USB Camera/Phone meltdown

Im having lots of problems with my USB ports, and i really dont understand whats going on.

I have 2 slots at the front, 2 at the back, and the bit in between contains an AMD athlon 64 3200 cpu ... this is about the extent of my knowledge of my pc and its workings.

I got a 7mp digital camera about 12 months ago, and i connect it to my pc via a USB connection to upload my pictures.

A few weeks ago i plugged my camera in only for my pc to have complete stroke. Now it does it all the time but it worked ok before?

When i connect the camera to the pc, the pc pauses, then crashes completely, cant ctrl-alt-del, it just locks up totally, even the camera freezes. As soon as i unplug the USB the camera unfreezes but the pc is left lifeless. After I reset the pc acts like nothing happened, no safe-mode offer or anything.

Everything with the camera checks out fine, and the USBs on the front work fine with my printer. I tried disconnecting the internet from one of the slots on the back (my mouse is in the other) and connecting the camera there, but with the same result.

THEN TODAY.... I get my new 5mp camera phone, plug it in to the USB and guess what... same again. Yet my old phone still works, but only if its connected through one of the rear USB slots, it just doesnt register if plugged into a front slot rather than cause a crash

The camera is a Cannon, the new phone a Nokia and old one a Sony (if that makes any difference???)

What should i do?

Appreciate all the help you can give

 

I gave up connecting my cameras to any of my computers via the USB cord, after a windows update broke the camera software. Get yourself a card reader, connect it to one of the USB ports, take the card out of the camera, put it into the reader. I've had zero problems doing it this way. I also have three cameras: HP, Nikon and Canon. Fortunately all my cameras use an SD card so I didn't need to purchase something like a 56 in 1 card reader.

The computer will see the card as a USB mass storage device. You can copy or move the pictures to the computer then use the software program to work on them.

 

I sort have been doing this already with my camera, but using the SD card slot in the printer as i dont have a card reader (yet!)

I know i will be able to do this for the phone with pictures or sounds, but what about things like applications ie; games/phone software upgrades that the phone needs to install?

Will this be a simple as drag and drop into the right folder and let the phone do the rest or will it need to be connected to the pc and have Nokias wizzard install it?

 

Sorry, I have no idea how a phone works. My cell phone is dumb so it has never been connected to my computer.

 

errr .... hello again

I took your advice and purchased a card reader the other day, just plugged it in and its crashed my pc

Same story as before with plugging the camera/phone in, screen freezes, completely lifeless

Any ideas to what this might be, and if its something I could sort myself would be greatfully appreciated

Thanks again

 

Does the card reader crash the PC in every USB port?
Because if the back work but not the front or the fron work but not the back, maybe something is wired wrong.
Also how many USB ports are in use? I ask because there is a limited amount of power spread between the ports and maybe just plugging in one more thing, makes it go over the power limit.

 

Removed everything from the USB ports (modem/mouse/printer)

Plugged the mouse into the front (works fine), then tried the card reader in both of the rear slots with the same outcome, crash

I tried the reader both with and without a card in, in case this made a difference, but it still crashed

It just seems odd to me that the modem/mouse/printer are giving me no problems, yet camera/phone/card-reader cause a major crash???

At first i thought it might be some sort of conflict when another drive was plugged in, maybe after some dodgy update, but theres no problem if i slot one of the SD cards into the printer

Is it possible that the cam/phone/reader could be trying to draw to much power by themselves? is there a way to check for this?

A friend has suggested buying a powered USB hub(?) but im hesitant to go and splash more cash if this isnt going to help

What do you think

 

I really don't know. I have both powered and unpowered hubs. I decided if something acted weird, I'd plug the adapter into the hub. So far I haven't had to use it. My card readers seem to work fine just plugged into the USB port or hub.

If it were me, I'd buy a powered hub. It might not solve your current problem but it isn't money wasted because that powered USB hub can be used on any computer.

So do you have a USB adapter, a mouse and a printer hooked up? If so, I suspect you are taxing your four USB ports beyond the power allotted to them.

 

Just purchased a powered USB hub, plugged it in, an yup, you guessed it..... it crashed the pc !!!

Could this be a software problem?

Are there any tools/system checks etc that i could run to give me an idea to what is going wrong?

Should i just pour petrol over it and have a warm night by the fire?

Thanks for your help so far

 

Sorry, I have no idea.
Try booting into safe mode, plug the camera into the powered hub and see if it crashes the PC.

I'm completely stumped on this one.
Since it has only started happening in the past few weeks, think back about all the software changes that have been made. That is going to be a tough one.

Do you have an image available? If so, image your current config, then use the old image and put it on the computer, plug in the new camera and phone and see if they work. If so, the software/updates done since the old image and the new one has to be the cause.

Also it wouldn't hurt to go to Howard's forum (cellphones) read through the Nokia section and see if any particular software is causing PC crashes.