BHMS Posted September 8, 2011 Posted September 8, 2011 I'm having a problem with several 5 series smartboards in my school. The light on the board flashes between red and green every few seconds completely at random and the connection to them is the same. I've tried disabling USB power saving but that didn't help. I think this is related to one of the later smartboard driver releases as I never had the problem in the past and now it's affecting a large number of boards. Can anyone provide me with a download link for Smart product drivers 10.0 - 10.2. I don't think I had any problems with these but I can't find any downloads for them any more. Thanks.
Mr.Ben Posted September 8, 2011 Posted September 8, 2011 Hi BHMS, I have been seeing this with series 5 boards as well (4 in total here). I have tried replacing cables, different boards and upgrading software with no luck. What OS are you using? My investigations so far seem to narrow the problem down to Windows 7, as everything works as expected on XP. When the Smartboard disconnects, The Smart Control Panel says 'No Data is being recieved on this port' More details: H/W Model: SB500 USB Version: 3.0.0 Firmware: 7.23 Software: 10.6.175.2 (although later version also have the problem) Anyone else seen it?
BHMS Posted September 9, 2011 Author Posted September 9, 2011 The problem seems to mostly occur with Windows 7 but I have had it hit one XP laptop recently. Software downgrade is getting to the end of my options. I threw out my 10.0 CD just before the summer which I'm regretting now. Now I only have 9.7 and 10.6 but I'm hoping for something around 10.0 to fix it.
Mr.Ben Posted September 9, 2011 Posted September 9, 2011 Hi BHMS, I've tried the following versions of the software today, still no joy though, 10.0.123 10.0.163.1 10.0.528.7 That is all of the versions that I have!
exim Posted September 9, 2011 Posted September 9, 2011 I'm having issues with Windows 7, but sb885 boards that have just gone up. We're using USB repeaters. I think the repeaters and windows 7 are causing a problem - device manager just shows the repeaters as usb hubs. Stangely though it's not all of the boards that are not detecting, half function fine, as for the others I've tried everything to get them to detect. It's all identical kit too. Am I right in thinking cat5 usb extenders are often better than the standard USB repeaters.
BHMS Posted September 9, 2011 Author Posted September 9, 2011 I don't have any spare powered usb hubs to test but they might be a possible solution.
Mr.Ben Posted September 9, 2011 Posted September 9, 2011 (edited) Just connected the board through some official smart speakers (which act as a usb hub and provide power to the board). No luck. Anyone else tried it yet? Has anyone tried to ring the smart technical desk. I can't get the number to work on my landline here or mobile phone. 0800 4563 2100. Edited September 9, 2011 by Mr.Ben
Mr.Ben Posted September 9, 2011 Posted September 9, 2011 (edited) Solved! (for the 500 series boards) There are 2 types of Smart USB cable - with different firmware. The 3.0.0 cable does not work and causes the error. They are visually very different. The version 3.0.0 cable looks like this The version 3.1.0 cable is significatly bigger where the usb to serial conversion happens and has the smart logo on it. I will take a picture when I can. I had to remove a 3.1.0 cable from one of our installations to prove it (a trip to a loft space and the removal of some trunking)! Edited September 9, 2011 by Mr.Ben 2
exim Posted September 9, 2011 Posted September 9, 2011 Well done. This will be helpful for others going through the same hell! My Windows 7 + USB repeater to 800 series issue however is not solved. I can only think the engineers didn't connect them properly... we'll see.
plexer Posted September 9, 2011 Posted September 9, 2011 Smart usb boards aren't natively usb but are frakensteins using usb/serial converters? Ben
john Posted September 9, 2011 Posted September 9, 2011 Smart usb boards aren't natively usb but are frakensteins using usb/serial converters? Ben Old ones as in 5 series yes, newer ones are native I thought. As for those leads, are you sure you have the photos the correct way round? The larger adaptor is the ye-olde this is USB and look how clever it is aged ones and the small compact one is the newest one they do as I bought a stack of them last year for all the Smart Boards I got in.
Mr.Ben Posted September 9, 2011 Posted September 9, 2011 I thought the series 600 boards were the first native usb boards. John, they are surprisingly the right way around, and you are right, the one that works is Ye old lead. I am not entirely sure why the older leads show up as a newer Usb version, I shall do some more investigation!
dhicks Posted September 9, 2011 Posted September 9, 2011 As for those leads, are you sure you have the photos the correct way round? Right, now I'm confused. We have two non-responding Smart boards, both with the larger version of the USB/serial widget pictured above. They were working fine before the summer, but now that the teachers have come back and have come to use the boards they are reporting them as not working (could be quite interesting to leave the other boards and see how long it takes for people to notice the touch feature no longer works...) I assume this is because the Smart software checks for firmware updates every 30 days and has updated something over the summer. Possibly. Maybe another reason (er, cosmic rays?). I don't see any intermittent flashing green LEDs and we seem to have mains power to the board okay (red LED indicator is on) - we have had issues with the power adaptors conking out before, so maybe something similar (power surge?) has happened and fried some more delicate electronics this time?
