Dell Latitude D400 Insufficient Power for DVD drive

Hi All I have the above laptop and a Samsung SE-SO84 DVD +-RW which is USB powered but the laptop USBs are not powerful enough to power the drive. The drive has a double USB connector and I am plugging both into the laptop and also using a powered USB hub but still the drive only powers up and appears in My Computer for a second at a time before dying - I know the drive is not faulty because I have tried it in a desktop machine. I am wondering about the D/Bay port these laptops have - its a kind of double USB only the top one is differently shaped and provides power only. Is there a cable that goes from the tiny USB (USB B I think) port on the drive to this D/Bay thing - you seem to only ever be able to get the very expensive Dell branded drives that work with this connector. Had an online chat with a Dell rep but dont think he understood what I was asking and recommended an expensive docking station. Can anyone suggest a way of boosting power that isnt exhorbitantly expensive? Thanx, David

 

Is the computer pluged in when you are trying to use the usb powerd drive? if not plug it in, unplug any other usb devices.

 

Yes, the laptop is plugged into the mains and all other usb devices are disconnected.

 

each usb v2 port is limited to supplying 500ma. If your drive pulls more than that (likely) no 'fixes' such as plugging the machine in or unplugging other usb devices will make a difference.

The immediate benefit of USB 3 is that the per-port power budget is upped to 1 amp (1000 ma). But mobo USB 3 ports aren't expected until the end of 2010 at the earliest.

 

I thought 500mah was a minimum requirement for usb 2.0 , most ports will give 1000mah+ , and some notebook have special high power usb ports.

I had a HP DV3 it came with an external dvd-rw and a single usb header cable and the bottom of the dvd-rw drive has a rating of up to 2500mah when burning.

I always wondered what would happen if i plugged it into another make of notebook , would it blow the usb port , I have seen a number of dead usb ports over the years so they must fail.

 

any USB v2 port, desktop or notebook, that can deliver >500ma is non-standard.

It's important to remember that.

 

Its probable that the D400 just cannot supply 500mA on the port anymore. Electronics do age...

 

asus n61 has usb 3.0 now...

 

really, cool.

 

Possibly a matter of semantics, but the question is whether or not that's USB 3.0 integrated into the motherboard, or on a separate daughter card that supports the USB 3.0. The M6500 is supposed to start shipping with USB 3.0 "very soon now", and I've heard that they're working on a way so that people who ordered the original M6500 can get USB 3.0 through a daughter card upgrade.

 

initial release of M6500 has no USB 3.0 while initial release of asus N61JQ has USB 3.0, i guess this difference might indicate the higher chance of N61JQ's USB 3.0 is not a patched solution as M6500's.

 

I was merely pointing out the possibility that the statement that motherboard USB 3.0 slots might still be true, while allowing for notebooks to still have USB 3.0 (through a daughter card). The daughter card solution is supposedly something they're working on to retrofit initial release M6500s (without USB 3.0) with USB 3.0. The fact that the Dell configurator uses an entirely different chassis to enable USB 3.0 might imply a motherboard revision for new builds with USB 3.0 as well, but I don't know that any of us will know for sure until someone gets their hands on one of the new machines and pops it open.

I'm also curious, since the N61JQ only comes with one of the 3 USB ports having USB 3.0, with the other 2 ports being regular USB 2.0. I would have thought that if it was a truly integrated solution, all of the ports would be USB 3.0, since the format is backwards compatible. Admittedly, I have no idea if all of the ports on the "new" M6500 would be USB 3.0 either.

 

each USB 3.0 would have max 5W power consumption vs 2.5W for 2.0, if all ports getting 3.0, the power adapter has to get bigger...