Re: Losing connection with USB drives

On 2025/8/15 22:3:30, Paul wrote:
> On Fri, 8/15/2025 4:50 AM, Steve Hayes wrote:
>> On 9 Aug 2025 17:07:52 GMT, Frank Slootweg <[email protected]>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Steve Hayes <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>> My Windows XP computer has gradually been losing its connection with
>>>> USB drives and the printer, and now seems to have lost contact
>>>> altogether.
>>>>
>>>> Other USB devices, like mouse and keyboard work OK.
>>>>
>>>> For a while rebooting would make it possible to communicate with USB
>>>> drives, and would cause stuck printer pages to print, but now on
>>>> rebooting it shows the printer as offline, and even if I switch it to
>>>> online, it does not print. 
>>>>
>>>> Any suggestions?

On this W10-64 system, I've twice had printer (correctly) report out of
paper, which was seen by the laptop, but when I loaded paper (and the
printer itself was happy), the laptop still thought the printer was out
of paper. Even cycling the power (on laptop _and_ printer) didn't cure
it; IIRR the only thing that did was removing, or at least disabling,
the printer and then re-enabling it. (Can't remember where I did that -
might have been Device Manager, which is still there in W10 if you dig.)
Don't know if that will cure your printer problem.

[]

>>>  As to general USB troubleshooting, look at Uwe Sieber's USB
>>> utilities at <www.uwe-sieber.de>.

Seconded.>>
>> Thanks very much for the advice.
>>
>> I fear it may be a hardware problem, as when I booted Linux it too
>> could not find any of the USN drives.

(USB I presume you meant there.)

[]

> USB drives, can be operated from bus power, or from a separate power source.

(At first I thought you meant memory sticks, where external power would
only be apply-able using a powered hub, but it occurred to me you
probably mean spinning drives.)

> Bus power is limited, and a lack of bus power causes some USB hard drives
> to fail to appear when plugged in. A USB power meter, in series with
> the USB connector at the host, will show whether power is present
> for any period of time. A Polyfuse can open on the motherboard and
> remove power from the port.

Since the OP used to be OK but now isn't, I presume something is wearing
- a poly or silicon fuse, the 5V supply used for USB, or even just
connectors. I'm not sure a power meter - _or_ Uwe's utilities - will
help there. (They might show that the peripherals _are_ taking more than
they should, but won't show whether that is new or whether they always
did and something else has changed.)

[]

> A 2.5" hard drive, some spec sheets don't show the spinup current,
> but the current is on the order of 1000mA to 1100mA or so. When sitting
> on the USB2 bus then, that's a wee bit of an overload. The Polyfuse
> may be set at 1100mA on a "stack-of-two" with black plastic tabs.
> The USB3 ports, with their 900mA rating, the shared fuse on those
> is over 2 amps. Not all PCs have a USB3 port and the more-generous fuse.

Some such drives come with a lead with two USB plugs on (what is
supposed to be) the PC end. (As does my external optical drive.) I've
sometimes not plugged both of them in, and don't think I've ever had any
problems. (I have vague memory of reading that the optical drive only
needed both if you were writing, and I don't think I ever wrote on that
drive.)

[]
-- 
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