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Scanner or Printer Not Responding, or Stops Responding On USB Ports



 
 
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Old August 2nd 04, 10:34 PM
Jerry Greenberg
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Default Scanner or Printer Not Responding, or Stops Responding On USB Ports

This is a point of interest that I thought would be interesting to
post.

The described problem can be very frustrating, and sometimes very
difficult to resolve. Many users would first start by uninstalling and
reinstalling their software, when the software is not at fault.

A very frustrating problem, especially with some USB scanners and
printers is that the device may stop responding, or not properly
respond.

At the hardware level, and at the Windows test level, the device
checks to be okay, and responding properly. Yet, it does not respond
properly when doing its work.

Some symptoms are that the scanner may stop in the middle of the scan
and hang, or not scan at all. Or, a printer may stop in the middle of
a page and hang. In the case of the printer, if it does not hang, it
may start to print random looking characters during the middle of a
print job.

It turns out that with USB 2 ports, on many P4 machines this problem
may occur with some scanners and printers. This has to do with several
factors.

If the USB Root Hub is IRQ shared with other devices that are
particularly active, this problem may occur in many systems. This has
to do with data streaming being interrupted (shared IRQ requests), and
the receiving load becoming timed out. The device becomes out of sync.
The device may then hang, or stop responding, and have to be reset.

There is also the condition where the data inputs of the device being
driven by the USB port are pulling peaks of too much peak current for
the USB port. Considering the speed of the data coming from the port,
the effective impedance of the device load may be a bit low, thus
causing it to pull more current than what the USB port can support.

This is a very basic overview of what the problem is with these
situations.

--

An easy fix for this condition, if in the event that the condition
described here is relevant to the problem described, is to add an
externally powered USB hub (runs on its own power supply) between the
USB port and the unit that is having the loss of the normal responding
condition.

The external powered USB hub will act as a data and power buffer
between the device, and the computer's USB port. In this case it is
effectively acting as an extended data port, with its own independent
port power drive.

Connecting and using other devices to the same hub, may or may not
cause any symptoms of loss, depending on the particular
characteristics of the other devices sharing this USB hub, and the USB
hub itself. This would be by trial and error.


Jerry G.

Comments and suggestions are welcome.

====================
 




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