Managing Many Many USB Peripherals

[hill56871]

Hi All,

I'm reposting this one here after posting on the General list. I got one nice response, but it seems to me to be a topic worth more discussion. Any ideas?

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Hi All,

I just got my APC 40 and am drooling over it, as expected, but now I am stuck with a dilemma. Like all those other devices, the APC needs a USB port. Recently my Imac has been failing to start up (before I installed the APC), and I have isolated it to peripheral devices. I don't think any single device is running defective software, so I am looking for help. This is like a GRE logic problem, but I don't know the underlying rules. On my 2.8G iMac I have 1 Firewire 800 port, 1 Firewire 400 port, 3 USB 2.0 ports (in the back), and 2 USB ports on the keyboard (I think these are 2.0 but they may be 1.0). I have the following that need to be plugged in to these 7 ports:

USB -- APC40
USB -- Axiom 61
USB -- PodXT
USB -- Korg Nano Pad
USB -- Glyph Porta Gig (5400 speed-not used for audio)
USB -- Waves iLok key (this must plug into the computer)
USB -- Western Digital 500 Gig drive for Time Machine backups
USB-- Know-Brainer noise-canceling headphones for MacSpeech Dictate
USB -- Ipod Interface cable #1
USB -- Ipod Interface cable #2 (for convenience )
USB -- Ipod Shuffle Interface cable (must have power and is very picky about ports)
USB -- Open slot for jump drive access
Firewire 400 -- Presonus Firebox audio interface
Firewire 800 -- Glyph 050Q 500Gig for audio use (transportable to another studio)

I have two USB hubs, one Belkin 7-port powered hub and one Targus 4-port powered hub, giving me a total of 17 USB inputs I can try to plug things into, minus whatever the hubs need. Currently the 4-port hub is plugged into the 7-port hub, which plugs into the iMac. No firewire devices are daisy-chained; the Firebox and the 050Q both plug directly into the iMac. All items that have power supplies are using them, not bus power.

Here are the rules I think I know:

1) Complicated bidirectional devices (like the APC) should be plugged directly into the computer
2) Some devices need to be plugged directly into the computer; some just say they do. For example, not plugging the iLok key directly into the computer will cause it to crash every time.

My questions:

1) Is there any logic for what gets plugged directly into the iMac?
2) Is there any problem with using two hubs, and can one plug into the other?
3) Are there reliable rules for managing this many USB devices?
4) Is this an unusually large number of devices to plug into one computer? It seems like a normal-sized rig to me for a home studio, short of a mac pro system.
5) Is this all a matter of trial and error?

Thanks for any thoughts,

--Adam

[oblique strategies]

I added this info in your post in the General forum, but wanted to make sure you got it.

To see which devices are sharing the USB ports:

Use System Profiler -you access it in the menu bar by clicking on the Apple icon (furthest left in menu bar), & selecting About This Mac. Once the little window opens up, click on the More Info button. Next open the hardware list by clicking on the little triangle next to the word Hardware. Now click on USB -now you can see what is being shared with each USB port.

I would have told you this yesterday, but I just checked it out & saw that System Profiler does indeed display this info.

Note: you can also launch System Profiler from the Utilities folder located in the Applications folder.

[hill56871]

I originally posted this thread on the general list and seem to be getting no responses so I posted it here. Afterward I got several responses, so I want to end this thread. If you're interested in the topic, go to the following link:

http://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php? ... 55&start=0