USB 2.0 Ports not working Hi-Speed

Hi, first post on these boards...

I'm a pretty new mac user, just bought my Macbook about 2 months ago. It's been working great except for one issue that's surfaced recently. I purchased a 320GB Acomdata external HDD, and yesterday I observed that it is actually transferring data (via USB) at <10MBps, sometimes even around 1MBps, which obviously puts it at about old-school USB speed.

In the system profiler, I've actually noticed that my USB ports seem to be listed at 12MBps speed. Since this is a brand new Macbook, I find it extremely unlikely that Apple stuck USB 1.1 ports on it...

Any ideas or suggestions?

I have a 2.0Ghz Core 2 Duo and 2GB RAM, if that somehow matters.

The 12Mbps listed is for the built-in keyboard and trackpad max speed and they probably are USB 1.x,.

Someone else will have to jump in on the rest. Have never had the need for external drives.

Silly question, but you're not doing this in conjunction with Windows under Parallels are you? I believe that Parallels only supports 1.1 at this time.

I can't imagine what else would be causing this, unless you've got this plugged in to a usb hub of some sort (including the usb ports often included on external keyboards, those are nearly always 1.1 since they're intended for mice, not data devices).

have you tried a different enclosure? lets eliminate the possibility of it "nOT" being the computer first and foremost.

if you cant try another one, there is really not a whole lot we can do, as we dont know if its your mb or not.

below is a screen shot of what your usb setup should look like under sys profiler. this shot is of my mbp so it may vary, but you SHOULD only have one listed as usb20.

see below


do u have a link for the enclosure/hd? id still put money on it that its the problem.

The hard drive is connected (using the cable provided with it) directly to the USB port on the Macbook. The external HDD's site is here: http://www.acomdata.com/hdp/fs.html.

I'm sure it's possible that the enclosure / something that Acomdata did with the HDD could be causing the problem. I'll try to test two things when I get a chance - putting the HDD on another computer and trying another HDD on my own macbook.

And also, I have approximately the same layout as you, kgeier82, but I don't have any entry for "Hub" under "USB High-Speed Bus," just the iSight one.

Thanks for the replies so far.

here is a pic of my girlfriends mb 1.83 cd. your setup should be identical, cept for the "usb mass storage device" which was my flash



here is another picture of my enclosure plugged into my computer, no hub involved, just a straight connection directly to mac.



when you plug the drive in, does it appear here? take a screen shot (apple-4) and goto imageshack.us and just copy the second link in a post here for me. make sure to select the drive inside the usb controller so i can look at that too.

It seems to be the drive, because the drive keeps showing up under a normal "USB" spot in the system profiler and transfers at similar speeds on my roommates laptop, too.

However, it wasn't always doing this, and I never changed any settings on it, so I'm not sure what could cause this...

Any more tips on OS X fixes that might help?

I've sent an e-mail to Acomdata's customer technical service people, but they still haven't replied...

Well, both the of the USB ports on the MacBook on USB 2.0 so I don't see this being something incorrect with the MacBook. I'd return that enclosure anyway and get a Firewire-400, you'll be more pleased with the results.

Well, I bought it on sale as an entire external... I suppose I could really pull it out and put it in another enclosure. But first I'm going to call Acomdata and chew someone out.

Problem, though: I can't just send this drive in and get a new one. I have data on it that I need. I suppose the only solution would be to let it sit overnight or something to transfer the 200GBish of data I have on it? And then getting a replacement or something?

Here's a screenshot of my system profiler USB window, just for kicks, in case one of you guys sees anything wrong with it...

http://cbautista.l2p.net/images/ss.png

sucks to get a lemon. sounds like u got one in ext hd format

i stick to the big names. my macally's have been super perfect, best money can buy to me.

Okay, after getting no reply from Acomdata for about a week or two, I've come to the conclusion that some sort of firmware for the drive is causing the drive to detect USB 2.0 ports as USB 1.0 or 1.1 ports.

Is there a way to disable USB 1.0 functionality for the external ports in OS X in order to "force" the drive into USB 2.0 mode?

Only problem I can see with this is it might cause the keyboard and trackpad to fail since they seem to be connected using USB 1.0 protocol.

Any ideas? Or other solutions? Any help is greatly appreciated.

Just thought I'd point out that Acomdata has been next to worthless with resolving this issue; since I don't have the $$$ to shell out for another 320GB hard drive just on a whim, can anyone else with possible experience with something like this throw any hints or ideas my way? Here's a ss of my system profiler when viewing the USB hub.

So far, these are knowns:
-The drive is SUPPOSED to function at high-speed USB speed.
-The Macbook (obviously) is SUPPOSED to accept high-speed USB.
-The Macbook DOES work at USB 2.0 speeds with other devices.
-Even with other cables, the problem still exists.

Very strange. I have an Acomdata USB 2.0 case with an 80GB WD drive installed and it shows up for sure as USB 2.0 on both my Intel and PPC Macs. I wonder what is up? I have this enclosure here. http://www.acomdata.com/hdp/harddrives-509_Enclosures.html

If it shows up the same on multiple computers, would guess the controller chip has failed.
Is the acomdata still under warranty?

Would call their 800 # for support 1-800-470-4495 good luck getting through