Since I have only a 4 pin connector on my laptop, I don't have power running for my Firewire products (120 gig HD, CD Burner, iPod). It's not an issue on the first two items because they have their own power, but I noticed a lot of synching on the iPod kills the battery pretty quickly on my 30gig Pod.

Does anyone have a cost effective solution to this problem that will work with the new iPods? I've seen Cardbus cards that can provide power to the Firewire bus, but the cheapest I've seen them for is 120USD, and also I have a network adapter in there now, so that's not really a good solution for me.

Are there any Firewire hubs that'll actually add power to the bus?

You could get a powered Firewire hub.

When I've read the specs on the powered hubs I've looked it, it gives me the impression that the power adapter is only to provide power for the hub to work, and not actually add power to the bus.

I guess I'm wrong. :-)

Thanks

The power adapter in my firewire hub also provides power to the firewire bus.

Can I ask which hub you have?

Hello,
I just got my new 30gig 3rd gen ipod. I am very happy with it except for I cant charge the ipod from my laptop on the road. The laptop has 4pin 1394. I understand the power issue with firewire and also pcmcia cards dont have enough juice. So I looked around the board for a while for suggestions. A powered f/w hub seemed the answer.I got 2 different firewire hubs both with ac adapter and neither will charge the Ipod?? One is a macally combo usb 2 and fire wire. No charging takes place. The other is a compucable fireexpress 3 port hub powered. No charging either. Could somebody please telll me the brand of hub that is confirmed to work?? Please help.

I just purchased from www.supplyace.com a powered pcmcia firewire cardbus for my notebook for $52 USD delivered. It is a Smartdisk, model #CFCBFW. It has 3 ports and comes with a power supply.

I am waiting on my 15gb iPod from Dell, but was able to hook it up to a friends iPod without problems.

supplyace is a great company. I bought the card on a Thursday and had it my hands the following Tuesday.

Another thing you can do is this (as long as your PCMCIA card has 2 firewire ports):

Connect the AC adaptor to the second firewire port on your card. Then when you connect the iPod it'll get juice.

Adam