Firewire camcorder not playing with PC

[johntea]

My uncle can't get his Samsung VP-D351 (Its something like that, I'm at work and its at home though!) to connect to his Windows XP PC using the firewire slots built into his machine.

I got it to my house and it also won't play with the only PC I have with a built in firewire slot (Also XP)

The slots are enabled as device manager reports them.

The interesting thing is I got my brand new iMac last night (Gorgeous BTW!), whacked in the camcorder to that and away we go I was happily editing away with iMovie (Which even managed to rewind the tape without me touching the camcorder!).

I then tried my Sony HC35 firewire and still no go on the PC! What is up? Does he need a dedicated FW card or something?

Cheers!

[senu]

His firewire connection may be loose ( if its a card) or "broken" if it is on board.
It may be worth trying his camcorder on your PC ( not just a mac) with the same cable
The contacts with the PC circuit on the Motherboard on his PC may be loose , broken or the connector itself damaged
It shouldnt be hard to just fit in a Firewire PCI card (£8-10) to his PC if that is the case

[johntea]

I did try it on my PC with no joy

[MarkE19]

Where are the firewire ports on the PC's?
If the ports are on the case then there is a chance that they have not been physically connected to the motherboard - this is quite common.
If the port is on the soundcard then these are well know to be problematic with camcorders.
If it is on a separate PCI card then try reseating it, or moving to another PCI slot on the motherboard (especially if it is next to the graphics card).

Mark.

[johntea]

Originally Posted by MarkE19

Where are the firewire ports on the PC's?
If the ports are on the case then there is a chance that they have not been physically connected to the motherboard - this is quite common.
If the port is on the soundcard then these are well know to be problematic with camcorders.
If it is on a separate PCI card then try reseating it, or moving to another PCI slot on the motherboard (especially if it is next to the graphics card).

Mark.

2 on the front, one at the back (Directly soldered to the motherboard like a PS/2 port would be). They are enabled in the BIOS and plugged in.

[MarkE19]

Are you using the same firewire cable on the 2 PC's and the Mac?
Some Mac's have firewire 800 that uses a 9 pin (IIRC) port, but a PC will nearly always have firewire 400 that has a 6 pin port (sometimes 4 pin).
If you are using different cables then I would think the cable could be at fault and for under £10 it is IMO well worth getting another one and trying it to see if that solves the problem.

Mark.