Firewire on Aspire 5920

I've conected two mini dv camcorders (Sony HC-37E & JVC GR-D70EK) to my brand new Acer Aspire 5920, via firewire, & none of them are 'seen' by vista home premium and therefore don't work.

Both cam's work on an Acer desktop running vista home basic.

One thing I have noticed is that the firewire reported on the desktop is Texas instruments (whereas the laptop reports RICOH).

Any help much appreciated.

 

I've had the same thing happen on mine, but I've also had it happen on other computers.

Try disconnecting and reconnecting it in different ways; plug it in and then turn the camera on, if it doesn't find it unplug it again and turn off the camera before you try it again, to "reset" it.
Sometimes you just have to play around with it to get it to work. That's what I did.

Sometimes it works fine for me too though.

 

What make of camcorder do you have?

I've heard lot's of people having problems with their sony's & was contemplating doing a registry hack that i've seen, but would rather not if I don't have too.

I also wondered if the RICOH IEEE had anything to do with it but as it sometimes works on yours this can't be the problem.

There's also the possibility of a bios upgrade.

I've sent an e-mail off to Acer support - awaiting an answer!

 

Anyone else had any firewire problems, especially on this particular model - Aspire 5920?

Thanks.

 

i like the suggestions of trying to connect with camera powered on and the booting the laptop... if that is no good.... then boot the PC and then plug the camera up after it is already powered on...

if there is a newer BIOS file available, it may be wise to update the BIOS,,, it's untelling what acer has done to fix the issues they have found.
so your problem my be solved by a bios flash...

just make sure you have the latest BIOS and drivers for the FIREWIRE interface...

that's where i'd start anyway

 

I have the same lappy and a JVC camcorder, will give it a try when I get home and post the results, my old sony camcorder NEVER worked on any fw ports except in an old Vaio I had.....no thats iffy

 

I'll try as you suggest & boot up the laptop with the camcorder switched on (i've already tried it the other way).

According to the Acer website i'm running the latest bios, so think that one can be ruled out.

Also the firewire drivers report that they are up to date.

I've ordered anothe 4-4 firewire cable - you never know.

Acer support have suggested doing an 'e-recovery' on my 1 week old machine!

 

I've had alot of trouble with the firewire port and eventually switched to an addon Belkin card. I did find that it was partly due to an extra long cable. I was using a 15ft that was labeled as a 10ft. 10ft is the max for firewire without a booster I believe.