Friend Of Mine Claims that inserting a second USB device into PC causes PC to freeze... Options

[illriginal]

Well basically put, he just called me up to come over and help him with a small problem that he's having.

He has a USB mouse, which works perfectly fine and so does the PC. Then he connects his MP3 player into the USB port while the mouse is still connected and all of a sudden the PC freezes.

So I shut the PC off, put the mouse on the other USB port where the MP3 player was first connected, turn the PC on... and it works perfectly fine. I then connect the MP3 player into the USB port that the mouse was on before... and it freezes the PC again.

So I shut off the PC, take off the mouse and leave the MP3 player connected, Windows starts up, and MP3 player's software opens up (for syncing and such) and there's no problem. While the machine is running, I then put the mouse into the open USB port... and it freezes again!!

So I think... alright maybe some how, some way the mouse and the MP3 player don't get along. I brought my USB hub thinkin that maybe one of the USB ports were damaged and I could just let him borrow my hub so he could hook up his mouse and mp3 player on the hub through one (1) USB port.

I shut the PC off... take off both the MP3 player and the mouse and hook up the hub to the USB port. I start up the machine and Windows runs fine, I then hook up the mouse... still running smoothly, then I hook up the MP3 player... BAAAM!! it freezes again!!

The only thing that I can think of... is the powersupply is not givin out enough juice. Since I'm assuming it has to power the laser/optical eye of the mouse, and the MP3 player.

Has anyone ever had this problem? I highly doubt it's the mp3 player or the mouse and he just purchased his mp3 player today.

Tomorrow the last thing I'll do is hook up my MP3 player onto his machine and see what happens then. If it freezes again, I'm gonna have to go with the idea that the powersupply is not strong enough.

[*mipadi*]

I doubt it's the power supply. A mouse draws so little current that it shouldn't be causing such a problem.

Poorly written driver? I don't know how the Windows driver model works exactly, but on other systems I am familiar with, drivers are essentially kernel components, and I assume Windows drivers are similar. The hypothesis of a bad driver is consistent with the symptoms you describe, as a bad driver is likely to cause the operating system to crash gracelessly.

[illriginal]

Hm... it's recognizing the Toshiba MP3 player correctly, and the USB mouse is just a generic driver.

I don't think the USB port drivers are bad... but I could be wrong.

[magicfann]

there's something wrong the computer, there's no way in hell putting 2 USB devices in can make your computer freeze

[xDiloveyouu]

have you tried, have them both connected into the computer and then turning it on?

and have you concidered that he might have a usb1.1 ports? and the mp3 player most likey uses usb 2.0

but dunno, my laptop turns off both ports off if i plug in a usb 2.0 flash drive into the usb 1.1 port

[illriginal]

THe physical wise, they are 1.0 but supposedly the drivers updated it to handle 2.0... I don't see how that's possible, but that's most likely the problem. I can't help him with his problem, but he said it used to never do that.