Fried Fire Wire Port

[osbornes5]

Well this is just beautiful...I was capturing with my 170 the other night and suddenly my puter won't recognize that the cam is hooked up. I do the usual stuff..close the capture window then open it back up, turn off the cam then turn it back on, un-plug then re-plug the fire wire at both ends. Then I get it..that old smell. You know the one pros call that "electrial smell". Open up the tape door and...WOW! It's strong. Shockingly enough everything on the cam still seems to work well except the firewire port. So I just think great...something burned up. I put the thing away and get out the 2100. Plug it in and...nothing. Same process. So I plug my 2000 into another puter and it works. Plug the 2100 in to that puter and nothing. So now it's obvious that both firewire ports are gone and the common denominator is the puter. I plug the 2000 into the back firewire port and voila! She's good to go. The wire had gotten caught by a foot and cranked sideways thus wallowing out the input, THe tech at the local repair shop says that it is a pretty common occurence. He says that the puter puts out 12v and the smaller pkug to the cam only sends 6v and that if the connectors get crossed up on the puter side it can send 12 to the cam. Anyway he says it could be as much as several hundred dollars to repair. Took one in today. Anyone know of a good repair shop that won't rip me off? Never have had good luck with repair shops locally...EVER.

[HankCastello]

I sent you an email, but finally found the contact info for my repair guy -

Mike Warren, prez of North Texas Chapter of the Texas Electronics Association, contact info is on home page of that org at -

http://www.teanorthtexas.com/

Tell him Hank sent ya!

PS - sorry to hear about the problems, but thanks for posting.  I think we'll all be a bit more careful with firewire after this.

[On a Roll]

How much does it cost to fix a firewire port these days? One of my old GL-2's has a broken pin, and I should fix it before I try selling it.

[osbornes5]

Well, I just got a call from the local repair shop and because this one took out the circuit board, it is going to be $360 if I have it done locally. YUCK!

[osbornes5]

I did just get a call back from the shop and he said he had a used board he could use which would save me about $100. I have e-mailed Hank's guy...Stay tuned.

[osbornes5]

Hank's guy quoted a price of $850 - $1000. I just regained consciousness. He assumed it was the whole board that was bad. I spoke with him on the phone and he said that if that was the price they were quoting it must jsut be the board that contains the firewire port. For this job the $360 was a fair price he said. Since I am getting a used board and saving $100, that's even better. Wish I had taken out insurance on the things now. I am going to look at that again.

[osbornes5]

Just as an FYI, this was apparently caused by the firewire hook-up simply getting pulled to the side a bit. The cord had been kicked a couple of times previously and the port on the puter had simply gotten wallowed out ("wallered out" as Okies say). By it getting pulled to the side it allowed a couple of connectors to cross somehow thus delivering twice as much voltage to the cam as it was supposed to get. FYI...If your fire wire port ceases to function, ASSUME the worst. Don't plug another cam into it until you have replaced it...heed my warning lest ye pay!!!

[HankCastello]

Was the damage to the port or to the cable?

[osbornes5]

Sorry hank, I missed this post. To answer, the damage seemed to be to the port on the puter. However, I chose to take the safe route and I trashed the cable though it looked OK. I no longer use that port either so whichever one it was, I am safe. I will ultimately replace the box. For now, I use the port on the back.