Submit Hint Search The Forums LinksStatsPollsHeadlinesRSS
14,000 hints and counting!

Diagnosing a bad FireWire port System
I had an issue with my Dual-867; FireWire devices would intermittently drop off the bus. Symptoms included Toast going off into NeverNever land when launching or when clicking the "Eject" button after a burn (after coming back to my Mac from a 30 minute break during which time the burn was taking place). Another symptom was the Mac telling me that I had disconnected a FW drive (when I had not). Sometimes the problem manifested itself within the first two minutes of use; other times after 40 minutes. It first happened after the 10.2.6 update so I reinstalled the Combo updater (no improvement), and then did a clean install on another drive with 10.2.4 (same problems). Booting into single-user mode, I found the following message appearing (all on one line):
IOFireWireSBP2Login::fetchAgentWriteComplete fetch
  agent write failed! retrying
It would repeat five or six times, then pause about a minute, and then repeat again, etc. Sometimes it would appear within the first minute after boot and other times it would take 30-40 minutes until it would appear - the same frequency the problems would develop when booted to the Finder. Suspecting a bad FW port (the lower port on the motherboard), I swapped the FW devices to the upper port...and the problem disappeared.

Bottom line: Bad FireWire port. Still under warranty, I brought the unit into CompUSA. The Apple technician could not find the problem using whatever standard procedures Apple has developed. (Most burns to a FW device will succeed.) However, when I provided a photo of the screen showing the "IOFireWireSBP2Login...etc." and explained how I diagnosed the problem, the tech agreed that the motherboard would need to be replaced. So, if you have this problem, take a picture of the screen to document it and don't be too hard on the tech because this kind of a problem is apparently not documented very well for them.

PS - I'm buying AppleCare before the warranty is up!
    •    
  • Currently 3.00 / 5
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  (2 votes cast)
 
[24,173 views]  

Diagnosing a bad FireWire port | 11 comments | Create New Account
Click here to return to the 'Diagnosing a bad FireWire port' hint
The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.
Diagnosing a bad FireWire port
Authored by: digitaltvguy on Jun 11, '03 12:44:06PM

We saw the same problem with an 867. Hmmmm! I wonder how many of that vintage were flawed.

---

-Chris



[ Reply to This | # ]
It goes waaaay back!
Authored by: inmanjm on Jun 11, '03 03:21:30PM

I have a dual 800 and unfortunately, I never had a chance to even test my firewire ports until after the warranty was up. Then I discovered they wouldn't see ANY device. They showed up good enough on the system profile, though. Lucky for me, I have a coworker who let me plug my FW hard disk into their machine and feed off of it over the network.

Strange, sad, and true.

I thought they would have fixed that by now!



[ Reply to This | # ]
System Profiler not a good test
Authored by: barryjaylevine on Jun 12, '03 01:05:01AM

Yes, even though the port was bad, it still showed up on the Devices panel of System Profiler. What would not show up was the device connected to that port (if I happened to catch it when the port was doing its intermittent misbehavior).

Barry



[ Reply to This | # ]
Diagnosing a bad FireWire port
Authored by: skyhuv on Jun 11, '03 05:46:40PM

WiebeTech released a white paper on this topic a while back... check it out

http://www.wiebetech.com/pressreleases/FireWirePortFailures.htm



[ Reply to This | # ]
Diagnosing a bad FireWire port
Authored by: barryjaylevine on Jun 12, '03 12:56:08AM

Excellent link! thanks.



[ Reply to This | # ]
Diagnosing a bad FireWire port
Authored by: jyu on Jun 12, '03 11:29:06AM

Can't you just use the AHT CD that came with you Mac to test? Or are you talking about a PCI FireWire card?



[ Reply to This | # ]
Diagnosing a bad FireWire port
Authored by: barryjaylevine on Jun 13, '03 01:34:10PM

No. Unfortunately, when the problem is intermittent, it only shows up when the port is accessed at the specific time it's not functioning. Therefore, any tests performed while the port IS functional will result in an "OK".

I've been told you may check the Console for error messages but the specific error message regarding the port failure never appeared there!

For these reasons, booting into single-user mode may reveal otherwise hidden problems. In this instance, it was the only clue and, in fact, without the photo of the screen showing the error, I never would have been able to get a new motherboard under warranty!



[ Reply to This | # ]
Diagnosing a bad FireWire port
Authored by: ajayj3 on Jun 15, '03 10:31:30PM

Resetting the PMU has been succesful when I can determine that the port is not completely dead -- no fried PHY or worse.

This has worked for me twice when using an external FW drive with an analog DV media converter daisy-chained to it.

Symptoms were inability to mount the drive or detect the converter (or other attached devices), but I did notice that the ports weren't completely dead (i.e., 'hanging' on startup or shutdown, while FW device(s) attached and powered on -- immediately running routine upon disconnection or shut-down of attached FW device).

867dp, 512, 10.2.6



[ Reply to This | # ]
Diagnosing a bad FireWire port
Authored by: obiwan2u on Jun 16, '03 01:03:09AM
Hmmm, I recently had a problem booting my dual 867 MHz CPU G4, and after much gnashing of teeth, figured out that I had to unplug my Firewire CameraMate digital photo card reader (by MicroTechInt).

Whatever the problem was, it prevented the G4 from even booting up enough to open the CDROM door to boot of the emergency CD. Ie. I think it even prevented the firmware boot from executing (this is not a good feeling). All I had was a completely dark screen.

Unplugging the card reader made everything work fine.

I need to see if my card reader is bad and/or if the port on the G4 is bad. Hmmm, I hope the G4 hasn't gone bad.

Ben Slade

---
Put 030516 in the email subj to get mail thru to me.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Diagnosing a bad FireWire port
Authored by: ajayj3 on Jun 16, '03 10:17:52AM

This sounds like what I was experiencing -- as soon as you disconnect offending device, processes seem to continue...

Merely having a device connected is preventing the startup routine to run, so the port might not be fried. You can always volt-test the motherboard directly to test the hype.

In your case, as mine, I suspect it's something that could be fixed by resetting the PMU.



[ Reply to This | # ]
Diagnosing a bad FireWire port
Authored by: ackfeldwire on Jul 19, '04 11:34:13AM

Ok guys, I know this sounds like a cop out but here is the fix. I had a OS 9 box with this same problem. Then this morning I went to go plug in my iPod and low and be hold the frekin Firewire port was dead on this NEW G4 dual processor box.

The Ports were not even re registering. Here is how I fixed it though. In the previous machine that I had I had bought a firewire PCI card once I did that I never had a firewire problem again. Soooooo I took that card out of the Old OS 9 box (dont need it there anymore) and put it in this new G4 Box and it works just fine. No glitches so far. Plus I did not even need to load software.

Good luck all,



[ Reply to This | # ]