Do's and Dont's for FireWire

[ofbarea]

Do's and Dont's for FireWire

Some basic information to help you keep your FireWire products functioning

DONT:
1) plug in a FireWire device while your machine is booting up - let the computer complete the boot up process and you see the desktop before connecting a device OR connect the device before you boot your machine
2) remove a FireWire device without first unmounting it - there is a potential or damage not just to the data on the drive, but to your enclosure and your firewire ports
3) remove a FireWire device and immediately plug it back in without waiting at least 10-15 seconds - the board and port need time to recycle and reset themselves
4) insert a cable upside down - look before plugging
5) force a cable into a FireWire port - if it doesnt want to go, dont force it!
6) use the wrong power supply with your FireWire device - you will burn up the power supply on your device and potentially cause a backcharge which will fry the ports on your computer if you are connected
7) connect multiple FireWire devices at the same time - connect them one at a time and let them mount before connecting the next device
8) bus power more than 2 devices from a FireWire port - if you have multiple bus powered devices, use a self-powered hub/repeater to provide power and connect devices to individual ports on the powered hub
9) play with firewire in the bath or shower.... just wanted to see if you are paying attention

DO:
1) follow all the above advice
2) check your cables for excessive wear and tear and replace when needed
3) check for and update the firmware on your FireWire devices if new firmware is available
4) ask questions if you have them before doing anything
5) allow cooling space around devices if you have multiple devices in use at the same time
6) immediately remove any device that has smoke coming out of it....

FireWire Bridgeboard basics:
1) For dual drive bridgeboards with dual drive IDE cables, always use the end of the IDE cable as master, the middle of the IDE cable as slave, regardless of jumper setting (if it's on cable select, the cable will select the end of the IDE cable as master, and the middle as slave by default)
2) If you are using really fast spin up drives (which the Western Digital JB drives are), and two bridgeboards (4 hard drives), all four drives will try to jump in and mount at the same time. A band-aid method to fix this is just to unplug one FireWire cable and just let 2 drives mount first, and mount the other 2 once the first two drives have mounted. In the Oxford and Initio FireWire firmware utilities, there is an option in the Configuration section/Advanced Options for setting a variable called "wait 6sec before polling drive". You can set it so one set of drives (one bridgeboard) will wait 6sec before trying to mount the drives, and the other bridgeboard leave the option turned off.

[Poppa_Meth]

3) check for and update the firmware on your FireWire devices if new firmware is available

I disagree on that one. Update firmware if you need to not just because it's new. I've had new firmware break a perfectly functional device too many times to believe just becasue it's new it's better.

[ofbarea]

At least for Oxford 911 (and newer oxford chipsets) based cases, updating firmware is a good practice. Over time newer firmware installed in my olde case allowed me to support Maxtor 160 GB disks, improve performance (now I can capture DV and write it to a disk in the same firewire bus (the original firmware did not allowed it because of the dropped frames), newer firmware supports master and slave devices while original firmware did not, and for many, the latest firmware removed Write delayed failures affecting the system randomly. Also for Oxford 912 and 922 newer firmware allowed maximum transfer rate of firewire 800 cases in Windows 2000.

On the Mac arena, newer firmware made older Oxford based cases compatible with Mac OS 10.3

For these cases not upgrading the firmware is like running WXP with no service pack applied.

Check this link for some of the problems you may face by not upgrading:

http://www.fwdepot.com/firewiredepot/firmware/firmware.html

[Poppa_Meth]

Oxfored chipsets might be one thing. Prolifics are completely different. I had a burner in on and a HDD in an identical one. The HDD had issues so I flashed the newest Firmware. Issues were sorted out. I flashed the same firmware to the burner enclosure and I ended up with a burner that put numerous errors on every disc I burned. Not sure of VIA chipsets and others. All I can say if be careful with Prolific.

[hudsonf]

I would only upgrade if I was having problems or if it added features I didn't have. If it ain't broke don't fix it.

[jackal70058]

Lot of rules with that stuff. I'll keep it in mind.

[Bjs]

Dv camera must be powered on before connection to firewire port ?

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