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USB problem [message #55286] Fri, 03 May 2013 16:47 Go to next message
joe duran is currently offline  joe duran
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Registered: March 2013
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Hi All,
Have a G5 2.0ghz DP (A1047) running Leopard 10.5.8. Recently it developed a strange bug which I think must be hardware related. The mouse is plugged into the keyboard and the keyboard is plugged directly into one of the rear USB ports. When booting with the Option key held down to select an alternate startup drive (firewire external), I get no mouse or keyboard action (I get a mouse pointer but it does not move). The mouse laser does not light up. However when allowing the system to boot off the default internal drive and come up into the OS, the mouse and keyboard work fine. In both cases I can see the mouse flash twice during startup then it goes off. When booting into the regular drive, the mouse laser then comes back on.
I have tried resetting the PRAM several times, tried different USB port, unplugged other USB devices, pressed the SMU button on the motherboard, powered off and unplugged the machine then held the power button down. None of these things have made a difference. I tried the external drive, mouse and keyboard on another G5 and everything works perfectly, plugged in the same way.
Being that the USB port works under OS control but not under firmware, could it be a case of corrupted firmware?
I admit I am stumped and have worked on Macs for years. Never had this problem before. Any ideas?
Yes I have googled this and found some similar reports, but nothing that really helped.
Thanks!

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Re: USB problem [message #55287 is a reply to message #55286] Fri, 03 May 2013 17:25 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Kris Tilford is currently offline  Kris Tilford
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I have a G5 dual 2.3 that's sometimes experienced similar problems with USB. Mine were intermittent, and usually a Safe Boot reboot to clear the boot caches would clear the problem up. In my case, there were three USB ports available, one on the front, and two on the back. I noticed that usually only one port would have problems, like it was dead or something. I also noticed in System Profiler that the ports would often describe differently, sometimes identifying themselves as USB 1.1 ports (OHCI) and sometimes identifying themselves at USB 2.0 ports (EHCI) "High Speed".

The keyboard & mouse I was using were both USB 2.0 compatible, and the keyboard had a "USB Hub" built-in, so I thought it was strange that the port would sometimes identify not as "High Speed" but rather as the older USB 1.1.

I never was able to sort out what the cause was. I did most of the same things you did, reset the PMU, PRAM, NVRAM, and I even looked at which USB extensions were loading. You can download developer versions of Apple USB extensions that create detailed logs of USB functionality. There are separate versions of these extensions for each OS version, so you'd need to get the ones for 10.5.8 specifically. In my experience with unsupported OS X using xPostFacto I know that alternate versions of USB extensions (usually from earlier OS releases) often solve specific USB problems, but with a supported G5 using a supported OS version you'd think this generally would not be a good idea, other than perhaps using the developer version for 10.5.8 which I never did.

My only advise is try a Safe Boot from the external HD, and if the keyboard & mouse aren't recognized, try each of the three ports. You might also want to try a verbose boot using Cmd-v at startup to see if there are any USB error messages during the boot process?

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Re: USB problem [message #55288 is a reply to message #55286] Fri, 03 May 2013 17:32 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Clark Martin is currently offline  Clark Martin
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On May 3, 2013, at 1:47 PM, joe duran wrote:

> Have a G5 2.0ghz DP (A1047) running Leopard 10.5.8. Recently it developed a strange bug which I think must be hardware related. The mouse is plugged into the keyboard and the keyboard is plugged directly into one of the rear USB ports. When booting with the Option key held down to select an alternate startup drive (firewire external), I get no mouse or keyboard action (I get a mouse pointer but it does not move). The mouse laser does not light up. However when allowing the system to boot off the default internal drive and come up into the OS, the mouse and keyboard work fine. In both cases I can see the mouse flash twice during startup then it goes off. When booting into the regular drive, the mouse laser then comes back on.

> I have tried resetting the PRAM several times, tried different USB port, unplugged other USB devices, pressed the SMU button on the motherboard, powered off and unplugged the machine then held the power button down. None of these things have made a difference. I tried the external drive, mouse and keyboard on another G5 and everything works perfectly, plugged in the same way.

> Being that the USB port works under OS control but not under firmware, could it be a case of corrupted firmware?

> I admit I am stumped and have worked on Macs for years. Never had this problem before. Any ideas?

> Yes I have googled this and found some similar reports, but nothing that really helped.


The USB port(s) the keyboard and mouse are plugged into are motherboard port(s)?

Are the mouse and keyboard Apple brand?

Have you tried another mouse and keyboard plugged into the G5 in question.


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Re: USB problem [message #55289 is a reply to message #55288] Fri, 03 May 2013 18:08 Go to previous messageGo to next message
joe duran is currently offline  joe duran
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On May 3, 2013, at 2:32 PM, Clark Martin <cmmac@sonic.net> wrote:

>

> The USB port(s) the keyboard and mouse are plugged into are motherboard port(s)?

>


Yes.

> Are the mouse and keyboard Apple brand?

>


Yes.

> Have you tried another mouse and keyboard plugged into the G5 in question.

>

>


No! Good question. I'll give it a try and report back..

I'll also do a verbose boot and see if something comes up in the logs.

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Re: USB problem (SOLVED) [message #55310 is a reply to message #55288] Fri, 03 May 2013 19:15 Go to previous messageGo to next message
joe duran is currently offline  joe duran
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Thanks to your suggestions Clark I found out that it has to do with the USB hub on the keyboard. When booted up with the option key, no power to the ports on the keyboard. When the OS is booted up then the mouse works fine. Something to do with the resetting of the USB ports. Somehow going through it twice produces power at the ports on the keyboard. In any case the keyboard hub is "bad" in some way - it worked fine for about three months and then this just started up a couple of days ago. Final workaround is to just plug the mouse into it's own motherboard port and it works fine.

Many thanks to those who replied.

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Re: USB problem (SOLVED) [message #55311 is a reply to message #55310] Fri, 03 May 2013 21:04 Go to previous message
Kris Tilford is currently offline  Kris Tilford
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Registered: August 2012
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On May 3, 2013, at 6:15 PM, joe duran wrote:

> In any case the keyboard hub is "bad" in some way - it worked fine for about three months and then this just started up a couple of days ago. Final workaround is to just plug the mouse into it's own motherboard port and it works fine.


I should have mentioned that I was using the newer USB Aluminum Apple keyboard when I had issues, and since then I've gone back to an older ice-tray style Apple Pro keyboard and not had issues. There must have been some problems with the aluminum keyboards because there was an Apple Keyboard Firmware Update issued just for the keyboard itself. I did apply this firmware update to my keyboard, but my issue continued after the update. Perhaps your keyboard could benefit from this update? Here's a link:
<http://support.apple.com/kb/DL997>

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