Re: BUFFALO WLI-U2-KG54-AI USB adaptor stopped being 'recognized'

More useful thoughts Jeff,

If twere my own laptop and I was convinced that I would be likely to find
and solve the problem by the strip down I would go ahead (And certainly
digital cameras do make it wonderfully easy to document a strip down and
make one's own workshp manual as it were - years ago I rebuilt an automatic
gearbox without a manual and had to draw every part as I went along, and
make my own special tools!), but as this particular laptop is on long term
loan, and the omens are that the problem is inheirent in the system, I think
the other alternatives you suggest will be safer.

What would you think of the combination of wireless PCMCIA CARD, and
separate powered hub? Obviously a heavier/bulkier combination to carry
around than the USB2 card and USB wireless adaptor, but would the extra
power be an advantage over trying to drive devices via the laptop's supply?

Also, I had a brief Googling on USB PCMCIA cards, and there seems to be an
enormous range, both in numbers of ports and in prices. Is more expensive
better? Is more ports better? (I have my mini extension hub after all.)

Thanks as always,

S


"Jeff Liebermann" <jeffl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:7rf1v2hnj35mnk4ntpecobpk59b56914v3@xxxxxxxxxx
On Thu, 08 Mar 2007 19:56:06 GMT, "Steve H"
<steve_a_hawkins@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I do have the laptop's service manual from Dell, and it doesn't say
anything
about the USB ports as such, but it is clear from the way the strip down
is
sequenced that these would be one of the last things to be uncovered - and
I
think I'd be quite likely to break something before I got that far!

No guts, no gain. By coincidence, I just tore apart an older Dell
Inspiron 8400 laptop down to the motherboard removal to replace the
power connector. Total time was 1.5 hour from start to finish
(ignoring a few interruptions). It's no big deal once you've done a
few of them. The most difficult problem is trying to remember the
location of the screws and fasteners. For that, I use my digital
camera. I take a photo of the top and bottom, print it on my
laserjunk printer, and push the screws through the paper in their
original location.


http://www.devhardware.com/forums/storage-devices-80/this-device-cannot-start-code-10t-28266.html
where quite a number of contributors do seem to be of the opinion that
there
was a problem with older boards not being able to cope with the power
requirements of the later USB devices.

I've seen that with trying to power 2.5" laptop drives from the USB
port. At this very moment, I have a Toshiblah 80GB laptop drive
plugged into a USB2 to IDE adapter cable (very handy when it works).
Windoze Device Manager on my desktop reports 0ma of current drain from
the drive. Same garbage on an IBM A31 laptop. However, when I try it
on my ancient Micron laptop, I get the "cannot start error code 10"
message, which just means that the USB ports in the Micron are a
problem. My guess(tm) is that the USB standard demands that during
initialization, the USB device should suck 100ma or less. Few devices
do this, especially this hard disk trying to start. So, the older USB
ports and chips are picky and enforce the standard while the newer USB
ports and chips are more tolerance of abuse to the USB specification
and tolerate the high startup current. I have a butchered USB cable
(somewhere) setup to measure the device current, but no Buffalo USB
adapter to test.

This is getting me increasingly
confident that this really must be the cause, and I suspect that your
original idea of obtaining a USB2 card may be the way forward.

Yet another coincidence. The IBM A31 laptop has USB 1.1 ports only.
So, I purchased a Sabrent SBT-P2D PCMCIA to USB2 cardbus thing. The
customer uses it mostly for backup to an external USB hard disk, but
normally has a large number of USB devices (9?) plugged into various
USB hubs connected to the card. Without USB 2.0, his laptop ran at
the speed of sludge.

One thing to
clear up: will the laptop be able to deliver power to the USB2 card any
better than it could to the old USB2 ports; and if not would a wireless
adaptor CARD be likely to fare any better than the USB adaptor has?

I'm not sure if the problem is whether the port can deliver the power,
or whether the port is shutting down to soon from overload. I think
you would be better off power wise with a PCMCIA USB2 card. 2nd best
would be a *POWERED* USB hub. The main reason I suggested the card is
to be able to use your Buffalo wireless device at 54Mbits/sec, instead
of being stuck at 11Mbits/sec max with USB 1.1.

--
# Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D Santa Cruz CA 95060
# 831-336-2558 jeffl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
# http://802.11junk.com jeffl@xxxxxxxxxx
# http://www.LearnByDestroying.com AE6KS


.

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