ot: losing keyboard when using external hd...

ushere wrote on 12/25/2007, 2:55 AM
winxp, xcraft firewire ex drive. logitech wireless keyboard.

all's fine till i power up the external drive, at which point i lose my keyboard. mouse, etc., all function fine. turn off drive, back to normal. have reformatted drive, tried different cable, socket, etc.,

any suggestions

leslie

Comments

farss wrote on 12/25/2007, 5:04 AM
RFI from the external HDD?

Try a wire from the drive's case to the PC case.

Never had much faith in those wireless keyboards myself although my wireless mouse here works fine the keyboard and mouse where I work regularly complains about the RF signal being low.

Bob.

Bob.
Spot|DSE wrote on 12/25/2007, 10:07 AM
Could be that the CPU is reassigning resources? USB is notorious for those sorts of problems (I'm assuming the wireless keyboard and mouse use a USB receiver).
ushere wrote on 12/25/2007, 2:42 PM
thanks bob / spot,

it's a usb keyboard running with a ps2 adaptor. all was fine till a day or so ago, and i don't think i upgraded anything...

this is the error from event viewer:

The description for Event ID ( 0 ) in Source ( svchost.exe ) cannot be found. The local computer may not have the necessary registry information or message DLL files to display messages from a remote computer. You may be able to use the /AUXSOURCE= flag to retrieve this description; see Help and Support for details.

unfortunately, there isn't any support details!

thanks

leslie

btw. under device manager i have the ps2 keyboard listed AND 'virtual keyboard'. no idea what that is?
UlfLaursen wrote on 12/25/2007, 10:38 PM
Hi Leslie,

This is a very strange situation. I have delt with PC's on building troubleshooting etc. for 15 years and never come across this issue.

If I understand you correct, this is the case:

You have a wireless kbd. connected til your PS/2 port with an USB 2 PS/2 adapter.

When you plug in a firewire external drive, I guess its 1394a / FWS400, you loose your kbd.

Must be a hardware conflict somehow, but it sounds really strange, because the PS/2 port has it's own IRQ.

Have you tried to use the kbd. with USB to see if that works?

Will the problem go away instantly when you shut down the external HDD or do you have to reboot?

Can you have other firewiredevices such as camera connected and still use your kbd.?

/Ulf
ushere wrote on 12/26/2007, 12:19 AM
hi ulf,

thanks for your time...

i've tried a variety of combinations of keyboards usb / ps2, connecting the xcraft with both firewire and usb, all give the same problem. and yes, everything is instantly hunky-dory if i turn off the ex hd.

interestingly enough, i uninstalled the ex hd driver (hid button), and all went back to normal, however, everytime i turn the ex hd on, it wants to load 'initio gipo, and hid button' software. it appears the 'driver' is causing me the problems, but i don't know how to stop windows wanting to load the software....

i'm more than tempted to simply call it a day and toss the xcraft case and buy another box for the 320gb seagate drive (ide). any suggestions welcome.

and i can't find ANY references to any software on either the coolermaster / xcraft or initio websites - otherwise i'd try an updated driver....

again, thanks, and have a good new year,

leslie

ps. m15 deck, 170 and v1p all working happily on firewire.