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General discussion

Firewire port failure question

Aug 24, 2007 7:05PM PDT

Hi there,

I've got a quick question:

Both firewire ports on my Mac G4 silver door tower appear to have stopped working. Energy is supplied to devices, but nothing is recognized in the finder window. Is there anything I can do via the software angle to fix this, or do I need to take the computer to the sop and get this fixed (ie. pay someone money I don't have...)?

Any help would be GREATLY appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

Patrick

Discussion is locked

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Firewire Ports
Aug 25, 2007 12:09AM PDT

That's not good.

Do the devices that you are connecting to the firewire port(s) have their own power supply?
What does the System Profiler display about the Firewire Bus?
Does it show the connected devices on the bus?
What are these devices?

You have not supplied any information as to the version of the Mac OS that you are running.

Long shot, but have you tried running Permissions Repair from the disk utility? Assuming you are running some form of OS X.

Last resort? An Archive and Install of the OS to replace what may be a slightly damaged system.
You will need the install disks for the OS that you are using to achieve this.

P

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If all else fails
Aug 25, 2007 12:13AM PDT

you can always purchase a Firewire PCI card to stick into one of the open PCI slots on that machine.

They work quite well.

P