FW800 freezes computer ?

Hi guys !

after much success with simple USB W.Digital My Books for a number of years to store my extensive iTunes library, photos, etc… having read so many wonderful things about OWC/NewerTech Guardian Maximus Quad interface Raid box, i decided to take the plunge, ordered one & installed 2 Western Digital Caviar Green 3TB bare drives in it

using CarbonCopyCloner i copied the content to these & started using it.
right from the start i noticed my late 2009 27'' iMac i7, with 16GB RAM, constantly ''freezing'' when connected via FW800 yet when i tried it via USB it was all good !?..

i have 4 more W.Digital My Book drives, an H.P C6180 all in one printer, a Cambridge Audio DacMagic, an APC UPS connected to my computer via USB through a pair of Logitech Premium powered USB hubs + my HD plasma TV via mini-DisplayPort/HDMI adapter & a Wacom Cintiq 21UX also via an adapter

thinking it might be caused by some weird incompatibility between any one of these components or so, i unplugged EVERYTHING from my iMac, made sure EVERY power supply for the above were ALL in working order ( they are.. ) checked & double checked ALL the cables ( even got a couple of new ones just in case..) checked the USB hubs + their power supplies, you name it - EVERYTHING IS O.K. !

tried plugging in one component at a time - everything worked fine ! however each & every time i plugged in the Guardian Max via FW800 it happened, time & again....regardless if plugged by itself or in combination with any other component
funnily enough the Guardian Max connected via USB gave no problems whatsoever !?
after a little ''Googling'' i could see i'm NOT alone with this sort of problem among Mac users & that it happens with all sorts of drive makes ….as long as FW800 is being used !?

has anyone come across this quirky behavior or has any idea what might be the solution for this ?

i mean, to stream the music, USB is plenty fast but it's still frustrating to have intentionally bought a FW800 capable box & not be able to use its advantages

many thanks !

While I haven't used firewire extensively on my Mac (I have the same model as you) I have never had any FireWire issues.

Do you know anyone with a FireWire 800 equipt Mac or PC you could test the drive on?

Hi Mrplow
no one i can think off but i certainly will ask around - good suggestion, thanks !

Late 2009 21.5 iMac and I backup with an OWC Mercury on the go Pro via FW800 all the time without incident...

Hi Guys

me again & this time i think it's good news - knock on wood !….

as someone had very rightfully suggested, i took the Guardian Maximus to a friend's place, connected it via FW800 to his iMac ( exact same model/year as mine.. ) did ALL I COULD to make it stumble like read & write several LARGE files of 20, 40, 60 AND 85GB SIMULTANEOUSLY &……NOTHING WENT WRONG !!?….then we went out for dinner, took our time ( question of giving time for the drives to go to sleep/park & perhaps create yet another situation which somehow could cause the freezing ?.. ) returned, all was good, drives woke up immediately to stream some music when prompted to...
then kept going at it for roughly 5 more hours & ALL went well..the G.MAX didn't miss a single beat/bit - how's that for a bad pun ?

so when i returned home i created a new user account on my computer, logged in & again pushed the GMAX as much as i could : did this for approximately 6 hours & nothing went wrong ! after that i ejected the drive, logged back into my regular user account, ran Onyx to ''clean house'' a little, restarted it, switched on the drive & it's been now a day & a half - NOTHING has gone wrong !?
maybe it was just some gremlin who meanwhile got scared & ran for his life ? who knows ? i swear, sometimes my computer seems to have a life of his own….

the only difference between then & now i can think off is that before i had the FW800 cable running right above this row of wallwarts/sockets & now it's on top of my desk - could it be this interfered negatively w/ the FW800 cable/signals ? electromagnetic fields/interference & all that ?…..

please check photos here :

P1020257 | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

- the 1st pic shows the path of the FW800 cable as i had it before
- the 2nd shows how it's laid out now
- the 3rd's the same just behind the computer itself

later i WILL try again running the cable under the desk but will get maybe some shielding of some kind ? it's just that i just HATE having them cables all over the place, you know ?..
anyway for the time being i'm VERY happy with this outcome. now i guess only time will tell if any misbehaving *returns or not

so, for the time being i'm just going to lay back & enjoy my music while i work ! ;-) if anything happens down the line i'll let you know even if just for the sake of sharing details for future reference

a big thank you to everybody who ''chipped in'' trying to help solving this, it feels good to know one can resort to this forum anytime something happens & that people WILL actually try to sort thing out !… ;-)
have a good week-end guys

cheers

Nuno

Thanks for posting back.

Not sure about the interference but it's a possibility.

Glad it's working out for you now.

Mrplow

did nothing more than my obligation ;-)

i thank YOU for your suggestion !!

Fw800....

hi Guys

me again, just to say that ever since i last posted here, i have been using the G.Maximus w/ the W.Digital Caviars &....not a single problem ever again ! i have no clue why but sure am happy about it

so there you are, just thought i'd let you know

again thanks for your input, cheers

Nuno