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What my wish list asked from my new iMac!

joelw135

joelw135

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Oct 15, 2008
553
279
New Jersey, USA
I am a new iMac and Mac user and purchased the iMac 24" 3.06 500Gb and 4Gb of RAM. There is one thing I wish the iMac had and that is more USB ports.
The reason I say that is that I have two USB external hard drives a USB 2.0 Epson Scanner a USB Printer and a Wacom tablet. And that is leaving out my iPod and UPS which is USB. The problem arises after a fresh boot where some of the devices plugged into a powered hub are not found. So I have to do the USB dance and unplug and sometimes even move the USB cable to different positions. I don't know if it is something I am doing wrong or it is just another problem that can't be resolved. Is anyone else having this problem?
 
When you replace your HD, printer, scanner, etc. in the future, get firewire HD and multi-function printer/scanner. Less USB ports taken up. Also, if you get Airport Extreme Base Station you can connect your printer to it.
 
JayLenochiniMac said:
When you replace your HD, printer, scanner, etc. in the future, get firewire HD and multi-function printer/scanner. Less USB ports taken up. Also, if you get Airport Extreme Base Station you can connect your printer to it.
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Thats a long way off as the scanner is a high end Epson and the printer is a Pro photo printer. I just get annoyed that I never had this problem on my PC, but I will never go back to PC again.
 
joelw135 said:
Thats a long way off as the scanner is a high end Epson and the printer is a Pro photo printer. I just get annoyed that I never had this problem on my PC, but I will never go back to PC again.
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I can sympathize... I was hoping to get a Griffin Simplifi (ipod charger/flashcard reader/2-port usb hub all in one) but I've figured out that even with that I'd still be short on ports. Seems the only option is to get a hub. I wish they made one specially for the iMac that would contain itself behind the screen.
 
Capt Crunch said:
I can sympathize... I was hoping to get a Griffin Simplifi (ipod charger/flashcard reader/2-port usb hub all in one) but I've figured out that even with that I'd still be short on ports. Seems the only option is to get a hub. I wish they made one specially for the iMac that would contain itself behind the screen.
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I have two D-Link hubs that are real good and not cheap, but they still loose devices on startup. A true pain.
 
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joelw135 said:
At first I thought the hub was unpowered, but I see in the notes it is powered. Let us know how it works.
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It's working great for me. I have my printer, USB hard disk, compact flash reader, and palm sync cable plugged into it. My hard disk seems to wake right up after sleep or powering off.

I got mine at a mac store in Madison, WI.

Also, as an aside I've owned a number of d-link products at different times in the past, (router, wireless network card etc...) NOT ONE OF WHICH ACTUALLY WORKED.
 
OrganMusic said:
It's working great for me. I have my printer, USB hard disk, compact flash reader, and palm sync cable plugged into it. My hard disk seems to wake right up after sleep or powering off.

I got mine at a mac store in Madison, WI.

Also, as an aside I've owned a number of d-link products at different times in the past, (router, wireless network card etc...) NOT ONE OF WHICH ACTUALLY WORKED.
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I ended up buying the 7 port Cables to Go powered hub. It is made of Aluminum and very robust. As soon as I installed it all my problems were gone. On reboot the hard drives and the scanner as well as the printer were working not like before with the D-link Hub. For less than $18.00 I got a great deal.
 
joelw135 said:
I ended up buying the 7 port Cables to Go powered hub. It is made of Aluminum and very robust. As soon as I installed it all my problems were gone. On reboot the hard drives and the scanner as well as the printer were working not like before with the D-link Hub. For less than $18.00 I got a great deal.
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Great! well add that to the list of non-working d-link products.
 
OrganMusic said:
Great! well add that to the list of non-working d-link products.
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What drives me crazy is that when you call tech support for any USB device they always tell me that I must plug their device directly into the computer not a hub. If that was the case what good is any computer out there. Most come with Maximum of 4 USB sockets. All devices should be designed to work from a powered hub, and many hubs have the automatic connect and recovery built in. The D-link I guess did not have this as rebooting always lost the same three devices.
 
joelw135 said:
What drives me crazy is that when you call tech support for any USB device they always tell me that I must plug their device directly into the computer not a hub. If that was the case what good is any computer out there. Most come with Maximum of 4 USB sockets. All devices should be designed to work from a powered hub, and many hubs have the automatic connect and recovery built in. The D-link I guess did not have this as rebooting always lost the same three devices.
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stop rebooting your computer so often, its not good for it. put it to sleep or leave it on. Macs are made to stay on or in sleep mode for long periods of time, the only time i restart mine is when there is an update that requires it. and every few months i'll turn it off for a day or so.
 
