Firewire port dead?

[ribbonthecat]

There seems to be something funny going on with my 12' PB's Firewire port. It can no longer detect my external harddrive or DVD-RW. It's not something wrong with either of them, or the cable, because I plugged them into a 12' iBook and it worked fine.And yet when I plugged my iPod Nano into the Firewire port, it still charged the Nano.

Is there anything else I can do besides call Apple? The computer is about a year old, but it has Applecare. If I have to send it in, will it cost me anything?

 

[hawk1982]

Same firewire problem (I think...)

Hi ribbonthecat,

I seem to have the exact issue with my 1.83 15" MBP.

More precise: It started happening during the transfer of songs to my iPod. iTunes gave the message that it cannot write to the device and since that time it will only charge and not connect.

At first I thought this to be an iPod issue, but when I plugged it into a XP machine it connected and restored with no problems. I have also tried putting it in disk mode but no luck.

So I tried a fw DV cam and it also cannot connect.

It seems we have the same problem.

There is a post here at the bottom of the page that may be good to try first:
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20061101081125696
Summary: "System Profiler said I had a FireWire bus, but nothing happened when I plugged in a FireWire device. Shutdown, unplugged, and removed the battery for 30 minutes, and my FireWire port started working again! Yay!"

If that doesn't work: AppleCare.
Most likely/hopfully it won't be a money costs issue but more of a time cost issue to get it fixed.

Since we have two apple stores in the area I'll try making a appointment there and let them have a look at it.

Hope this helps,

Thomas

 

[hawk1982]

Powering off worked (for me)

I can hereby say that the steps of powering off, disconnecting everything and taking out the battery, has solved the issue on my MBP.

I was quite impatient so only left the battery out for about 5 min which, in my case, was enough the clear whatever had to be cleared in order for the fw port to work again.

The iPod is mounted and my dv cam also connects again.