12" PowerBook USB Issues

I recently upgraded to a couple of external hard drive enclosures with power management; it's nice to have my server hard drives go to slep when they're not in use, which is most of the time. I'm running into issues though getting these drives to work with my Belkin USB 2.0 hub, which is a simpe, compact, unpowered, 4-port hub. They seem to work intermittently, but the only way to get them to work consistently is to plug each one into one of the built-in USB ports on the PowerBook. This is pretty unacceptable, given that the Mac only has two ports.

Maybe a powered hub would help? Then again, it could be a damaged hub. I've had some issues getting my iPod detected through it, too.

A little more experimenting, and it looks like whether or not the drives work may depend on which hub ports the drives are plugged into. Specifically, if they're plugged into the ports on the left side of the hub, they seem to work. The other ports (those on the right side) are not definitely not completely dead: I have my wireless mouse/keyboard adapter plugged in there and it seems to work fine.

Ed's T41

Ed asked me to get his T41 working. Apparently, he wiped the hard drive and reinstalled Windows XP Home, but then found that many things (like internet access) weren't working.

When I first booted the machine, I was told that I couldn't log in without activating Windows. Activation over the internet wasn't an option -- I couldn't connect with either ethernet or Wi-Fi -- so I called. The automated system was no help: it kept telling me it couldn't generate a code for me. Speaking with a human got it quickly resolved. Windows XP is now activated.

I tried to download network drivers on my MacBook and transfer them via a USB flash drive, but the flash drive wasn't recognized. I used the Add Hardware wizard to scan for new devices; it was found, the correct drivers were installed, and now my flash drive is being recognized.

I got both the Wi-Fi and ethernet working by following the instructions on the Lenova support page (here's the main page for this T41). Here's what I installed:

Wireless network controller:Cisco Systems Mini PCI Wireless LAN driver. See http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/MIGR-42683.html

Ethernet Controller:Intel PRO/1000 LAN adapter software. See http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?sitestyle=lenovo&lndocid=MIGR-62922

Next step: start the process of applying all the Windows XP updates. Using Windows Update.

Hours later...I think I got all the updates installed, all the way through SP3 and including IE 7 and WMP 11. After all the critical updates, I installed most of the optional ones, which included Lenova drivers for such things as audio and video. Nice. Finally installed the latest Flash player.

The laptop seems ready to go.