[P1] iBook Firewire Problems

[Dan Farley]

> I have a white 2 usb iBook.  The firewire port failed just beyond the
>> warranty period.  So I am naturally hesitant to buy another iBook.
>> Many have had this same problem and when failure occurred within the
>> warranty period they returned the iBook to Apple several times for
>> repair.

There is a great "firewire special report" at <www.macintouch.com> that
covers this issue in as much detail as anyone would want. I've posted the
following post because it relates to reviving a lost firewire port.

YMMV - good luck
-------------------------------

Reviving dead FireWire ports (Re: iFire Uses Dead Firewire Port Nov 13)

Steven Frank
 Phil Sandiford (the user in today's edition with the dead FireWire port
that is passing only power and not data) should try resetting the Power
Management Unit (PMU) and Open Firmware in his iMac.

 Recently I bought a FireWire hub for my Titanium PowerBook. I noticed that
none of the devices (including an iPod and an iSight) I plugged into it were
showing up in Apple System Profiler, even though they were getting power. I
removed the hub and tried plugging the devices directly into the FireWire
port, and they no longer worked there either!

 I thought for sure the hub had fried my FireWire port, or maybe there had
been a static discharge. I even booted off the hardware diagnostic CD that
came with the computer, and it reported an error regarding FireWire.

 After some searching online, I found someone's suggestion of resetting the
PMU, followed by an Open Firmware reset. Lo and behold, after doing all
that, the port worked normally again... Until the next time I tried the hub
again, which killed the port again. Resetting the PMU and Open Firmware once
again saved the day.

 Resetting the PMU is a machine-specific operation... I don't know the
details for the iMac, but there is a document at support.apple.com that
explains how to do it for each machine. For the TiBook, it involved shutting
down, and pressing a small metal button under the keyboard.To reset Open
Firmware, reboot the Mac and hold down cmd-option-O-F from startup chime
until a command line appears. Type:
 reset-nvram 

and press return, followed by:
 reset-all 

followed by another return.

 It's worth a shot, if nothing else has resuscitated his FireWire port.