How do I get front panel usb audio and internal usb card reader to both work?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Bald Guy
  • Start date Start date
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Bald Guy

I have this usb card reader, which is plugged into a Syba pci card that has
two usb headers on it:
http://tinyurl.com/8scxj

I have a front panel audio USB panel connected to my USB mobo headers. The
panel looks like this:
http://tinyurl.com/a9pnx

The front panel audio and its usb ports worked fine before I put in the card
reader. Now when I plug something into the front panel USB ports the
computer freezes until I get a pop up saying the disk needs to be formatted.
If I unplug the card reader, the USB front panel starts working again.
Obviously XP is getting confused, but I sure would like to know how to fix
it so that I can use both devices.
 
Well, if I plug my usb webcam into the front panel usb, it works fine. It is
my thumbdrive that will not work when I plug it into the front panel usb.
When I plug my thumbdrive in, I get something saying the drive has not been
formatted, do you want to format it now. Of course, when I plug the
thumbdrive up to the rear usb port, it works fine.
 
Bald said:
Well, if I plug my usb webcam into the front panel usb, it works fine. It is
my thumbdrive that will not work when I plug it into the front panel usb.
When I plug my thumbdrive in, I get something saying the drive has not been
formatted, do you want to format it now. Of course, when I plug the
thumbdrive up to the rear usb port, it works fine.
Click to expand...

There is really nothing wrong with the thumbdrive, the USB
ports or the computer. The problem is that the USB ports
might not have sufficient power for both the card reader and
any other unpowered, USB device. Investing in a powered USB
hub for the rear USB connections and using it might be a good
solution; it is like having an additional front panel.
 
Hi. But I have a 450 watt psu and how much power does it take to power a
thumbdrive? I don't have the devices plugged up at the same time, so they
don't need to share power. The webcam takes more power than the thumbdrive,
but the webcam works when I plug it into the front panel.

The card reader shows in Explorer as removable disk F and G, and when I try
to put in the thumbdrive it tries to go in as Drive H. Sometimes it won't
show up at all automatically so I have to type H: in the address bar of
Explorer to get it to show up.
 
The psu is 420w. I have one cd writer, one dvd writer, one hdd, an AGP card,
3 fans, no firwire on the mobo but the Syba card has firewire ports that I
don't use. The front panel audio plugs into the psu, so you would think I
have enough power. The thumbdrive works fine when I plug it into the back of
the computer's usb, so if it was a power thing, you would think it wouldn't
work there either. Also, my usb webcam works when I plug it into the front
panel usb, so it really does not seem to be a power thing.

I think XP is getting confused somehow.
 
You can have a 1000 watt power supply. The power available through the USB
ports is limited by the trace size on the M/B. Those tiny lines you see
provide only minimal power without burning through. Because of that, the
power consumption for each port is limited in the operating system so as not
to damage the M/B.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!
 
Bald said:
The psu is 420w. I have one cd writer, one dvd writer, one hdd, an AGP card,
3 fans, no firwire on the mobo but the Syba card has firewire ports that I
don't use. The front panel audio plugs into the psu, so you would think I
have enough power. The thumbdrive works fine when I plug it into the back of
the computer's usb, so if it was a power thing, you would think it wouldn't
work there either. Also, my usb webcam works when I plug it into the front
panel usb, so it really does not seem to be a power thing.

I think XP is getting confused somehow.
Click to expand...

Think what you want. But remember that the USB ports gets its
power after it has been stepped down to a working value from a
distant PSU. The amperage is more like 500 mA (milli-amps). And
how the front panel USB ports are connected will also determine
whether or not it is borrowing from the same 500 mA per port or
on its own line.
 
It's not a power problem. We're talking about a thumbdrive here. These front
panel things would not be selling at all if they wouldn't even power a
little thumbdrive. If the webcam works, it is definitely not a power thing.
That it has a connector to go to the psu is surprising, because even that is
not necessary.

The card reader and front panel usb device are probably showing up as "mass
storage devices" right? It might be that XP is getting the drivers for both
devices mixed up.

