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[waterstom]

Anyone Seen This?

I spent a few hours trouble-shooting a re-install, and got it all running fine. 

THEN, I plugged in the external 200g Maxtor USB drive I decided to be the "media server" for my AHP system to have a single, safe, large place to store the recorded video and stills.
When I plug this in, it "shorts out" my VA11A and video ceases to function.  I get the warning message that no video adapter is installed.  It does NOT affect the cm15a, just the 11a

I unplug the Maxtor drive, close and restart AHP and all is fine again.  Now What?

Anyone else seen or have a work-around?  This makes NO sense (one of the most common x10 user exclamations I am sure...)

[steven r]

Do you have it plugged into a USB port physically on the computer or through a hub? If you're using a hub and it's not externally powered, you might want to try one that is.

[waterstom]

That's a GREAT observation.  I could see where the 3rd devive in the 4port might just suck enough power to crash the va11a.  I only have 2 reliable hubs, both have a place to plug in external power, but neither came with a wall-wart.  Would you suggest 5v?  Then what do you think the tolerated variance would be as I hae NO adapter with that rating.

If only the stupid pc had more than 1 port...

[-Bill- (of wgjohns.com)]

That's a GREAT observation.  I could see where the 3rd devive in the 4port might just suck enough power to crash the va11a.  I only have 2 reliable hubs, both have a place to plug in external power, but neither came with a wall-wart.  Would you suggest 5v?  Then what do you think the tolerated variance would be as I hae NO adapter with that rating.

If only the stupid pc had more than 1 port...

Could you add a USB port card to the PC?

[steven r]

...I only have 2 reliable hubs, both have a place to plug in external power, but neither came with a wall-wart.  Would you suggest 5v?  Then what do you think the tolerated variance would be as I hae NO adapter with that rating....

Bill's idea would work if the card gave you enough ports.
Personally I'd buy a new hub that comes with a matching external power supply. 2nd option, which could turn into a wild goose chase, would be to contact the hub manufacture for one. Only as a last resort would I connect a wall-wart that may or may not match specs. If you choose the "last resort" option do not exceed 5 volts. I have no idea what variance from a pure 5 volt DC would be acceptable but I imagine it would be small.
If you get a card or hub, make sure that it is rated for 2.0. Some of the cheaper ones are only for 1.1.

[waterstom]

This is a Compaq laptop, older so only had 1 port.  This particular hub is 1.1  I just bought a new one for my main PC (non x10 use) and assured it was 2.0 I had questioned here previously and was assured nothing x10 required usb 2dotOH so I just went ahead and put this older hub to use.

I have an NDAS Disk (network attached storage device) but it filled up.  I guess this will motivate me to clean it up and free space to have THAT be where my x10 media goes.

I have found a dc pwr supply which has 4.5V and I have tried, and it works!
To test the theory, I unplugged the adapter and the video died again.  It did require a re-boot once I plugged the adapter back in to get the va11a recognized again.

I guess this should be added to the list of hardware tips; Assure a POWERED Hub if using one, of course avoiding one would be better.

[steven r]

....I have found a dc pwr supply which has 4.5V and I have tried, and it works!...

As general rule things like printers have their own power supply. On the other hand, if it doesn't have it's own power supply it's relying on the computer to supply it. This doesn't matter for 1 or 2 things like a mouse but can matter when more things are added particularly if one hub is plugged into another hub.

Some powered hubs, at least one I bought a few years back, have a switch that switches from powered to non-powered.

I learned the value of powered hubs one time I was running 8 USB devices on one computer. In theory you can have up to 127 but I can't imagine why you would really need more than a half dozen or so. Some of my uses weren't really important.