bigjnyc said:
stop rebooting your computer so often, its not good for it. put it to sleep or leave it on. Macs are made to stay on or in sleep mode for long periods of time, the only time i restart mine is when there is an update that requires it. and every few months i'll turn it off for a day or so.
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I don't reboot my iMac very often as it stays on, but when I do I prefer not having to unplug each device and then replug it. The last time I rebooted was a few days ago when I bought the new hub. Prior to that I only have the iMac a few weeks and it had to be rebooted when new software was installed. That is how I found the problem with the D-Link hub.
 
old-wiz said:
Sometimes the USB hard drives can be daisy chained together - that is what I use for my 2 external drives so they only take up one slot.
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I was hoping to do that, but both my Western Digital and Seagate do not have the extra USB ports so that was out of the question. All I know is that the new hub works great and I am thinking of ordering another and daisy chain the two hubs. Right now I have 6 permanent devices and one port that I use for my thumb drives and my Garmin Edge 305. That port will also be used by my DSLR.
 
joelw135 said:
Hard Drives Scanners and printers have to have a powered port.
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No, those devices should not be powered by the USB bus, unless the drives are the real portable ones. Basically, any device that has an external power supply should not require a powered USB port.
 
belvdr said:
No, those devices should not be powered by the USB bus, unless the drives are the real portable ones. Basically, any device that has an external power supply should not require a powered USB port.
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Well if that is the case why don't they work? But they do work in the powered hub. Also when I spoke to their support they said for optimum results use a powered hub but better to plug directly into the iMac. I started in 1964 in computers and since USB came out I have found that unpowered hubs don't work with many devices. I do admit I am new to Mac but these devices are both Mac and Windows devices.
 
joelw135 said:
Well if that is the case why don't they work? But they do work in the powered hub. Also when I spoke to their support they said for optimum results use a powered hub but better to plug directly into the iMac. I started in 1964 in computers and since USB came out I have found that unpowered hubs don't work with many devices. I do admit I am new to Mac but these devices are both Mac and Windows devices.
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Let me rephrase it. A powered hub may be a requirement to keep the signal from deteriorating, and that makes sense. But just because the hub is powered doesn't mean power is sent to the USB devices.

A powered USB port is meant to supply signal and power to the device, as in the case of some of the smaller, more portable drives. However, USB ports don't supply much power at all, so they cannot power larger devices, like a desktop USB drive.
 
belvdr said:
Let me rephrase it. A powered hub may be a requirement to keep the signal from deteriorating, and that makes sense. But just because the hub is powered doesn't mean power is sent to the USB devices.

A powered USB port is meant to supply signal and power to the device, as in the case of some of the smaller, more portable drives. However, USB ports don't supply much power at all, so they cannot power larger devices, like a desktop USB drive.
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I agree, but I have tried a few different USB 2.0 hubs and all but the Cables To Go dropped the connection on a reboot or restart. The new hub keeps the drives active so the hub must be doing something. I tried Targus, D-Ling Lynksys and Cables to go, and the Cables to go is the only one that worked.
 
joelw135 said:
I agree, but I have tried a few different USB 2.0 hubs and all but the Cables To Go dropped the connection on a reboot or restart. The new hub keeps the drives active so the hub must be doing something. I tried Targus, D-Ling Lynksys and Cables to go, and the Cables to go is the only one that worked.
Click to expand...

It may be the devices are auto sensing whether they turn on or off. My LaCie turns on automatically when it senses a computer connected to it. So, the device may sense the USB hub's power, but that's it.

Either way, those drives are not pulling power from the USB hub/bus. They require way too much power to do that. That's why there's a brick attached to your hard drive. To prove it, pull the power from your hard drive and see if it stays on.
 
belvdr said:
It may be the devices are auto sensing whether they turn on or off. My LaCie turns on automatically when it senses a computer connected to it. So, the device may sense the USB hub's power, but that's it.

Either way, those drives are not pulling power from the USB hub/bus. They require way too much power to do that. That's why there's a brick attached to your hard drive. To prove it, pull the power from your hard drive and see if it stays on.
Click to expand...

As I posted in a prior thread the new hub has automatic connect which is why I think it works and the others don't have that. Aleast I did not find it in the docs.
 
joelw135 said:
As I posted in a prior thread the new hub has automatic connect which is why I think it works and the others don't have that. Aleast I did not find it in the docs.
Click to expand...

Never heard of "automatic connect"; that's interesting. Can't buy anything good anymore, eh? :) Seems like everything is built like junk.
 
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