Hardware and MacOSX Related Question

[Larry Blodgett]

I have a 12" white iBook 500 MHz (64 +256 Meg Ram) which runs fine 
under 9.2.2 but runs 5 TIMES slower under MacOS 10.2.2.  The firewire 
port is broken and does not function in either system.

Here is my question:

Is there a process under OSX that is constantly looking at the port 
and trying to make it work.  This would busy the system and make it 
run very slow?  If this is the case it should be possible to turn off 
the firewire port daemon.  Releasing the sytstem from an endless 
process.

I have reinstalled X three times now on it own 6 gig partition. 
Before the port failure X seemed to run normal.

PS- I have run the hardware diagnostics and MacTest Pro and 
everything passes as just fine.  The only way I know the firewire 
port is broken is because it does not work at all under either system.

Any ideas??????
-- 
Larry Blodgett