ADVC 110 won't power up

[picketja]

I just purchased the ADVC 110 and it won't power up when I plug the 6 pin to 6 pin firewire cable from my cpu to the unit. I didn't purchase the AC adapter kit, so I'm unable to get any power at all. Any ideas as to why this isn't powering up?

[THoff]

Not all 6-pin Firewire connectors actually supply power. With some addin boards, you must connect a molex connector from the power supply to the card, or it won't have the juice to power the Firewire bus (example).

[picketja]

Thanks for the quick reply. The system in question is a laptop that I purchased new in 2004. Could it be that my firewire port doesn't supply power? How do I find out if it does or doesn't?

[THoff]

Check with the manufacturer or Google the laptop model to see if you find anything.

Few PC laptops come with 6-pin connectors, and all Mac laptops do AFAIK. The Macs should all supply power. There may also be something configurable in the power profile or BIOS that determines whether the Firewire port puts out power. Are you on AC power when you are doing this, or are you running on batteries?

[picketja]

I'm running on AC power. And I do have a 6 pin connector on my laptop (it's a pretty large laptop).

[GrassValley_BH]

Most PC-side laptops don't provide FireWire bus power. Check with your laptop manufacturer, website, forum and/or knowledgebase to see if the connector is actually powered, or it's just a 6-pin connector without power.

If you have a friend with a Mac or another PC with a powered 6-pin FireWire port, you can try the ADVC on there, just to make sure it's not DOA (rare, but stuff happens).