Firewire, computer or camera problem?

[andrew_107]

I have a problem capturing which ive never had before.
Firstly Ive tried with 3 different cameras, computers and cords and I still can't seem to capture.
I connect everything up and the computer won't recognise anything.
Is there a way in which I can make sure each thing is working right and come to a conclusion which thing is the problem?

Also when I plugged the firewire cord into my PD170 alot of smoke came out, does this mean that the firewire port blew (I guess so)?

[UFProductions]

If smoke comes out of the computer, the general consensus is that some thing is shot to hell, unless you have a fog-machine case mod. From the sounds of things you are in the market for a new Firewire card.

[andrew_107]

Actually the smoke came from my cameras firewire port.
Yeah I think im gonna need a new card to.
Thanks

[UFProductions]

The camera may be shot, the Firewire port at least. I'd check it out on a system you know is operating, but first check that something isn't stuck in the port, it sounds like an electrical short.

[andrew_107]

The other day I bought a new firewire card and installed it properly, XP recognised it and everything worked well until I plugged the camera in and nothing happened, so it wasn't the firewire card.

So then I came to the conclusion that it was the camera so I tried it with my friends camera and my older camera and it still didn't work.
Could it be that the original firewire card/cord damaged all three cameras firewire ports?

Or is there some windows update that need a patch to fix the problem. Its really getting quite annoying because I haven't been able to capture for so long now.

Lastly what is the 1394 net adapter? A little while back we installed wireless internet and it seems around that time is when all these problems occured.

Thanks for any help as I really do not have a clue and really am getting annoyed with this problem.

AHHHHHHHHHHHH

[Raptor]

It sounds like you got voltage onto one of the data lines on teh firewire. PCs normally use a 6 pin connector at the PC, and 4 pin on the camera end. The two unused are the + - DC voltage lines ( not sure if they are 5 or 12), if you get a pin bent in the PC connector, either the card or teh cable, then you could apply votage to one of the 4 data lines, which will fry the electronics of any cam plugged in ( wel teh firewire interface anyway)
The 1394 network adapter is just there to support firewire network cards and devices.

[andrew_107]

Thanks alot for the reply. Do you no what would be involved when getting the camera fixed, can it be fixed?

So that would mean anything I connected to the computer via firewire would have been destroyed, maybe thats why my external hard drive stopped working to.

[Raptor]

That's what it sounds like, contact the cam manufacturer for info on repairs and costs, I would think the FW circuit would probably be isolated on it's own board, and the rest of the cam should be pretty well protected, definitely replace the FW card tho before connecting anything else as well as repl;acing the cable. I suppose it could also have been a problem on the card, but it definitely sounds like a voltage hit.Did you try the cam on a diferent PC?

[andrew_107]

Yeah I tried the Camera on two seperate pc's, both didn't work.

Im taking the camera tomorrow to be repaired, thanks again for the help, finally I will be able to capture and edit video again.

Also is there anything I can do to stop this from happening again?