2007WFP: Any difference between side and bottom USB ports?

Question

I recently remembered that this monitor (A03 rev) has two bottom USB ports as well (they're quite well hidden in normal use), so I decided to use one for a 2GB USB 2.0 thumb drive when I was surprised to find that it didn't work in either port. The drive lights up, but XP does nothing with it (no drive letter assigned).

I found this odd, since it works fine with the side ports.

I then tried a USB 1.1 device on the bottom ports, and it works fine. I do have the monitor's upstream port plugged into a USB 2.0 port on the PC, but even if I didn't, the worst that should happen is that the bottom ports would work more slowly.

Does anyone know why the bottom ports act differently for me, and do they for you? I wish I had more devices to test with, but I don't right now.

Update: I confirmed the above behavior in Vista, so it's not the OS. Also, I tried plugging the monitor's upstream onto different USB 2.0 ports on my PC, and that made no difference either. I ended up rearranging things such that I only need to plug USB 1.1 devices onto the bottom of the monitor, since they work.

Message Edited by rseiler on 03-25-2007 09:18 AM

eurostat · Answer

Am i just impatient or are Dell playing coy on this one. I too am having issues with the USB ports on my 2007wfp monitor(2weeks old).Unlike you i cant even get the bottom ports to recognize either a USB 1.1 flash drive or a USB 2 external harddrive. And whats more, my side USB ports will only work at USB 1.1 speeds. If i plug straight into the USB2 card (to which the Dell supplied USB cable is also connected)any USB2 device is recognized and operates as USB2 and visible in Windows. Whadda i do Chris ....send it back?

rseiler · Answer

That is definitely worse! Hopefully we'll hear from more people on this.

eurostat · Answer

OK i took the lack of response from anyone to mean that this is an isolated issue and that 'a fix' had not therefore been found. I also then assumed that the Monitor hub was not faulty.I already knew that my drives were OK as i use them at work and on other PC's in my house, so I went out and bought a new USB 2 card and fitted it to my 'problem' PC,and hey presto problem solved,all ports (side and bottom) working at USB2 speed. I then, out of interest, installed the old USB2 card into one of my other PC's, and what do you know,it works all my drives at USB2 speed.I then checked the chip on both cards and they are both VIA,but with slightly different serial numbers.The upshot is i dont know why the heck one wont work with the DEll hub,mabye something to do with the different chip.Anyway if i get enthused again i may try and experiment some more and hook up my Dell monitor to my other PC and see if the old USB card will work with the Dell monitor hub in that configuration.

rseiler · Answer

I suppose it's possible that the one USB 2.0 device I have for whatever reason is sensitive to the bottom ports and not the side ports, but that doesn't really make sense. I'll be sure to test the next USB 2.0 device I receive, since if it has a problem as well, then we know it can't be the device.

DELL-Chris M · Answer

All, I checked all USB ports on a 2007WFP and 2407WFP within the XP operating system and using several devices. They are all the same and they all worked.

o_durand · Answer

Hi!

This is my second 2007WFP monitor (I had an A02, and I received today an A03) and both have a similar problem. In fact, it seems that the A03 is worse!

I tried connecting different peripherals (e.g. USB key, USB card reader, all of which work perfectly OK) on different computers (one of them is a brand new Dell Latitude D620) using the provided USB cable.

In my case, the side USB ports don't work whereas the bottom will (in the case of the A03, only one of the 2 bottom ports works!) and I get two kind of problems:
1. The device keeps on connecting/disconnecting
2. The device is not recognised and an error message is displayed in Windows XP.

I also noticed that depending on which device you connect, you might not notice the issue (at least it might work on some ports... if you're lucky!), which probably explains why not many people have reported this before.

I sincerely hope this will help fixing the issue... In the meanwhile I'll phone Dell's support for a third monitor. Or should I wait for a potential A05?... Chris, any advice on this? ;)

Cheers

Ollie

Message Edited by o_durand on 03-27-2007 02:25 PM

Message Edited by o_durand on 03-27-2007 02:27 PM

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2007WFP: Any difference between side and bottom USB ports?

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