Sorbet Leopard, G5, FireWire Issues

[mac57mac57]

Hi, I recently installed Sorbet Leopard 10.5.9 on my PowerMac G5 DP 2.3 GHz, 4.5 GB of RAM. I have discovered that with anything plugged into a FireWire 400 plug on the PowerMac, the machines will not complete booting. Unplug all FireWire devices and boot again, and all is well. It boots right up.

Does anyone know of any issues and/or workarounds for FireWire 400 on Sorbet Leopard?

BTW, the FireWire device that I am trying to put in is Apple's own iSight camera! The PowerMac G5 is dual booted with Tiger and Sorbet Leopard. Under Tiger on the same machine, the iSight works just fine.

Another note: I have also noted weirdness when I plug in a FW800 external HDD, although that DOES completed boot up. However, there are lots of freezes and glitches. I eventually unplugged the drive and everything returned to normal.

Any and all insights MOST appreciated!

 

[mac57mac57]

Perhaps poor form, replying to my own post, but further research has turned up the fact that this is an old problem with no "official" solution (patch, etc.) from Apple. FireWire has routinely, but not always, broken after Leopard upgrades.

Several SUGGESTED solutions have turned up, and I will try each in turn:

1/ Zap the PRAM: seems like a possible solution, correcting a multitude of config issues.

2/ Apply the DSDT patch... I have to find said patch first! No idea what it is!

3) Remove the AppleHPET.kext file from the Extensions folder. Not sure what this kext does, but numerous folks reported FireWire success after doing this.

4/ Unplug EVERYTHING from the machine, including the power cord, and let it sit overnight. In the AM, the FireWire ports will all work normally. To be tested, but numerous folks reported FireWire success after doing this.

I'll post back after I have worked through this list.

 

[mac57mac57]

Another update:

1/ Zap the PRAM: no impact. Problems remain.

2/ DSDT patches: don't seem applicable to PowerPCs.

3/ AppleHPET kext- not present, so couldn't remove it.

4/ Unplug EVERYTHING... I started with "everything FireWire" then rebooted. All clean, so I plugged back in the FW800 external drive. It worked well, so far... Letting it run over night, will test it in the AM.

The working theory, which I read elsewhere, is that any unterminated FireWire cable causes a problem with Leopard, and I did find and unplug one of those. Maybe .. just maybe

 

[mac57mac57]

Another update: this morning all was well with both the PowerMac G5 and the FW800 hard drive plugged into it, so that is a good sign.

However, the machine messed up again later today. Sure enough, I found ANOTHER unterminated FireWire 400 cable plugged into a FireWire port on my Apple Cinema Display, so that might be a problem...

I unplugged it, restarted and we shall see how things are tomorrow.

 

[mac57mac57]

Mixed results from that last test... the machine worked just fine the next day, but froze up an hour or so later under regular use.

So... courtesy of Hurricane Debby, I unplugged the PowerMac G5 and left it for 15+ hours (along with EVERYTHING else - heavy thunderstorms in the area). This is the "unplug everything" solution, and several readers have reported that their FireWire devices worked just fine after this.

I will test that out later today and report back

 

[mac57mac57]

OK, last report here. Unplugging everything and waiting overnight also did not resolve the issue.... Sorbet Leopard still won't boot on my PowerMac G5 with a FireWire iSight camera plugged in.

In the end, I am OK with this - not critical functionality to me. I will keep trying things as I learn about them, but unless I achieve success, I won't report it here. There is not THAT much value in knowing yet one more thing that DOESN'T work!

 

[mac57mac57]

I spoke too soon; my previous post is not the end of this thread.

Interesting new development: just for completeness, I turned off the PowerMac G5 DP and plugged in a GTech FireWire 400 250 GB hard drive, bought at the same time as the G5 itself, to be used as a backup drive. It is therefore 100% compatible with the PowerMac... the drive enclosures are even styled to look somewhat like a G5.

I brought the whole system back up and have had it running for days. The GTech FW400 drive hasn't caused a moments trouble, unlike its FW800 peer. What is interesting is that the FW800 drive is a newer device; the FW400 drive is a contemporary of the GT itself.

Is the problem perhaps a newer FireWire chip set in the FW800 drive?

I would be OK with this explanation except that the iSight camera is ALSO a contemporary of the G5, and it causes LOTS of problems (namely, the machine won't boot successfully when it is plugged in!).

Is it just THAT particular iSight camera? Is that particular one broken? Or perhaps Sorbet just lacks the necessary video drivers? There IS an iSight kext; I checked for that right away, and it seems to be the same one from stock Leopard; I checked that as well.

As a tangential test, I plugged in an old USB Logitech QuickCam Pro for Notebooks. Even though this camera is not officially supported for Mac OS X, it worked perfectly with Sorbet iChat, so base video support IS there.

I have one other iSight lying around somewhere. I will find out and retry the iSight test with it. I doubt that this will produce any breakthroughs, but I am tracking down all possible leads.

 

[mac57mac57]

Just to wrap this thread up, again, a hopefully final update.

Unable to locate my extra iSight, I went in a different direction. Suspecting FireWire chipset issues, I plugged in a different FW800 external HDD, also from GTech, and let it run overnight, and now several days. No issues! Works perfectly - the machine boots seamlessly with it plugged in and running and it doesn't freeze up after 12 hours or so.

SO... FireWire isn't "broken" in Sorbet (or Leopard as a whole), but it doesn't seem to support nearly as many external devices as Tiger did, both FW400 and FW800.

I haven't found any sweeping solution to this, but I have a FW400 HDD that works, a FW800 HDD that works and a USB webcam that works. Functionally, this is everything that is needed. I can live with the omission of the rest.