Low Power On USB Ports

[Capel_B]

I have an external 2.5" USB HD (laptop size) with a Hitachi 30G in it.

When plugged into this one machine, the drive busy light stays on permanently and the drive just makes a quiet but continuous clicking noise. When plugged into other machines, (3 others tried so far), it works perfectly, so I can rule out the drive being the cause of the problem.

The machine it doesn't work on has a brand new motherboard with USB 2 ports and when you connect an external ADSL modem or a mobile phone to ANY of the USB ports they work perfectly. So, the ports are working.

Am I correct in thinking this could be a voltage problem with the USB ports?

If so, can anyone suggest a solution please?

Many thanks...

Barrie

[hudsonsmith]

USB ports frequently do not put out enough power to run external HD's. You need to connect an external power source to the drive, or connect an externally powered USB hub to the computer.

[Capel_B]

We are going to see if we can get hold of a suitable external power supply for the external hard drive.

It was odd because this drive was working perfectly at the same time as the external modem and mobile phone connected, without it's own PSU - until the machine was upgraded with a new mobo (USB2 connectors).

I basically wanted to confirm that lack of power would make the drive behave in this way (no whirring - just a click, click, click noise).

Thanks for your input...

BC

[Archer]

Another option is to obtain a USB 2 cable with a double plug at one end so that it can draw power from two outlets instead of one.

[Quattro]

I have the same problem on one of the computers in the office. My drive has two plugs to get more power but that didn't help either...just a scary clicking sound comes out of it.
Haven't tried powering the drive itself by plugging in an external power supply.

The cause of this might be the powersupply from your computer. Some computers run on cheap PSU and they don't deliver enough power to run the drive. I have the same model mobo for all computers but some don't like my external drive which makes me think that the PSU is the culprit.

Q

[Sandwich]

Which usb ports are you connecting to? the front or the rear?

[Capel_B]

Sandwich:

Rear - old case so no sockets on the front!

Quattro:

Not thought of that! It is still using the old PSU. Will have to check it and see what it is. I think it's a 250W but didn't worry about it at the time as it's only a 1.3G Athlon CPU and everything else seemed to work fine. Might change it for a 400W PSU and see if that helps.

BC