I’ve had three camera firewire ports blown in two weeks, a XL1s, a optrua Xi, and finally a ZR 80. Two of them fried on a certain computer, so I stopped capturing video with that one and used another computer and then the ZR 80 fried too.

But forget all that, my question is does anyone know of a 4-pin firewire pci card? After looking on this board and the internet I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s almost impossible to have a 4-pin firewire port toast a camera. This is the only one I found,

http://devicebaystuff.com/firewirestuff/fws46603.html

just wondering if anyone knew of any others?

Thanks,
jacob

I've only seen 6 pin ports as a PCI. Do you think the 6 pin port is
adding to the problem?

I have seen barebones (small PC enclosures) with 4 pin firewire
ports though.

If you don't attach the power feed header to the 6 pin Firewire card you can't possibly fry anything. I've never bothered to attach the power feeds, as every Firewire device I've ever owned was self-powered.

Just pull or don't attach the plastic power feed connector from the card. Six pin connectors are stronger & more secure in general, so if 'power' is the issue nip it at the source.

GB

I believe my card also has jumpers so it can either feed power from a floppy power connector or just from the PCI bus, so you might want to check that as well.

Hmm... I'd better check my card, now that I think about it. That sounds like a good way to prevent these kinds of problems (all of my FW devices are also self-powered).

On those three cameras, did you use the same cable? I've heard stories where it was the real culprit, rather than the firewire card (though the card may have blown as well).

You might wish to invest in something like this:

http://www.mmdirect.co.uk/?page=shop/flypage&product_id=524

...

Cheers,

One of the computers the firewire was on the motherboard, the second a pci board. The same cable was used on the first two cameras, then a different one for the third.

Thanks for your replies everyone, probably pick up one of those line protectors. Thanks

Jacob, if you do get one of those line protectors, post here again and let us know if it really works. Not to be pessimistic, but I'm really curious how it "suppresses" the static electric charge. Most AC surge protectors just shunt it to ground, but here there's no ground connection. Also, it doesn't say anything about preventing cable shorts and the like (such as the power issue Geoff was referring to).

Ed, do you have any other info or experience with this? Really, I'm just overly curious how stuff works.

Hi Jeremy,

I do not have any experience with it, I got an e-mail about it a couple of monthes ago.

Just thought that it could help with this sort of problem.

If you want to read more check out Kramers site:

http://www.kramerelectronics.com/indexes/desc.asp?p=PT-1FW

Jeremy if you do find out how it works please let us know, I too was a bit dubious... But then again I don't see any reason why it should not do what it says. It could solve a lot iof headaches around here...

Thanks,

We’ll Jeremy ordered one today so I’ll let you know what happens when it gets here, for anyone who is interested, it was a $99.00, I couldn’t find any site to order off the net that was in dollars so I called the company and ordered by phone, should be here next week at the latest.