DV Info Net - Nightmare scenario for any videography business.

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Yup, your beef is with the builder, not the employee who kept plugging in cameras. "See if it recognizes a different camera" - is one of the most frequently given reccomendations on this board for chasing down a problem.

They had a tech guy come out from Geek it squad" and he was able to find out that the Header was NOT plugged in backwards after all. Everything was put together properly. So everything we have been discussing is INCORRECT. I had just thought from those pictures that it must be backwards. (but i was wrong). Remember i have not been to this computer physically to inspect it myself.

The Geek it guy could not figure out why this happened so he unplugged the header and said not to plug it back in. Now firewire in the rear works fine and does not damage any cameras.

The only factor here is the CASE. The computer previous to this issue had been inside another older case where everything worked flawlessly. It was then recently upgraded to the 'Cool master Cosmos' case model that you see in the picture. It was inside this case that the firewire did not work properly.
http://www.coolermaster.com/microsite/Cosmos/

I am imagining now that the firewire header on the cosmos case is to blame as it is built wrong (perhaps). The header being plugged in caused all the other rear firewire ports not to work at all, and the front port to fry 5 cameras.

Perhaps the internal wiring on the cosmos case firewire header cable is backwards? Regardless, the computer is now working and they can capture over firewire. The XHA1 was returned for a new one and this 2 week nightmare is almost over.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tyson Persall (Post 824129)

I have learned a terribly painful lesson. We run a small videography business doing corporate videos, local commercials and the occasional wedding. This is the story of how we lost 5 cameras for a total of nearly Ten thousand in losses. All due to a simple mistake. Thats Two XHA1's, a DVX100, a Canon HV10 and another small Panasonic 3CCD camera all broken.

Apparently if you have a home built computer and you plug the fire wire front panel header into the motherboard in the wrong direction you can fry a camera that connects to it. I guess the firewire cable is sending data and power threw it and if those lines are crossed the camera will break and no longer come on.

How it happened; I was out of town for a week. An uneducated person was left in charge of the workstation where this front panel firewire header was plugged in backwards. Someone who is dreadfully unaware of technology but supposedly capable of simple capturing tapes. She was not aware of what was happening and thought the computer had a software problem with not recognizing the cameras over firewire. So she went ahead and tried camera after the next not realizing what was happening until the 5th camera. We now have 5 cameras that are now broken because someone did not realize this was happening. Three of them are no longer under warenty. For a total loss of $9500 dollars in damages worst case scenario. Hopefully we can get the XHA1s fixed , as they were brand new, for no cost.

Let this be a lesson to the rest of you that build your own computers. I would imagine that plugging in a header in the wrong direction would make it just not work, but apparently this can happen...

Happened to me with my Canon HV20.

I blew the fire port on my Sony FX-1 recently as well as my friend's FX-1 when I plugged the six pin end of the firewire cable into the firewire card on my computer backwards. No, I did not force it in. The beveled edge on the firewire cable that is supposed to make it fit only one way into the firewire card was easily able to slip right into any one of the three plugs on the firewire card either way including backwards because the manufacturer of this particular firewire card didn't manufacture the firewire holes small enough so that it would be a more tight fit and therefore only able to slip in the right way, as it does on 99% of firewire cards. When I turned the camera on, while it was backwards in the firewire port, it blew the firewire port on each camera.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tyson Persall (Post 826501)

I am imagining now that the firewire header on the cosmos case is to blame as it is built wrong (perhaps). The header being plugged in caused all the other rear firewire ports not to work at all, and the front port to fry 5 cameras.

What exactly is broken in these cameras apart from FW interface? Firewire interface is usually implemented with standalone ICs (PHY) that are pretty generic and can be replaced by a good PCB rework technician even on a highly integrated board. I would say there is a good chance that either FW frontend (everything else works) or the whole camera power supply (nothing else works) has blown up. I have replaced FW IC on eMac after similar mishap and it worked just fine afterwards.