Extended USB Phasing Out

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by teh_crunch, Feb 6, 2009.

  1. teh_crunch

    teh_crunch Private E-2

    Hey there friends

    I work as an apprentice IT / AV Technician within a university. I have been here for about 3 months or so and recently there have been so many problems with the USB that has baffled me and all the technicians within the department.

    We have all the towers in racks for the server in our room and the monitor, keyboard and mouse in each of the classrooms where they are needed. We are using Black Box 724-746-5500 Remote Port USB Extenders the Remote Unit has a 4 way multiport for USB in the classroom end and a Local Unit so that we can send USB signals longer distances over CAT5E cable into each room. Bear in Mind the Black Box Ports are quite old. The Pc's are 6months old and are used for a bit of you tube browsing, power point presentations and MS Office.

    It goes from: PC in the server racks - Black Box Remote Port USB (Local Unit) so it can be transformed to go through CAT5E - CAT5E - Patch Panel - CAT5E - another patch panel in the room - another Black Box Remote Port USB (Remote Unit) which then has the Mouse / Keyboard / Memory sticks

    The USB units are powered at the classroom end, it is just data that is being transferred.

    Now, the problem... They keep phasing out. We have tried various ways of trouble shooting but the rooms it happens to seem quite random even though some rooms are worse than others but they just cut out and won't work again in a wide variety of different rooms until we have unplugged and plugged them back in at the Local Unit, this seems to temporarily solve the problem for as long as the lecturer in the room needs to use the PC but if it happens once then it can occur another 2 - 5 times a day and we have to take them a laptop to use instead.

    Some solutions we have tried are swapping a PC in the problematic rooms for the spares that we keep in the racks, switching the Local Units and Remote Units in some rooms for ones we don’t tend to have trouble with and still keeps blanking out. Even bought a couple of USB 2 and still no avail :cry
    We also have an Adder View CATX so that we can have remote access of Computers across the University. We tried unplugging that to see if that had interference with the Remote Units but again were slapped in the face about 20minutes after trying that when the USB died again.
    The Senior Technician is implying it has something to do with the cabling or the Patch Panel but me and the others have argued that they haven’t been touched and why just the USB? We have Projectors, VoIP Phones and Cameras all POE in the same kind of patch panels following the same kind of pattern as the USB. Could it be some interference of some kind? It seems like the PC loses connection with one of the Units but we are stumped as to how / why.

    If anybody needs any more information I would be happy to give. If this is posted in the wrong section please advise me to where I should put it:)

    Any information, suggestions links would be greatly helpful and appreciated, I apologise for the novel :-D

    Cheers,
    The_Crunch
     
  2. 12quidkidinnit

    12quidkidinnit Private First Class

    From what you've said already and the information you've posted, I guess you might have thought of this already, so apologies if you have. If not, have you checked the power saving status of the USB Root Hubs in Device Manager ?

    I don't know what operating system yuo have. For XP (I don't know how to do this under any other OS).

    Control Panel
    System
    Hardware
    Device Manager
    Universal Serial Bus Controllers
    USB Root Hub
    Power Management

    Is the box checked that says "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power" ?

    If so, uncheck this for all instances of usb root hub, and see if it cures the problem.
     
  3. teh_crunch

    teh_crunch Private E-2

    Hey

    Thanks very much for the reply, but yes unfortunatly my collegues have tried switching the Power Save System. I was not in the office the day they tried though.
    You are correct we are on XP, not sure what SP we are on.

    I would like to personaly try your suggestion but the PC's are being used until the end of the day so can't check again until Monday.

    Thanks again for the reply :)

    Teh_Crunch
     

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