John Clark
John.Clark at niagaracounty.com
Thu Mar 29 06:54:24 CDT 2007
I don't know if this is very relevant, but this post brought a recent event to mind. My wife bought me a 2GB SanDisk cruzer thumb drive for Christmas, and just last month it quit working. I hadn't used it until mid-January, so I was quite ticked that it lasted less than a month. The message that I was getting, when I plugged it in, at work, was something about, "overpowering the USB drive." I had never heard of this message, nor did anyone around me. I am a pack-rat, so instead of tossing it, I just placed it on my computer desk, at home. My daughter, who just turned 13, discovered the problem, a couple of weeks ago. She said to me, "Daddy, it looks like something is in this thing." I couldn't see it at first, but there was a small bit of something in side the connector. It is retractable, so it has no cap, but it also made it nearly impossible to see, because I retracted it, even after it didn't work. I got it out w/a sharp pencil and it turned out to be a very tiny ball of gum wrapper foil. I had the thing in my pocket, along w/a pack of gum, and a piece of wrapper got in there somehow. Actually, the gum I regularly chew does not have foil, but I was hard-up for a piece one day and got a small pack of Wriggley...change IS bad I guess ;o) I thought maybe it had shorted and I the damage had already been done, but I plugged it in and I am using it today. Just a little heads-up for all you gum chewin', thumb-drive toting, people out there ;O) John W. Clark Computer Programmer Niagara County >>> "Erwin Craps - IT Helps" <Erwin.Craps at ithelps.eu> 3/29/2007 2:22 AM >>> There is a max power usage of 500mA per port. Some hub's have overtension security build and shut of ports when more then 500mA is used, some do not have that build in security. I also noticed that sometimes a device generates a small peak, typicaly when starting/connecting the device cold where USB hub badly respons to it and shuts it off. The reason why you have a double connector on the disk is that the manufactor knows the power usage is to much for one connector. The indidual small differences between hub could case the effect you experiance. You also need to connect the power supply of you hub, a lot of people ignore to do that. If you do not do that the whole hub get power from one usb port with total maxmimum of 500mA. When connecting the power supply of the hub, each hub port get's it own 500mA... Erwin -----Original Message----- From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Dan Waters Sent: Wednesday, March 28, 2007 6:35 PM To: 'Access Developers discussion and problem solving' Subject: [AccessD] FW: External Hard Drive Insufficient power was the problem! This case actually has a cable with two usb plugs. I didn't need to plub in the secondary one before, but using it now solves the problem. Thanks! Dan -----Original Message----- From: Dan Waters [mailto:dwaters at usinternet.com] Sent: Wednesday, March 28, 2007 9:37 AM To: 'Discussion of Hardware and Software issues' Subject: External Hard Drive I have an external HD that I use with Ghost 9.0 as a backup device. The disk is a 60 Gb laptop disk in a Nexstar case. This is USB powered, and is fairly nice. All went well until I changed from a 4 port D-link hub to a 7 port D-link hub. Now, when my laptop powers up automatically at 5 AM to run the backup program, the laptop can't find the external HD (it did before). Once I unplug and reattach the USB cables to the HD, the laptop will then recognize the external HD, and I can start the backup program. Also, once the HD is recognized, I can tell from the flashing light that the laptop is constantly trying to write to the HD, although it doesn't write anything and there are no programs running that should cause this. And, when I was previously connected through the 4 port hub, the light was a solid green. I wouldn't think that a change in USB hubs would actually trigger this. But what could cause this problem? Thanks! Dan -- AccessD mailing list AccessD at databaseadvisors.com http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/accessd Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com -- AccessD mailing list AccessD at databaseadvisors.com http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/accessd Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com