Quiet USB keyboard problem

kernel32 · Post by **kernel32** » Sat Jun 02, 2007 1:43 pm

I wondered where to post this, but here goes:
Today I purchased a very nice, quiet, HP branded, USB keyboard. While it works perfectly fine by itself, one thing is driving me crazy: every time I hook up an USB flash disk or whatever else using USB, the keyboard shuts down. To make it work again, I have to reconnect it AFTER I disconnect the other device, otherwise Windows says "Unrecognized USB device" when I try to simply unplug and replug the keyboard again without removing the other device. I have two digital cameras, two mp3 players (one of which appears as a USB flash disk, the other one uses the so called MTP protocol), and of course several flash disks in various sizes. They all cause this same problem. Also, I have a USB mouse hooked up in the same time, no conflicts with it at least. So, what do you think? Should I return the keyboard or what? BTW, my chipset is SiS 746FX if that is of some help. It has normal USB 2.0 spec hub and has never given me any problems until now.

kernel32 · Post by **kernel32** » Sun Jun 03, 2007 3:18 am

Come on people! I can't believe that nobody knows whats wrong with my keyboard!!!

thejamppa · Post by **thejamppa** » Sun Jun 03, 2007 6:00 am

How many USB devices do you have plugged at once? If you plug too many devices it can cause USB circuit to fail when it cannot get enough power or similar... Only a guess...

kernel32 · Post by **kernel32** » Sun Jun 03, 2007 6:12 am

Well, I have only the mouse connected simultaneously with the keyboard, but when I need to download images from my cameras I hook one camera at a time, I rarely shoot with both. I don't have a card reader hooked up, nor I have something else eating power over USB. And this happens at both hubs, the one on the back plate of the mobo, and the other on the front of the case connected with cables to the mobo. Also, just for trying, I stuck in all devices I had at hand, these were five in total (excluding the mouse, which was also connected) - the two cameras in the front hub, two flash disks at the back and the mp3 player also at the back. And they all worked fine, except the keyboard...

And the most stupid thing is this keyboard doesn't seem to work with the PS/2 adapter I have, it came with the mouse.

Fabool · Post by **Fabool** » Sun Jun 03, 2007 7:02 am

I'm fairly sure the problem is because the keyboard has a low power USB hub. Most keyboards, especially cheaper ones, with USB hubs employ only low power versions that are enough to drive a standard mouse but not a flash drive or digital camera.
This means that there's not much you can do about it, I'm afraid.

kernel32 · Post by **kernel32** » Sun Jun 03, 2007 8:03 am

Well, the mouse has nothing to do with the keyboard. Maybe under "cheap keyboard" you meant "motherboard" ? If that's the case I disagree, take a look at my previous post and you'll see that I managed to connect five devices at once to the mobo without problems. Pretty strange situation.

Fabool · Post by **Fabool** » Mon Jun 04, 2007 12:23 am

kernel32 wrote:Well, the mouse has nothing to do with the keyboard. Maybe under "cheap keyboard" you meant "motherboard" ? If that's the case I disagree, take a look at my previous post and you'll see that I managed to connect five devices at once to the mobo without problems. Pretty strange situation.

Oops, sorry about that. I misread that you had a USB hub in the keyboard to which you were plugging in those devices.

Hmm, quite a strange problem then.
Have you checked to see if there are any settings in the BIOS related to the USB? Some motherboards have a setting to decide if the OS or BIOS should control the USB devices, which might cause the problems you are experiencing if set to BIOS.
Also, do you have the latest BIOS for your motherboard? Might be a glitch that has been rectified with a BIOS update.

kernel32 · Post by **kernel32** » Mon Jun 04, 2007 5:37 am

Nope, no such settings, only enable/disable onboard USB controller, nothing else. Also the bios is the latest.. I'm starting to think the keyboard is defective

Sylph-DS · Post by **Sylph-DS** » Mon Jun 04, 2007 5:58 am

No other USB Keyboards in the area with which to test?

If it works fine with another keyboard than I guess you could always RMA it.

kernel32 · Post by **kernel32** » Mon Jun 04, 2007 6:16 am

Well, all other keyboards I have at hand are PS/2.. but I just did another thing, I hooked this one up to an older machine, a TYAN board with VIA chipset, it's USB hub is version 1.1 and has only two ports, but everything works fine on it.. which is even sadder, cuz the problem is clearly my mobo:(