Smartboards not connecting

[laserblazer]

I've got a few teachers complaining that the usb connection to their smartboard is not working. In all cases the light goes green initially and then switches to red after a couple of seconds. It seems to be laptop related and I'm wondering if, with the very long cable that is supplied, it is right on the operational limit.

 

Has anyone else seen this and can recommend a fix?

[Educare_AV]

I would agree sounds like a USB length issue. What length is your USB run?

[laserblazer]

It's the standard length cable, whatever that is. I reckon at least 10m.

[Educare_AV]

The standard black USB that comes with the smart board is 5m in length. Normally this could be ran to a faceplate and a further 2m flylead can be plugged into the faceplate without issue. 10m is too long, for greater distances you need to use either 5m USB active inline extensions or cat5 to usb convertors. Cat5 convertors being the preferred method. I have also seen instances were the laptop has not been supplying enough power via the usb port and there has been a setting within the bios to increase the power output to the usb ports too. worth a look.

[witch]

I have had both problems: shortening or even just changing the cable has worked in a couple of cases. But I have had issues with some of the newer Dells due to them not putting out enough power to the usb ports. I ended up with a boomerang situation where Dell blamed the AV company and the AV company blamed Dell. I never got to the bottom of it and noone ever indicated that I could change the power settings!

[penfold]

I've had a similar problem with a IWB and it was due to the run of the USB. It was installed with 3(I think) USB cables hooked up together through the roof and to a faceplate on the wall. I ended up having up having to recable some of the USB leads to a shorter length and it worked fine after that.

 

Just another thought, if you are connecting via a faceplate, so see if you can get to the USB behind it and connect directly to that to see what you get.

[sted]

ive found the version of smart drivers im deploying has apparently become unsigned (at least on 7x64 pcs) sometimes but the same install package on other machines is fine

[mjs_mjs]

we had this on xp where the drivers wern't installing, and it was picking up a default usb serial convertor. Have a look and try forcing the smart driver for it, see if it helps.

[laserblazer]

we had this on xp where the drivers wern't installing, and it was picking up a default usb serial convertor. Have a look and try forcing the smart driver for it, see if it helps.

 

That's the problem but it doesn't want to know with the smart drivers. Looks like a new cable.

[mjs_mjs]

That's the problem but it doesn't want to know with the smart drivers. Looks like a new cable.

 

try forcing it to use them by going through dev man, device, driver update, then locating the smart driver, tho i cant remember where it is as since packaging up the 10.1 driver i no longer have the issue. smart do have an msi driver pack which did also work for us since moving to 10.1/10.6. have a play with the smart admin tools for making custom mst's for their msi's and deploying these, there alot more stable than any other type of install i've done. when i first looked at packaging it up myself it took over 100 hours of work, and was still glitchy, the tools solved all of my issues apart from group content (which no one uses anyway).

 

just realised that's saying the same stuff twice really. You can also use a normal serial cable to connect to the boards. I assume you have a 500 series board? it may be worth trying that also.

Edited September 15, 2010 by mjs_mjs