Sometimes adding or changing a PCI card screws up what was working before. You did replace one video card that was working with a NVIDIA card. I'm not suggesting that you give up your second monitor but I am suggesting that until that NVIDIA is removed and you restore the card it replaced, you won't know if the NVIDIA card is the cause of your problem. Ordinarily I wouldn't suggest this removal but you have tried quite a few other reasonable options all to know avail.
If the NVIDIA card should be the cause of your problem and since you wish to use two monitors, that might require a solution which would be beyond your current problem and would require a solution I am not qualified to offer. Mel --- On Mon, 3/2/09, Yersinia <yersi...@cybernex.net> wrote: From: Yersinia <yersi...@cybernex.net> Subject: Re: Firewire hard drives not mounting To: "G-List" <g3-5-list@googlegroups.com> Date: Monday, March 2, 2009, 3:35 PM Wallace Adrian D'Alessio writes, <Probably an unlikely cause but did you try cleaning your FW ports with an old toothbrush and alcohol?> No, but next time my BF talks about coming down for a visit I'll ask him to bring a working FW cable with him and do it, then try again. <Also did you try connecting the drive to your BF computer?> Ummmm, no. His Mac (dual 1 GHz G4 Quicksilver) is 300 miles away. But I WAS totally stupid not to even THINK to try with my iBook, which lives in the next room so is easy to carry in here! :::::blush::::: But no matter what the result of trying it again after cleaning the FW ports, this time I'll also remember to bring in the iBook! Mel writes, <The answer might be contained in this: "so he could put the original NVIDIA GeForce2 MX video card back in and hook up a second monitor on it (not to mention a major area cleanup-desk reorganization and reworking the "spaghetti")." Try removing the NVIDIA GeForce2 MX video card and re-booting.> This is (a) not physically possible for me to do myself (my BF installs all my upgrades for me because my left hand is partly paralyzed and I'm mechanically inept), and even if he was here right now, (b) it's not even an option anymore. Removing the NVIDIA would mean not being able to use the second monitor anymore! I had originally asked him to remove the NVIDIA last year (Feb 2008) because I had bought a Radeon 9200 which I thought would be better, so he took the NVIDIA out and installed the Radeon....it only made a marginal difference, but I kept it in there anyway, didn't bother him to switch back. Later on in the year I realized I actually had a good reason to have 2 monitors on the G4 (an idea I actually got from him -- when I visited him in the summer, I saw he had *3* monitors on HIS G4, but it took me awhile to figure out why I'D want more than the one I had!). But, for me to have 2 monitors, I had to have 2 video cards -- so I kept the Radeon where it was and asked him to put the NVIDIA in another slot and hook the second monitor up. He did, and I love having the two monitors. And what do video cards and monitors have to do with external Firewire anyway? Nestamicky writes, <Let me please add, suggests, etc the following. Firewire is perhaps so named because there is fire on that cable. So knowing this, here is how I have always shut mine down. 1. Eject the HD 2. Walk over to the external case and turn it's switch off. 3. Turn the computer off. I never ever shut the machine down while the external case is running with the HD in it. Never. I have always simply thought something can go wrong. I don't do this as much with USBs but with Firewire.> Bruce writes, <Firewire is actually very robust...robust enough that you can start a file transfer, unplug the cable, count to five, plug it back in and the transfer will continue, in many cases, unless the OS determines that the volume is gone. I remember the reviewers at MAcWorld doing this at the beginning of the FW era (this was in OS 9). I'm thinking that flaky disks in flaky external FW cases are largely to blame, there's a lot of cheap corner-cut gear out there. I've never had an issue with FW drives being on when the computer is shut off...other than my wife yells at me "You left something on! I can hear something humming under that pile of stuff on your desk!" 8-)> Hmmmmmmmm.....yeah, we shut my FW drive off too when we shut down for the NVIDIA reinstallation. I never used to shut it off otherwise though (and it never kept my BF up at night when he's here hahaha!), and shutting down the G4 is something I only do infrequently, when it's necessary -- like trying to reboot it in OS 9 when I'm in THAT wrestling match, which I'll actually be doing soon, iBook Rebuild gave me an idea for another experiment to try when I get in the mood (probably voodoo but I'll try anyway since I'm still at a total loss!) -- or so my BF can install something for me....we don't mind a little humming around here! ;-) Anyway, Bruce, this would bring us back to your "flaky external FW cases" idea (I know the HD inside the case is good because I've been using it with USB to maintain my backups since the FW went down)...and that makes more sense to me than Nestamicky's suggestion (Nesta, IMO you should be more careful about ejecting USB stuff when you unplug it -- I've occasionally gotten angry dialog boxes at times even though I DID eject prior to pulling a flash drive out)...although Wallace's suggestion of cleaning the FW port sounds good too -- even if I can't operate on my G4, I can handle alcohol and a toothbrush. I know dirt can be bad for equipment, and my apartment is definitely not Martha Stewart! Thanks all for your comments and suggestions. :-) ~Yersinia. ________ "Just when you start to accept that Life's a bitch, she has puppies." --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed Low End Mac's G3-5 List, a group for those using G3, G4, and G5 desktop Macs - with a particular focus on Power Macs. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to g3-5-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to g3-5-list-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/g3-5-list?hl=en Low End Mac RSS feed at feed://lowendmac.com/feed.xml -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
