Kensington Pocket Presenter Remote Works in Hub, not in iBook- Why?

Question

Kensington Pocket Presenter Remote Works in Hub, not in iBook- Why?

Very peculiar behavior from this device. When I plug it directly into the USB port on my 14" G4 iBook it doesn't work (red light stays on, no response). I discovered quite by accident that it will work just fine if I plug it into a 4-port mini-USB hub. I sometimes, but not always, get the "Can't recognize your Keyboard" dialog box when I plug in the Kensington receiver, but if I just ignore it and close it, everything works. I know it isn't a power problem - it works even when I disconnect the hub's external power supply an use it as a bus-powered hub.

Since it works this way, it is only a minor inconvenience to bring the hub with me when I use it, but I am curious if anyone else has had a similar problem or has any insights into it.

iBook G4 14", Mac OS X (10.4.5), KeyNote and PowerPoint

Posted on Mar 3, 2006 10:18 AM

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Answer 1

Brian Peat

Level 6

18,216 points

Mar 3, 2006 10:37 AM in response to Peter Degroot

is the hub powered? if not, my first guess is, maybe your iBook is actually putting out TOO MUCH power through the usb port. Adding the hub drops the power a bit (if it's not a powered hub). Weird, but it could explain the problem.

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Answer 2

Mar 3, 2006 3:59 PM in response to Brian Peat

Perhaps I was not clear above. The hub can be externally powered, but the Pocket Presenter works in it whether it is externally powered or not.

In any case, to add to the confusion, about an hour ago I did the classic "One Experiment Too Many". Earlier I had tried restarting the Power Book and repairing the disk permissions to try to solve the problem. It didn't. This time, however, I shut down the computer, plugged the Pocket Presenter receiver into one of the iBook's USB ports, and restarted. It booted up just fine and the Pocket Presenter worked normally. In fact, it now seems to have "healed" itself. I can now plug it into the iBook's USB port directly, even after shutting down and restarting without the receiver in place, without problems. Maybe the restart with the PP receiver in place "reset" the PP receiver somehow? This doesn't seem very plausible, but who knows? Perhaps I'll try burning incense and sacrificing a chicken next time and see if that works, although I have been told that this is effective only on Windows machines.

iMac 15" w/processor upgrade to 1.35 MHz Mac OS X (10.4.5)

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Answer 3

Mar 4, 2006 12:11 PM in response to Peter Degroot

Make sure it's a free-range chicken, organically grown.

Everyone is getting finiky about their diets nowadays.

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