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krang · Apr 29, 2005, 04:17 PM

So I received my first Mac ever two days ago, a brand new 12" powerbook. And it took me only 2 days to **** it up

This is the story. I needed more usb ports so I bought a usb hub (its a sweex hub, beware of this crap brand). So I hook it in, works fine with my mouse and my usb-to-midi cable. But after a while I notice that the powerbook fan is on non stop. I try to check the cpu activity and whatnot but there's no activity which can cause the fan to work that hard.

So I realise that it has to be the usb-hub. I pull that ****er out and the fan stops. Great I think, I found the cause. I try to use an external adapter for the usb-hub, I try 4.5 volts and 6.5 volts, nothing helps. I get pissed at the hub and put it aside (screw that god damned thing, it only cost me about 10 dollars). I try to plug in my external harddrive in the powerbook usb-port but now its completely dead!!!! I cant even get the mouse to work!! I think that the usb-port-adapter gave my precious powerbook too much power and the usb-ports died. The first thing I came to think of was "****ing **** **** **** **** I hate you usb-port" and I stepped on that ****er until it broke. Then I came to the conclusion that I should ask you guys if there's a way to fix this problem or if I should send the powerbook to apple right away to get it fixed???

Any kind of constructive feedback is appreciated!

powertrippin · Apr 29, 2005, 04:22 PM

You should still have a warranty if it's 2 days old dude. Chill out.

powertrippin · Apr 29, 2005, 04:30 PM

You should still have a warranty if it's 2 days old dude. Chill out.

krang · Apr 29, 2005, 04:32 PM

Yeah I know I should chill out but still, I just wrote this to warn you guys really (since I know that the problem probably isn't solvable by the average user) : don't plug in usb hubs with external power in the power book - it can kill the usb-ports. I'll just send mine to apple care and get it fixed, but if it would happen to a user without apple care - then it probably isn't as fun

analogika · Apr 29, 2005, 04:58 PM

have you restarted?

That will sometimes reset the ports if they shut off for protection.

What does the System Profiler say about your uSB controller? (Apple menu --> About this Mac --> More information

Have you tried resetting the nvram? Search Apple's support site for instructions on how to do this via Open Firmware.

All is not necessarily lost.

krang · Apr 30, 2005, 08:42 AM

Thanks for the reply Analogika. I can see that the USB ports are there in my system profiler and I tried resetting the NVRAM but to no prevail. The open firmware puts out "no power to the ports!" three times, I tried googling that error message but it seems as if I'm the first powerbook user to have received it.

cc_foo · Apr 30, 2005, 09:02 AM

Originally Posted by krang

: don't plug in usb hubs with external power in the power book - it can kill the usb-ports.

I, on the other hand, have been hot plugging my PowerBook alu 1.25GHz and my powered USB hubs for years, and will continue to do so. That includes Belkin, brandless hubs, and a Dell 2405FPW built in hub.

You do have my sympathies. I suppose I am living dangerously.

f1000 · Apr 30, 2005, 09:03 AM

Why did you plug two different voltages into the USB hub? If an electronic device doesn't work, sticking in a transformer that outputs more voltage is usually NOT the solution.

tooki · Apr 30, 2005, 09:42 AM

A functioning USB hub NEVER puts power out to its upstream port. If it did, it would fry everything. Connecting random AC adapters to a hub certainly could short it out and cause power to flow the wrong way.

But I must emphasize that the warning to not use powered hubs on PowerBooks is total baloney.

tooki

seanc · Apr 30, 2005, 10:01 AM

What about resetting the pram and pmu?
Try a different usb peripheral e.g one that wasn't plugged into the hub. Plugging that transformer in with the bigger voltage could have fried your usb hub and peripherals that were plugged into it.
Try your mouse and hard drive on a different computer.

If it still doesn't work, send/take it back to apple. Just say the usb ports stopped working.

Sean

krang · Apr 30, 2005, 10:05 AM

First off - hooray me! I solved it (apple support said that they've never heard of such a problem and that I should bring it in immediately). What I did was I connected the usb hub again but with the external transformer connected to it. Suddenly the usb port started responding again. But the other port was still dead, so I did the same thing with that port: plugged in my usb hub in it and then plugged in the usb hub transformer - voila, it started to work as well. The only backside to this story is that the usb hub died but I couldn't care less about it really.

But I'm still not home free because whenever I connect my external hard drive to my power book the fan goes on! I don't know if it's supposed to or not, but it can be pretty annoying, have any of you guys experienced unusual fan noise when using devices such as hard drives? (the fan is dead quiet when only the mouse is plugged in though). The hard drive is a Maxtor One Touch.

seanc · Apr 30, 2005, 10:21 AM

Is your hdd powerd by USB?
If it doesn't have an external power supply then it's drwaing power from the USB ports which will make the computer get hot and the fan will come on.

Sean

krang · Apr 30, 2005, 10:25 AM

Nooo, I don't even think that there are any usb powered hard drives out there. I

seanc · Apr 30, 2005, 10:47 AM

oops, I guess I meant firewire.....
Try running the hardware test cd to see if it shows any errors