How do I test my firewire connection?

On 10 Jul 2005 11:53:30 -0700, "OM" <om.newsgroup DeleteThis @gmail.com>
wrote:

>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.

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.

--
Kind regards,
Gerard Bok
 >> Stay informed about: How do I test my firewire connection? 

OM wrote:
> 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

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
 >> Stay informed about: How do I test my firewire connection? 

> 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
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.
 >> Stay informed about: How do I test my firewire connection? 

OM wrote:
>> 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
> 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.

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
 >> Stay informed about: How do I test my firewire connection? 

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.


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 >> Stay informed about: How do I test my firewire connection? 

Greymage wrote:
> 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.
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> View this thread: http://www.wirelessforums.org/showthread.php?t=1303
> http://www.wirelessforums.org
>

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
 >> Stay informed about: How do I test my firewire connection?