How do I test my firewire connection?

  • Thread starter Thread starter OM
  • Start date Start date
O

OM

I've found out the hardway that my firewire connection on one of my
PC's is faulty.
It has managed to blow the iLink connection on four different
camcorders. : (

I only discovered this as a result of trial and error and pulling my
hair out trying to figure out why my camcorders would not connect to
PC's.

The thing is... I have two PC's.
I don't know which is faulty.
The firewire conection works fin with other hardware like external hard
drives.

The only way I can see of finding which has the faulty firewire
connection is by connecting another good camcorder!

Is there another way? : )

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.


OM
 
OM said:
I've found out the hardway that my firewire connection on one of my
PC's is faulty.
It has managed to blow the iLink connection on four different
camcorders. : (

I only discovered this as a result of trial and error and pulling my
hair out trying to figure out why my camcorders would not connect to
PC's.

The thing is... I have two PC's.
I don't know which is faulty.
The firewire conection works fin with other hardware like external hard
drives.

The only way I can see of finding which has the faulty firewire
connection is by connecting another good camcorder!

Is there another way? : )

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.

OM
Click to expand...
Sounds as tho` it`s getting expensive.Have you checked with your local
camera shop for help ?.
bw..OJ
 
I've found out the hardway that my firewire connection on one of my
PC's is faulty.
It has managed to blow the iLink connection on four different
camcorders. : (

I only discovered this as a result of trial and error and pulling my
hair out trying to figure out why my camcorders would not connect to
PC's.

The thing is... I have two PC's.
I don't know which is faulty.
The firewire conection works fin with other hardware like external hard
drives.

The only way I can see of finding which has the faulty firewire
connection is by connecting another good camcorder!

Is there another way? : )

Any help would be appreciated.
Click to expand...

Well, 'from a distance' :-)
My guess is, that the PC that lacks a safety ground connection is
blowing your camera. They always are.

One other thing for protection: Both your PC and a camcorder have
their own power supply. So you only need a 4-wire connection.

It shouldn't hirt, but to keep on the safe side, use a cable that
has a 4-wire plug at least on one side of the cable.
 
OM said:
I've found out the hardway that my firewire connection on one of my
PC's is faulty.
It has managed to blow the iLink connection on four different
camcorders. : (

I only discovered this as a result of trial and error and pulling my
hair out trying to figure out why my camcorders would not connect to
PC's.

The thing is... I have two PC's.
I don't know which is faulty.
The firewire conection works fin with other hardware like external
hard drives.

The only way I can see of finding which has the faulty firewire
connection is by connecting another good camcorder!

Is there another way? : )

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.


OM
Click to expand...

How do you know, positively, that the iLink connections have been
destroyed? iLink is unpowered and if you use a straight iLink to normal
Firewire cable, I cannot see how that connection can affect the camera.
If there were a grounding problem, it should have affected the disk
drives also (actually, one of the pins, at least, of the four iLink pins
is common ground).

Are you certain that you have set up the cameras correctly for transfer?

Q
 
How do you know, positively, that the iLink connections have been
destroyed? iLink is unpowered and if you use a straight iLink to normal
Firewire cable, I cannot see how that connection can affect the camera.
If there were a grounding problem, it should have affected the disk
drives also (actually, one of the pins, at least, of the four iLink pins
is common ground).

Are you certain that you have set up the cameras correctly for transfer?

Q
Click to expand...
ya, exactly what i thought!
symptom: camcorder working ok on other pc's, connect camcorder on one
of my two pc's, ilink wont work, then test on a million different other
pc's, camcorder will refuse to work.

i asked sony at an exhibition, they told me that this was a common
problem.
apparently, ilink is NOT hot pluggable.
apparently, somewhere in the small print of the manuals this is
specified for all hardware.
i dont think my prob was hot plugging.

AND... sorry... i think i said camera in my post, i meant camcorder.
 
OM said:
ya, exactly what i thought!
symptom: camcorder working ok on other pc's, connect camcorder on one
of my two pc's, ilink wont work, then test on a million different
other pc's, camcorder will refuse to work.

i asked sony at an exhibition, they told me that this was a common
problem.
apparently, ilink is NOT hot pluggable.
apparently, somewhere in the small print of the manuals this is
specified for all hardware.
i dont think my prob was hot plugging.

AND... sorry... i think i said camera in my post, i meant camcorder.
Click to expand...

Well, if Sony says it. OTOH, I've been hot plugging firewire devices
over iLink on two Sony laptops for a couple of years (one person's
experience is not a statistic!).

Q
 
Greymage said:
Does anyone have a link to any sort of Firewire connection tester?

I had the same problem - all of a sudden, my camcorder's Firewire
connection stopped working. I initially thought it was just the XP
patch putting up the firewall on the IEEE1394 adapter, but turning it
off had no effect.

I finally figured out one of my computers had a faulty Firewire port
after I tried using a portable drive to move data; copying the data
onto the drive worked fine, trying to move it off on the other computer
did not work, and then when I moved it back to the original computer it
also failed. The USB 2.0 connection on the drive continued to work
properly.

Getting a new camcorder confirmed the problem, I was able to connect
with Firewire on two computers which my old camcorder no longer
connected to. I did not try the new camcorder on the computer with the
bad connection.

I've googled but haven't been able to find any sort of connection
tester. Any pointers would be appreciated.
Click to expand...

What if you try Firewire networking ?

Connect two computers together with a Firewire cable. Windows (Vista excepted)
has a networking stack that works over Firewire. Move data across the
cable. Check the networking stats for packets received in error etc.
That is about as much connection tester as I can think of, for free.

You could move data via setting up a Share on one computer. Then copying
data from it.

I've also set up an FTP daemon on one machine, and done FTP transfers as
a test. That is handy if you want to run the link as fast as it will go.

Paul
 
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