Tag Archives: USB

Keyboard and Mouse Microstutters with a Dell Latitude Notebook

Posted on by nils
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I’ve been having a weird microstuttering issue with my Dell notebook, running Windows 10. The symptoms are input from the keyboard or the mouse hanging for about a half second to a second every 1-2 minutes. When this happens, I am unable to move the mouse.

Rebooting the system did no good, and I found no hints in the event log.

Through trial and error I think I have found a workaround: Disconnect all USB devices, then reconnect them.

My working theory is that the USB drivers scan for new devices, or are discovering a device as new (there’s no popup though). I wonder if this might be a bad or loose USB plug or something similar.

Anyway. If you have a similar issue, try reconnecting all USB devices. And if you have any idea as to the actual root cause… please leave a comment.

Gigabyte OSD_Sidekick: “Please check if your USB cable is connected”

Posted on by nils
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I wanted to find out what firmware my Gigabyte M32Q screen was running, and update it if necessary. The software used to do so is called OSD_Sidekick. Installation was a bit odd – it froze my PC for a few moments. But the installation did finish.

However, OSD_Sidekick.exe wouldn’t recognize my M32Q, instead displaying the error message “Please check if your USB cable is connected”. I quickly verified that my USB cable was, indeed, connected. I know it works too, because I have an iPad and an iPhone connected to my M32Q’s USB hub.

A reboot did not help.

Googling the issue, I found that some people recommended replacing the USB cable. I thought this would be odd, as I am using the USB cable included with the M32Q. On a whim, I disconnected my USB cable and reconnected it. I unplugged it from the rear of my PC, as that’s slightly easier; I am not sure if it matters.

And lo and behold, OSD_Sidekick recognized my M32Q.

My theory is that the USB driver OSD Sidekick installed needed a reconnect event to “discover” the screen.

As an aside, it turned out that my M32Q is already on the latest firmware. However, OSD_Sidekick may still come in handy – apparently you can change most, if not all, settings of the screen without the fiddly rear joystick.

iPhone: Can’t Enter Recovery Mode

Posted on by nils
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I was just trying to factory reset an old iPhone 6S, following these instructions provided by Apple. However, try as I might, the phone would just reboot.

Turns out my notebook’s USB port I was using to connect the iPhone 6S for doesn’t provide enough voltage and is thus ignored by the iPhone. I think this is so the phone doesn’t risk running out of power while updating.

The solution was to use a powered USB hub.

ASUS P5QD Turbo Mainboard Not Recognizing USB Keyboard During Boot

Posted on by nils
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Today I re-installed my old PC for my sister. First obstacle? I obviously had changed the boot order to put the CD Rom Drive after the harddrive, making booting from my Windows install DVD hard, to say the least. I couldn’t change it because, for some reason, the BIOS refused to recognize my USB keyboard. And unfortunately I seem to have no more PS/2 keyboards.

After a bit of trial and error, it seems that only one of the USB ports on the rear is recognized during POST. And on the Asus P5QD Turbo mainboard it’s the port directly next to the on board NIC port:

So if you have this issue with any Asus board, try that USB port first. Of course if you have a PS/2 keyboard handy, that’ll do the trick as well.

iPhone not recognized by iTunes – Can’t Sync

Posted on by nils
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For a while now I’ve had the issue that, sometimes, my iPhone would not be recognized by iTunes and wouldn’t sync. Sometimes there  was an error message; sometimes not. Most recently, I would just get the Windows’ sound you get when you connect a USB device twice in a row. The iPhone then charged, but did not sync at all.

Last night it got to the point where it just simply did not work at all anymore, so I had to look into it. Much to my surprise, the relevant article on the Apple Support Site, iOS: “Device not recognized in iTunes for Windows”, actually helped. In my case, I had to remove and reinstall the Apple Mobile Device USB driver.

Specifically:

Reinstall the Apple Mobile Device Driver

  1. Right-click the Apple Mobile Device entry in Device Manager and choose Uninstall from the shortcut menu.

  2. When prompted, select the box “Delete the driver software for this device” and click OK.

  3. In the resulting dialog box, click OK.

  4. In the Device Manager window, right-click Universal Serial Bus controllers and choose Scan for hardware changes from the shortcut menu.

At this point, the Apple Mobile Device entry did not reappear. Checking in the “Computer” window – the one which has your drives listed – showed an “Apple iPhone” device. I found it in the Device Manager under “Portable Devices”. I had to then update the software:

  1. Right-click the Apple iPhone, Apple iPad, or Apple iPod entry in Device Manager and choose Update Driver from the shortcut menu.

  2. Click “Browse my computer for driver software.”

  3. Click “Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer.”

  4. Click the Have Disk button. (If the Have Disk option is not present, choose a device category such as Mobile Phone or Storage Device if listed, and click next. The Have Disk button should then appear.)

  5. In the “Install from Disk” dialog, click the Browse button.

  6. Use this window to navigate to the following folder: C:Program FilesCommon FilesAppleMobile Device SupportDrivers.

  7. Double-click the “usbaapl” file. (This file will be called “usbaapl64” if you have a 64-bit version of Windows. If you don’t see “usbaapl64” here, or if there is no Drivers folder, look in C:Program Files (x86)Common FilesAppleMobile Device SupportDrivers. instead).

  8. Click OK in the “Install from Disk” dialog.

  9. Click Next and finish the driver-installation steps. Open iTunes to verify that the device is recognized properly.

This worked – as soon as I clicked “next”, the iPhone’s screen lit up and it started synchronizing.

This was on Windows 7 64bit, do check the article for other versions and more detailed descriptions.