Firewire lockup (isight?), due to USB device

[kodiak]

hi,

not sure where to post this... had an imac ppc for long time,
but some time back found my ipod and itunes would lockup during sync'ing

i assume hardware failure, but whilst exploring this, due to someone else on macrumours experiencing similar, i found something odd..

it would appear, that what happens is a USB card reader i have (using std apple driver), somehow locks up the firewire devices.

Jun 5 18:27:01 mymac kernel[0]: /SourceCache/AppleFWOHCI/AppleFWOHCI-252.4.0/AppleFWOHCI.cpp 3539: ERROR: FireWire (OHCI) Apple ID 31 built-in: handleUnrecoverableErrorInt


i can now reproduce using these steps:
a) have ipod and isight plugged in
b) turn on camera (ichat), start sync ipoc in itunes
c) plug in card reader into USB
* all ok at this point,
d) unplug card reader
* everything stops, itunes and ipod lock up, ichat/isight freeze
* above error in system.log

e) unplug isight, plug it back in
* itunes/ipod restart copying, isight works

any ideas?

im hoping i can work around, but interested if this is
i) card reader driver fault
ii) isight fault
iii) firewire fault

note: latest versions of osx/firmware are in place
note: the unplugging of card reader, is just to reproduce... i believe i had similar without unplugging, symptoms however were identical.

can anyone else reproduce this? a known bug in osx?

 

[mad jew]

I don't have an iSight or USB card reader so I can't help reproduce it, but at a guess I reckon it's a power issue in your USB/Firewire in which case it's an un-fixable aspect of your computer. iSights take up a pooh-load of power.