john Posted September 10, 2011 Posted September 10, 2011 Look in device managed and are the USB leads showing as Smart Boards or unknown or keyboards? I've had some that were not working right and I had to point them at the drivers folder to get them to work right. 1
laserblazer Posted September 10, 2011 Posted September 10, 2011 Look in device managed and are the USB leads showing as Smart Boards or unknown or keyboards? I've had some that were not working right and I had to point them at the drivers folder to get them to work right. W've had this with 500 series. Device Manager shows it as a generic usb/serial converter. Deleting this driver and rebooting resets the correct smart driver. 1
GodsServent Posted September 10, 2011 Posted September 10, 2011 A recent firmware update was applied following a pop-up alert by the SMARTboard software on our computers. Immediately after the RED light came on for the SMARTboard and you could no longer use the "touchy" features of the SmartBoard. Do to the layout of our classrooms we use USB/Cat5 extenders for because of the distance to the host computer. Investigating and swapping cables in/out and we found that when connected directly via USB cable the SmartBoard works normal - with a GREEN status light. We changed out computers, the Cat5 cables, and even tried another pair of USB extenders but to no avail. Contacting SMART Support, they state that if we do not connect directly via USB and we don't use the SMART brand of USB extender, they cannot support our problem. If, after employing SMART extenders the problem still exists, they will pursue further options of support. Before I succumb to buying all-new extenders for 15 boards (almost $2000) I wanted to find out if anyone else has experienced something similar. The other option I would like to try is to rollback the firmware of the board? (The firmware updates I found at SMART wanted to update the projectors only.) Any feedback is appreciated! -D
dhicks Posted September 11, 2011 Posted September 11, 2011 Before I succumb to buying all-new extenders for 15 boards (almost $2000) Sorry, not really got a solution, thought I'd just point out that for that much you might as well buy new VESA-mountable PCs and mount them right next to the SMARTBoard, getting rid of the need for any extenders. Have you tried seeing if a standard USB extensions will do? The USB specification reckons they'll manage five metres, and you might as well see if you can stretch that a bit before you buy more hardware.
plexer Posted September 11, 2011 Posted September 11, 2011 I would suggest in this case that you buy 1 smart extender and see if it works if it doesn't smart will have to help. Have you tried a normal active usb extender? Ben
TommyCooper Posted September 12, 2011 Posted September 12, 2011 Hi Exim, The 885s need USB2 480Mbps extenders. Try a direct connection to the board via a short USB lead (the USB connector is under the right-hand end of the pen tray) to see if the fault is with the cabling or the board. Also check that the PSU is correctly connected - I've seen a few where the cable is mistakenly inserted into the audio-out socket. While I'm thinking of it - also check that your PCs have 10.8 drivers installed. 885s won't work at all with anything less than 10.6 and performance is much better with 10.8. 1
BHMS Posted September 12, 2011 Author Posted September 12, 2011 Solved! (for the 500 series boards) There are 2 types of Smart USB cable - with different firmware. The 3.0.0 cable does not work and causes the error. They are visually very different. The version 3.0.0 cable looks like this The version 3.1.0 cable is significatly bigger where the usb to serial conversion happens and has the smart logo on it. I will take a picture when I can. I had to remove a 3.1.0 cable from one of our installations to prove it (a trip to a loft space and the removal of some trunking)! You can apparently use USBwiz.exe in the Smart product drivers folder to flash some old cables to 3.1.0. I havn't had any luck with this as it greys out the next option on the second page in the wizard no matter which usb port I plug the cable into. Guess I better contact support as I don't really want to shell out £300 on new cables when I could just flash them.
exim Posted September 13, 2011 Posted September 13, 2011 Thanks TommyCooper. I'll check all your suggestions out. It sounds like the new 800 series has a lot more specific requirements that the installers weren't aware of. Still, they're not getting paid until everything is correct and working! GodsServent, it's interesting you mention the firmware update, as once I finally did get one of our 885 boards working the fw notification popped up, and thinking 'what harm can it do?' I updated it... immediately after... dead. So that made things worse!
mrwobbly Posted October 3, 2011 Posted October 3, 2011 I set up some Win 7 64-bit laptops last week and tested on a Smartboard and left. I got a phone call saying the Smartboard was not working on the first one they gave to a teacher. I downloaded the latest software/driver and went in and installed. The driver does not recognise the board. The board has the small serial to USB converter yet It works fine with an XP laptop. I took the Win 7 laptop to a board with the larger converter and it connects straight away. Any ideas?
TommyCooper Posted October 3, 2011 Posted October 3, 2011 Win-7 64-bit machines sometimes install the wrong version of the USB-serial driver. Try manually installing the driver from C:\Program Files\SMART Technologies\Education Software\Drivers\x64\. 1
mrwobbly Posted October 3, 2011 Posted October 3, 2011 Thanks for the path. I'n in the school tomorrow and will give it a go.
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