MacFixIt D.Y.K.: Your FireWire port may charge devices even if your Mac is off

From the "did you know?" files, a recently updated Apple knowledge base article reminds us that your FireWire port may still allow you to charge devices even if your Mac is asleep or turned off.

The article reminds users that this behavior is normal and expected. This is particularly handy when using an external bus-powered FireWire hard drive as a boot volume.

Computers that provide this feature include:

Power Mac G5 (Late 2005)
iMac G5 (Ambient Light Sensor) and later models of iMac G5
iMac (Early 2006) and later models of Intel-based iMac
Mac mini (all models)
PowerBook G4 (1GHz/867MHz) and later models of PowerBook G4
MacBook Pro (all models)
MacBook (all models)
iBook G4 (all models)
Mac Pro (Early 2008), Mac Pro (Early 2009)

Note: With notebook computers, power is only provided over FireWire if the computer is connected to AC power. If the computer is running off battery power, it conserves power by disabling this feature.

For full details, read this Apple KB Article.

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Apple KB Article

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