Presario S5100NX Boots on USB Drive

[New Orleans Novice]

Re: Presario S5100NX Boots on USB Drive

This S5100NX hangs on boot up when the USB Flash Drive 1 GIG is inserted
into the front panel USB slot.

It boots perfect wihout the USB drive. The F1 setup has the boot order as;
1. CD DVD
2. HD
3. Floppy
4. Network

If the USB is not in the list why does the PC hang? What can be changed to
have it bootup with the USB drive left in the USB slot at all times?

Thanks from Gary in New Orleans, Enjoy your Cracklins

Compaq Presario S5100NX Desktop PC
Motherboard P4G533LA ASUSTeK
Award Modular BIOS v6.0
Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU 2.60GHz
Current Memory Type DIMM SDRAM 512
Maxtor 6Y060L0
Creative Labs Audigy SE
Monitor Envision ENVISION
Wireless DSL

 

[Bob Harris]

I had a similar problem on an old Gateway, which did not even have booting
from USB as an option. It would fail to boot, in fact it would not even do
all the BIOS checks, if a specific USB hub was attached. Otherwise it would
boot perfectly. It would also boot, if a USB hard drive was attached. If
the hub were attached after booting into the windows desktop, that would
work OK.

I finally determined that the hub was "self-powered", meaning that it took
power form the USB port, whereas all my other USB devices had their own
power supplies. Somehow that was degrading the voltage in the motherboard
and preventing the BIOS checks, thus preventing booting. At least that is
the best theory I have.

From within windows you can see the current requirements of each USB device:

Right-click MyComputer --> Manage --> Device Manager--> USB controllers,
then double-click each USB root hub, open power tab and find the current
being drawn.

 

[New Orleans Novice]

You were right. The Ext USB HD for backup has its own power. This USB
flash drives does not.

Thanks for the help.

--
Thanks from New Orleans, enjoy your Gumbo

I had a similar problem on an old Gateway, which did not even have booting
from USB as an option. It would fail to boot, in fact it would not even do
all the BIOS checks, if a specific USB hub was attached. Otherwise it would
boot perfectly. It would also boot, if a USB hard drive was attached. If
the hub were attached after booting into the windows desktop, that would
work OK.

I finally determined that the hub was "self-powered", meaning that it took
power form the USB port, whereas all my other USB devices had their own
power supplies. Somehow that was degrading the voltage in the motherboard
and preventing the BIOS checks, thus preventing booting. At least that is
the best theory I have.

From within windows you can see the current requirements of each USB device:

Right-click MyComputer --> Manage --> Device Manager--> USB controllers,
then double-click each USB root hub, open power tab and find the current
being drawn.