 3 machines (G4 450 sawtooth, exactly like nyikaguy's, iBook G3 700, iMac DV SE G3 400) with no problems with firewire.

as for MacFixIt's Shawn, he's running a B/W Powermac G3 PCI upgraded to a G4, not the same machine as the one affected here. now, i'm not saying that his methods wouldn't work, but nyikaguy stated that he has already tried booting from the Tiger DVD and ran disk utility, with no change.

the only thing i can think of is to try what reader50 said, to get an OS on your firewire external drive, and try to boot from that. from what you've said, i'm sure it's not a hardware issue.

tr

I agree. I tried exactly dave49er's recipe with no luck. I also upgraded and updated an iMac DV with Tiger and all works fine on this machine. HOWEVER, I also have a Titanium powerbook and the upgrade to Tiger on that machine also has resulted inoperable firewire ports. I am saving the solution of that problem to a later date.

as I mentioned in a reply above, the internal firewire ports do not work when driven by either 10.4 of 9.2.2. the PCI card firewire however does work under 9.2.2 but not Tiger.

still seeking a working Tiger plus firewire solution.

chris

[nyikaguy]

Originally Posted by nyikaguy

I agree. I tried exactly dave49er's recipe with no luck. I also upgraded and updated an iMac DV with Tiger and all works fine on this machine. HOWEVER, I also have a Titanium powerbook and the upgrade to Tiger on that machine also has resulted inoperable firewire ports. I am saving the solution of that problem to a later date.

as I mentioned in a reply above, the internal firewire ports do not work when driven by either 10.4 of 9.2.2. the PCI card firewire however does work under 9.2.2 but not Tiger.

still seeking a working Tiger plus firewire solution.

chris

seeing that I purchased the least expensive FireWire PCI card I could find at Fry's, and given the above data, I began to think maybe I have TWO hardware failures. So this evening I went out to Circuit City and purchased another PCI FireWire card. The manufacturer this time is ADS Tech.

Plugged the new card in the Sawtooth, booted to OS10.4 and low and behold the card works and I can mount drives and iSight works (all be it a bit slower than on my other new machines). I have since removed the card and completed the upgrade to 10.4.3. I then reinstalled the card and it still works! note I still don't have functioning internal ports and I still cannot explain why these would have stopped working. nothing was attached to the computer when I installed 10.4. anyway that is a problem that I don't have to solve. on to restoring firewire to my titanium powerbook!!

chris

p.s. thanks again to all that have offered suggestions. i have learned a great deal about my computers and about the usefullness of these types of forums.