Here is what you ought to try. Uninstall the card reader in Device
Properties. Then plug in the usb thumbdrive to see what happens. If that
does not work, then disable the card reader by right clicking on it and
selecting disable, which is probably listed under SCSI as a mass storage
device. Then uninstall the pront panel device and reinstall it in device
properties. Once it is reinstalled, plug in the thumbdrive to see if it will
work.

Post back here to let us know please.
 
Xu said:
It's not a power problem. We're talking about a thumbdrive here. These front
panel things would not be selling at all if they wouldn't even power a
little thumbdrive. If the webcam works, it is definitely not a power thing.
That it has a connector to go to the psu is surprising, because even that is
not necessary.

The card reader and front panel usb device are probably showing up as "mass
storage devices" right? It might be that XP is getting the drivers for both
devices mixed up.

Here is what you ought to try. Uninstall the card reader in Device
Properties. Then plug in the usb thumbdrive to see what happens. If that
does not work, then disable the card reader by right clicking on it and
selecting disable, which is probably listed under SCSI as a mass storage
device. Then uninstall the pront panel device and reinstall it in device
properties. Once it is reinstalled, plug in the thumbdrive to see if it will
work.

Post back here to let us know please.
Click to expand...

Still equivocal. The power available through the front panel
USB ports on its own M/B connection is approx. 1.65 Watts. No
one is certain what other USB ports are on this connection.
Typically, each USB port is limited to around 500 mA, as GH
mentions. IIRC, the USB line uses 3.3 V.

The card reader is also drawing power from this circuit. The
proof will be the results from your solution. However, I would
have suggested physically disconnecting the card reader and
then test the thumbdrive.
 
So just how much power is needed to make a 1gig thumbdrive get up and go?

The way I remember it, he said the thing was showing up but that he was
getting some message saying it needed to be formatted.

It is as simple as this . . . if it powers that webcam, it will power the
thumbdrive. Nothing equivocal about it.
 
Xu said:
So just how much power is needed to make a 1gig thumbdrive get up and go?

The way I remember it, he said the thing was showing up but that he was
getting some message saying it needed to be formatted.

It is as simple as this . . . if it powers that webcam, it will power the
thumbdrive. Nothing equivocal about it.
Click to expand...

But the webcam has its own power supply. Most card readers
do not have independent power supplies and rely on the power
coming from the USB port, just like thumbdrives. It isn't the
thumbdrive that is the issue but why the front panel USB port
is not functioning properly when the card reader is present
and connected to a PCI USB card. Read the original post of
1/1/2006.
 
Read the whole thread instead of just the original post.

The webcam is usb . .. . it does not have its own powersupply. And the
front panel is functioning properly with other devices plugged into it. And
no one has established that the thumbdrive is not working because the card
reader is present. The OP has not followed up about that.

This thread has taken a turn for the silly; now we are all just rambling
and bickering over nothing that is going to solve the problem. Nothing else
needs to be said unless the OP gets back with us or someone can offer some
credible reason why the "format" request is poping up when the thumbdrive is
inserted.

I am following this with a little relevancy as I recently returned an IDE
card reader because everytime I put in my sd or compact flash card, I too
got the format message. It was almost like I was putting in the wrong type
of floppy disk into a floppy disk drive. You know what I mean? Trying to put
a 1.4mb disk into a FDD that would not support anything greater than 300mb?
 
I have had four different webcams, and they all draw their power from the
USB port.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!
 
Here is one more method to try:

Hold down windows key and hit "r". This brings up the Run command line. Now
type the following command at a command prompt with the quotation marks, and
then press ENTER:
net stop "removable storage"

After your screen flashes and the dos window closes, plug in your thumbdrive
to see if that works. With removable storage, sometimes the registry gets
confused because it is looking for a device that was once plugged in. And in
the future, always right click on the "Safely Remove Hardware" icon in the
systray. Then stop the thumbdrive before you pull it out.
 
That worked. I rebooted the computer and tried it twice more to make sure.
The thumbdrive pops up immediately upon insertion.
 
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