[NBLUG/talk] More USB failures

[Lincoln Peters]

Still haven't worked out the PDA issues, but this new issue pretty much takes 
precedent over everything I was working on except SSU classwork...

This Palm Z22 uses a USB cable both for charging and for sync'ing.  Over the 
last 36 hours or so that I've been using the USB cable to charge the Z22, 
I've experienced two failures of the USB controller, both of which could only 
be fixed by rebooting the computer (this is not the first time I've discussed 
this issue on the list).  At the time I reboot, if I put my hand next to any 
of the case fans, I can feel that the air temperature within the case is 
noticeably higher than outside the case.  Since these failures had pretty 
much disappeared until recently, I had not given them much thought, but now 
that I'm taking 19 units at SSU (!), I am way too busy to tolerate ANY 
preventable hardware failures.

The Z22 is the only piece of new hardware I've tried to use with this computer 
within the last 3 weeks, so I'm pretty sure that it is connected to the 
failures.  However, I connected it to a self-powered (not bus-powered) USB 
hub, so I wouldn't expect the Z22 to be drawing enough power from the USB 
controller (or the root hub) to cause it to overheat and shut down (as I 
suspect is happening).

This leads to two questions:

1. Can one device drawing lots of power from a self-powered USB hub cause the 
root hub to malfunction due to its high power draw?

2. What could I do to protect the USB hardware on my motherboard from 
overheating, preferably in less than 10 minutes?  I'm thinking I could 
install a heatsink and fan on the relevant chips, but I'm not sure which 
chips they are.


-- 
Lincoln Peters
<sampln at sbcglobal.net>

The scum also rises.
		-- Dr. Hunter S. Thompson

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