[G4] USB flash drive

[Alex]

On Monday, Apr 19, 2004, at 05:03 Canada/Eastern, mbrad at icenet.com.au 
wrote:

> [...] why won't my USB flash drive mount when I plug i into
> the USB port on my keyboard? [...] When it mounts just fine if I plug 
> into the back?!

The "keyboard" is actually a keyboard plus a low-power USB hub. Various 
USB devices do not work, or do not work well, with hubs. There are 
various reasons: the hub doesn't supply enough power, the hub data 
transfer capability is overwhelmed, or simply mismatch/variation in the 
USB ports.

As a basic rule-of-thumb, low-power, low-data-volume (cheap) hubs, such 
as a the one built in the keyboard, are not likely to work well with 
devices such as flash drives, ext'l drives (USB-powered or not), 
scanners, printers, etc., which either require more power than the bus 
can deliver, or flood it with data.

Troubleshooting is simple. Plug the device directly into the computer 
USB port. If it works, likely the device is fine; if it doesn't, but 
other devices do work on the same port, the device is probably bad. 
Then, plug a low-power, low-data-volume device (e.g., a mouse) into the 
hub port. Does it work? If yes, the hub is good, but not suitable for 
the kind of device you're trying to use with it. Solution? Either use 
the device on one of the Mac's built-in ports (using an extension 
cable, if needed), or purchase a powered, good-quality hub -- or 
consider buying a USB card (and thus add USB 2.0 capability to your G4).

f