Date: Fri, 14 May 2004 13:49:51 -0400 From: Jesse Guardiani <jesse@wingnet.net> To: freebsd-firewire@freebsd.org Subject: Re: freebsd 5.2.1-RELEASE, 4 pin laptop firewire ports, and 6 pin firewire hard disk drives [SOLVED!] Message-ID: <c830s0$29n$1@sea.gmane.org> References: <c3i354$q38$1@sea.gmane.org>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Jesse Guardiani wrote: > Howdy list, > > I bought an external 2.5" firewire enclosure back in Dec 2003 to use > with my IBM Thinkpad A30p's 4 pin firewire port. At that time I didn't > know much about firewire, so I totally neglected to notice that the hdd > uses a 6 pin port and is a bus powered device. But my laptop has a 4 pin > port, so I can't directly connect my laptop to my external fw hdd because > the 4 pin port doesn't provide bus power. > > So I reluctantly used the USB 1.1 port on my laptop with the external > hdd for a few months. It was painfully slow, but at least I could still > USE the drive to some extent. Eventually I found a decent deal on a 4 > port Belkin firewire hub, part number F5U524. It comes with a power > adapter and provides bus power, so I figured this would be an excellent > way to power my hdd AND still use the 4 pin port on my laptop. > > However, apparently I'm missunderstanding something about the firewire > specification because even with the belkin hub I can't detect or talk to > my firewire hdd under FreeBSD 5.2.1-RELEASE *OR* Windows XP Professional. > I've tried connecting to the hdd through the hub from three different > laptops: > > 1.) My Thinkpad with a 4 pin port (FreeBSD & WinXP) > 2.) A dell with a 4 pin port (WinXP) > 3.) A G4 Powerbook with a 6 pin port (OS X) > > *ONLY* the Powerbook can actually detect and talk to my HDD via firewire. > I've tried a 4 pin to 6 pin adapter *AND* a 4 pin to 6 pin cable. No joy. > > Anyway, the hub is obviously working because the Powerbook can connect to > the HDD through it. The dell has a known good 4 pin port. My friend has > used it in the past to send DV streams to his camera. But I really don't > know if my Thinkpad's 4 pin port works or not. I've never been able to > make it work. Here's the dmesg: > > fwohci0: vendor=1180, dev=522 > fwohci0: <1394 Open Host Controller Interface> mem 0xc0201000-0xc02017ff > irq 9 at device 0.2 on pci2 fwohci0: OHCI version 1.0 (ROM=0) > fwohci0: No. of Isochronous channel is 4. > fwohci0: EUI64 00:06:1b:02:01:00:24:63 > fwohci0: Phy 1394a available S400, 2 ports. > fwohci0: Link S400, max_rec 2048 bytes. > firewire0: <IEEE1394(FireWire) bus> on fwohci0 > fwe0: <Ethernet over FireWire> on firewire0 > if_fwe0: Fake Ethernet address: 02:06:1b:00:24:63 > sbp0: <SBP-2/SCSI over FireWire> on firewire0 > fwohci0: Initiate bus reset > fwohci0: BUS reset > fwohci0: node_id=0xc800ffc0, gen=1, CYCLEMASTER mode > firewire0: 1 nodes, maxhop <= 0, cable IRM = 0 (me) > firewire0: bus manager 0 (me) > > I've tried 'fwcontrol -r' and numerous other commands, but nothing happens > (well, the bus resets, but my HDD isn't detected). 'fwcontrol -t' always > returns the same result, regardless of whether the hub is attached to my > 4 pin port or not: > > [13:34]jesse@trevarthan:[~]# fwcontrol -t > crc_len: 3 generation:7 node_count:1 sid_count:1 > id link gap_cnt speed delay cIRM power port0 port1 port2 ini more > 00 1 8 S400 0 1 0W - - 1 0 > > Can anyone tell me why I can't connect to my HDD through a powered > firewire hub using the 4 pin port on a laptop? Well, at this point I am assuming that this was a cable length or quality issue. Eventually I got it working. Here's how: I had given up on the 4 pin firewire chipset that is built into my IBM A30p Thinkpad laptop. To recap the situation: I had bought a Belkin F5U524 4 port POWERED hub and tested it with my internal firewire port and my external firewire hdd, but I couldn't get it working. The laptop's firewire chipset didn't notice when the hub OR the hdd was plugged in. I even tried this configuration with a friend's known-good 4 pin firewire port on a Dell Inspiron, and that failed too. So I bought an inexpensive 32 bit firewire cardbus card for my laptop (Belkin F5U512) for $23 shipped to my door from ebay and gave that a try. It worked just fine with my IBM A30p. Then I noticed that it came with a nice 4 pin to 6 pin cable, so I thought "Eh, why not?", and I plugged the 4 pin cable into my built-in 4 pin firewire port and the belkin hub, while the external hdd was also plugged into the belkin hub. To my great surprise, the hdd was recognized by my internal firewire chipset immediately. My internal chipset works! So it *must* have been a cabling issue. Either the cable was too long, or too low quality. The thing that frustrates me is that I tried about 5 different cables (4 cables with a 4 pin to 6 pin adapter, and 1 brand new 4 pin to 6 pin cable from a local computer store) before I tried this belkin cable, and they all failed. But for some reason this one works great. :) Anyway, so now I'm stuck with a 32 bit firewire cardbus card that I don't need. But at least I know my cardbus interface works under FreeBSD 5.2.1-RELEASE! :) I guess this might be a good excuse to buy a cardbus->PCI adapter card for my desktop at home. -- Jesse Guardiani, Systems Administrator WingNET Internet Services, P.O. Box 2605 // Cleveland, TN 37320-2605 423-559-LINK (v) 423-559-5145 (f) http://www.wingnet.net
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?c830s0$29n$1>