awdark

Originally Posted by Orbitz

I have a little update on my situation. I managed to get both a Dell technical support person on the line with BOTH a Belkin Tech support rep and a Adaptec tech support rep (not all at the same time..first the Belkin tech then replaced him with the Adaptec tech..3 way call going. Little background...my USB High Speed hub is made by Belkin, my PCI USB card is made by Adaptec....both have USB ports that stopped working after hooking the Ax up. Also, the machine I am working on is a custom built rig (by me) utilizing a Asus A8V-E Deluxe Mobo...8 builtin high speed USB ports on board. Total call length 4.5 hours...first 1.5 hours with Dell tech alone. After 1.5 hours with getting exactly no where (we reinstalled SP2 on XP Pro, uninstalled and reinstalled all USB drivers...sever times etc., moved the Ax cradle connection to different outlets, reinstalled Async etc. Now...much of this I had allready tried (generally speaking I would be considered an advanced user or higher with regard to the OS and hardware components of the PC) but the Dell tech insitsted it get done again with him involved. Resutlt, my Ax still would not work (nor would any other USB product...USB Wester Digital Harddrive, USB Pinnacle Systems breakout box..on the ports that had "died" on either the PCI card or the hub. Initially, Dell tech had told me they have never heard of this issue...after 1.5 hours he finally admitted he had "heard" something about it. At this point, I instisted I add on a rep from Belkin to see if we were missing anything...this turned out to hurt more then help initially because the Belkin rep's final analysis was that ALL of their products are known not to function well..if at all...with onboard USB driven by a VIA chip (which the Asus uses). The Dell rep of course was supporting this theory although not to aggressively. Not to be shot down, I then insisted on putting an Adaptec rep on the line since the PCI card is not driven by the onboard USB and uses its own dirvers. Dell rep was trying VERY HARD to dump the call at this point and I insisted if I could take all this time to try and figure out my problem then he should be will also...he softened and we added the Adaptec rep. Adaptec rep confirmed there are no known issues with Adaptec products and my motherboard...after hearing the problem (2 ports dead on the card) he had me redo all the settings for the card from scratch...uninstall the card, reinstall etc. Nothing we did would bring the "dead" ports back to life. At this point, I had not mentioned to him that the "theory" was that the Ax had killed the ports...he brought this up on his own :) At this point, we were all out of ideas...the only plausable explanation was that somehow the cradle was frying ports on both the card and the hub...both have built in overcurrent protection and are designed to turn off the port in the event of a spike. Adaptec rep asked me to send the card directly to him so he could have the card checked to see if the overcurrent circuits where the cause of the dead ports. Card will be sent to him on Monday. Dell rep offered to send me to customer service to arrange for a replacement Ax / cradle...I have only had my Ax for one week and declined to have it replaced just yet since it is running fine otherwise. Dell rep promised to forward his notes on our call up the chain to see if anyone has any ideas...not sure I expect much from this or not. Over all Dell rep had less knoledge of the OS then I did...and only very basic knowledge of the USB hardware side. One thing he never asked (which I was expecting and was ready to do) was a hard reset on the Ax. Overall, I think we did everything possible to eliminate the obvious possibilities...driver problems, hardware conflits (in the case of the card at least)etc. So much for half a day of my life :)

:rolling: wow you actually tolerated tech support completely and eliminated every other possibility scary. I hope they figure out what the exact cause is soon :approve: