Vista USB Connection
 

Hi,
I have an unknown Chinese 4Mb Touchscreen MP4 player (from Maplins UK) - some sort of Rockchip player. If I connect to an XP machine (USB Connect screen) and then 'Safely Remove Hardware', the active USB connection is broken (as expected) and the player reverts to charging mode (pulsing battery). The player can then be used while charging.

Unfortunately, my computer uses Vista and the same operation leaves the player thinking that it is still connected (USB Connect screen) and so it cannot be used until the USB cable is disconnected.

Does anybody know if this is a common problem and if there is a workaround or upgrade to allow usage of the player while charging through the USB port (Vista Machine)?

Thanks.

yes its common and vistas problem, it was crap from day one im afraid -

Have you tried this freeware tool --> USBDeview - View all installed/connected USB devices on your system? See if you can use it to disconnect your USB device and see if that helps.

I don't have Vista. I have Windows XP and Windows 7 (yip, I avoided Vista for lots of reasons and I'm glad I did and Windows 7 is awsome!). I'll try it on my Windows 7 computer and let you.

What you can try is after you've disconnected your player, press and hold down on the "M" or "Menu" button and see if that takes you to the main menu so you can use your player.

If that doesn't work, try turning off your player and turning it back on again (after you've disconnected from Vista).

Let me know if the result.

Binh - I tried all three of your suggestions without luck, but they were greatly appreciated.

Thanks for the feedback from you both. I've also subsequently tried an Archos 3 which seems to use the same Rockchip (at least according to USBDeview) with the same result.

It looks as if I'll have to upgrade/downgrade my OS if I really need the capability to use the player while charging. Thanks again.

One tip: The big end of the USB cable has 4 pins, 2 are further recessed than the other, these are for the POWER part of the cable.

The trick is to slowly pull out the USB from the PC till it shows on the player a charging symbol, what you are doing is disconnecting the DATA pins and leaving the POWER pins in place - charging and not connected to PC

ou could always get an power adapter, these have slots for the USB cable and plug into the wall

DealExtreme: Chargers (Page 1)

makd511,

How did you discover that?! That works very well as a work-around ... Even my wife's impressed ... normally anything to do with computers leaves her cold! Cheers ..

its an old trick

try this also, try find a cable with 2 big USB ends, these are for devices that require more power than one plug can give (mine was for a mini HDD box)
Now one plug is set up as DATA and POWER the other just for POWER only - so if u got one of these you could just use the POWER one and leave the other just for when you need data transfer

I'll look out for one - At the moment I only have that type going to a large USB (ie 2 large going to 1 large) - Further thanks for the great support.