Buh-mmer

After nearly 4 months of joy with my 1330, I finally found a potential problem: bad firewire port. Tried to connect my camcorder to it for the first time today...nothing. Windows doesn't see it; Pinnacle Studio 11 doesn't see it. My old HP sees it just fine.

Called Canon..."yes, it's Vista compatible." Called Dell XPS support...after two hours of investigating drivers and software, we got nowhere. Took it to Best Buy and tried to connect every camcorder they had on display...nothing! Unfortunately, looks like a bad firewire port means a new motherboard :/

 

will they change it under warranty?..

 

Since your notebook is only 4 months old, your firewire port is under warranty (since the mobo is under warranty). If you have the at home service, someone should come by and replace it for you, minimal work/stress/turn around time.

 

the motherboard? yeah. they still want to trouble-shoot some more, so they'll call me tonight. can't wait to see what they say when I give 'em my best buy experience.

 

so, what happened to the computer? i have just had the EXACT experience with my 1330--not recognizing the port--Dell just sent me another motherboard; tech just left--still the same issue, not seeing the port. gurrr. in the device manager, the Ricoh OHCI compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller (card reader) is present and showing normal functioning, but i don't have an SD card on me at the moment to see if it is *really* working properly. thoughts?

 

Hi, I think there is a whole huge thread about firewire and Dell; the bottom line is that their firewire ports are defective. Search firewire and see if you can find the thread.

 

damn that sucks. hope they replace it. My comp is coming up on its 1 year and warranty is almost up. I sure hope it doesnt go out on me...

 

Try searching for the thread. I did not read the whole thread (it is very, very long) and am not sure which devices might work with the port or not.

 

Just a thought... the firewire port shows up in Network Connections as a network port, make sure that isn't disabled?

 

yeah, or make sure it isn't disabled in the BIOS

 

Well, I got a new motherboard...same thing. Tech suggested re-installing Vista. I thought: I don't think so! So I started to suspect the actual wire I was using to connect my camcorder. Not that there was anything wrong with it since it worked with my HP laptop, but I thought, what if the stinking firewire port is set too deep into the 1330's motherboard so that the side of the laptop prevents the wire from seating fully and making a good connection? So I took a razor blade and carefully trimmed about 1-2 mm off the rubber protector around one end of my wire, thereby exposing more of the connector's metal end. Voila!!! End of story, happy ending. Try that; hope it works for you.

 

lol, I was just about to say check the cable

 

BTW, I really think everyone should try my little "fix" above if their firewire port shows up ok in device manager but doesn't connect properly. The standard connector length of most firewire cables that protrudes beyond the rubber insulation just isn't going to seat fully because, IMO, the connector receptacle is set too deep into the motherboard.

I've read the "firewire problem" thread mentioned above, and I think it can really send you in some wild directions trying to hunt the problem down, when all it may be is a deep receptacle.

 

Yes, but it's a sneaky problem, because there really isn't anything wrong with the cable; it's with the 1330's receptacle. I could connect my camcorder with my cable to my HP laptop, and to every other laptop I tried at Best Buy. However, I couldn't connect ANY camcorder to my 1330 with my cable. So ultimately, you end up modifying your cable a bit to make up for a design issue with the 1330 (though I don't think they all have this issue)

 

PookiePrancer, I think it would be great if you could post in that firewire thread outlining what you found out. I think a lot of people would find that information lifesaving .

 

the XPS 120 or whatever the 13 inch XPS laptop model was before the M1330 had a perfectly working firewire port, its most definitely is not "bottom line, Dell firewire doesn't work".

 

A Dell tech told me yesterday that replacing a mobo could cause even more problems, such as audio not working, screen not responding, etc ...

Is this true?

 

Well, it is if you get a bad replacement motherboard

 

I thought about it, but that other thread is so far gone and deals with so many issues (bad hardware, bad drivers, bad software, etc), I thought I'd let this stand on its own to keep it simple. Anybody who searches "firewire problem" will see this in the results.

 

Well you guys beat me to the punch, but having worked with digital video over Firewire® for nearly nine years now, it pays to always check the cable early on in your trouble shooting. Try different brands, not just different samples of the same brand. And now the same appears to be true with HDMI problems. I recently had a playback issue with a Canon HV20 going into a 50" plasma via HDMI - the image kept dropping out, so I thought it was a bad tape. Turned out it was the cable.

 

I should also add that sometimes the cheaper cables work, when a more expensive one won't - at least that was true with the HDMI cable I mentioned above.

 

SoB! it worked...lol. crazy. thanks Pookie!

 

I understand. Would you have any problem with me posting to that thread, referencing this one?

 

Well, you know what they do here when someone provides advice or help you thought was worth-while, eh?

 

Not at all! Wish Dell would give me a cut off all the motherboards this might save them

 

I agree, lol! Certainly I can only hope that Dell somehow finds this thread and memos their techs because it might help so many people not to mention prevent notebook returns.

 

Sorry to bring up this old post again, but I still have this firewire problem after having my motherboard replaced. However, I used a multimeter to measure continuity of the connection from the test points of the firewire port on the mother board to the tip of the firewire cable. I found the connection was no issue, all four pins are properly connected to the test points. I think in my case cable is not the problem, and in fact I have tried 3 cables, none of them work.

As another investigation, I also measured the voltage on the pins, and on other computers, I could measure around 3.3V, but on both the old and the new motherboard in my M1330, I measured only about 80mV.

I fear this is some kind of hardware design fault on Dell's part. Tomorrow, Dell is going to provide me specific instructions to reinstall the system, and I'm very certain it won't help.

Edit: I now realise why I could measure the connection without problem. It's because the chasis of M1330 increase the depth of the firewire port further, and when I measured the connection, it's done by taking out the motherboard. So what has been said about the port being too deep is still true. I think Dell should still be responsible for this, and should fix this problem, even if they have to replace millions of motherboards. They would be false advertising when they say the laptop includes a firewire port, which doesn't work without some modifications.

 

Excellent thread! This thread saved me having a nervous breakdown. Bad customer service by DELL, not informing customers they got faulty hardware (firewire port) causing hours of unnecessary trouble shooting and distress.

 

Yeah, right! Especially with such a "clear" thread title, it is immediately obvious what this thread is about!