HELP!!! pcmcia firewire card forces me to restart ?!?

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I bought a pcmcia firewire card for my 17" pb (1.33ghz). As soon as I plug it in the screen goes gray and i get a "You must restart your computer now" message in different languages.

i thought hte card was defective so I took it back and bought a different, more expensive card but the same thing happens. If I turn teh pb off, connect the pcmcia card and then boot up, as soon as the gray screen with the apple in the middle comes up it again darkens and the same message appears

PLEASE HELP!!! what can i do?
 
hmm. something funny with your pcmcia slot maybe? take out the pcmcia card. IF you still have your system disks, put in the software install and restore DVD and reboot, hold down the option key as the computer reboots and select apple hardware test. Run the diagnostic and see what it says. Afterward, see if you can repeat the test with the card in the slot. If both tests pass, then it is not a hardware, but a software problem...
 
Kernel panics (i.e. what happens when your computer tells you to restart in different languages) often happen with hardware related problems.

And, excuse my asking, but why would you want a FireWire card for your 17 inch PowerBook? You have a FireWire 400 plug AND a FireWire 800 plug built-in. And if you need to turn the 800 port INTO another FireWire 400 port, you just have to use an adapter, effectively giving you TWO FireWire ports. AND you can easily daisy-chain FireWire devices... so... do you need a third port?

if so... DAMN... that's a lot of FireWire devices. :D
 
lol great info. I shall try it after I reply to this first...

good point about the fw800 - I did not know that. the problem i have is that i have 1 firewire device with one port broken so daisy chain isnt an option. The other fw400 device has to be at the end of a chain (so no luck there...its an audio interface) and i have 2 other FW400 CD/DVD-RWs...lol but actually the adapter would be enough. who makes em?
 
lol very true.

ok so I ran apple's hardware test both with the PCMCIA card in there and without. They both pass fine - however - under "hardware profile" there isnt any real change to the profile between having it in or not. In fact, I set up my PCMCIA card in there, co nnected a CD-RW drive to it and run the test - the profile still doesnt show any firewire devices....

I dont know if it should but I thought I should note that.

the kernel panic still occurs if I start up normally (or holding shift) as soon as the gray screen comes up with the apple symbol. Kernel panic also occurs if I simply plug it in while the com puter is already running...

can anyone shed some light on this?
 
Dumb question: What brand/kind of card is it? It is completely possible that it is just NOT compatible with Macs.
 
a fair question... its Q-Stor - and bears the MAC logo right on the box...I also had tried the Dynex card previously with the exact same results.

I did have one before, I believe it was cicero, but it got damaged while transporting it. I did put it back in the computer when I discovered it wasnt working (and it was slightrly cracked ) - could this possibly just fry the whole port?

this is frustrating...
 
Er, duh. Another useful thing to know would be the version of Mac OS you're using.

Eek. I have to admit, I think this is hard to diagnose long-distance.

For an easy work-around, I'd say, buy the adapter. However, try taking it to a Mac genius at Apple store. He can determine what's wrong with it. It could be that one of the pin connectors is bent. Or it could just be some sort of weird software problem... I hate to suggest it, but... would a re-install of the Mac OS be too much of a hassle?
 
yea this is a weird problem...

i'm using 10.3.9 - upgrading to tiger isnt an option for at least another month (because of software compatibility issues)

shouldnt the hardware dector either in TechTool or Apple's hardware scan be able to identify a problem with the connectors on the PCMCIA card ? should it show up in their detection routines? because it doesnt. There's everything else...

A full reinstall may be the only option, but I'd like to be sure 100% this is software not hardware before i do it...

is there any other settings I can play with as far as cardbus goes? I Cant seem to find any prferences or anything to look at...
 
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