Flash drive on USB Hub - Galaxy S III Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Hi there.
I got my Galaxy S3 about 3 days ago and love almost everything about it.
I've been experimenting heavily with USB OTG, and it's such a great feature to have. I have got a Mouse, keyboard and USB flash drive all working over the USB OTG cable. I can also get the Mouse and Keyboard connected at the same time over a USB hub. However, USB flash drives refuse to work over a hub on USB OTG, even though they work directly from the phone to the USB. This is pretty confusing to me, considering two higher power devices work over the hub.
I've tried two different varieties of hub, both giving the same result and have also tried two flash drives. I'm using an un-powered hub and I honestly don't see how just because I'm using a hub the USB Flash drive isn't working. There is no way that it can have a higher power usage than a mouse/keyboard at the same time.
Just to note, I'm using the hub unpowered externally, it's going directly into the phone. I can't seem to find the power cable to try.
I have the UK (GSM) variant of the phone in blue and am running on the Stock 4.0.4 ICS firmware (i9300XXLF2) and haven't tried to root or anything.
Could someone suggest what might be the issue I'm having, or some things to try?
Thanks

Its a common IT issue that not everything works through a USB hub. Or even US extension cables.

rootSU said:
Its a common IT issue that not everything works through a USB hub. Or even US extension cables.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It works through it regularly through a PC.
Both USB sticks. And I've seen a video of someone doing it on youtube. I've also tried both FAT32 and NTFS with the same result.

Can you explain your exact set up please?

rootSU said:
Can you explain your exact set up please?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Samsung galaxy S3 connected to a small unpowered USB 2.0 hub, via a standard USB OTG cable. Connected to the USB hub is a single USB flash drive of which I have tried a 16GB (14GB actual) stick formatted in FAT32 and a 128mb stick in FAT32. When I connect the OTG cable, it's recognised by the phone. I then attach the USB hub and nothing is recognised, but it is infact working. I can confirm that because I've tried both a mouse and keyboard separately and at the same time through the hub. I have tried another hub with the same result. I then unplug those and put in the flash drive, the red light on the flash drive flashes for a bit and then dies, nothing is picked up by the phone.

Is the hub connected to a PC or not?
Are you saying:
Flash > Hub > PC it works
Flash > hub > Galaxy it does not?
Dont forget a PC USB kicks out 500mA of power which is about the minimum a flash drive would need. If the PC is not supplying the power to the USB via the Hub, I doubt the galaxy could supply that much.
Can you power the hub using the PC?

Yes, that's what I'm saying.
The hub works with the galaxy, but USB through the hub does not. I can connect a Keyboard and Mouse (Both with lots of lights on them) at the same time to the hub on the galaxy which SURELY takes more power than a single USB.
Everything works through the hub on the pc, and most things work through the hub on the galaxy but not flash drives.
So:
Keyboard + Mouse > Hub > Galaxy it works
Flash Drive > Hub > Galaxy doesn't work.
That's why I'm so confused. And power is going to the flash drive, the light turns on and flashes for a while, but is not picked up by the galaxy. The usb flash drive also works under normal circumstances directly through the OTG cable.

Human input devices take next to no power. A USB flash drive needs More. I believe this is your issue as previously mentioned
Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2

rootSU said:
Is the hub connected to a PC or not?
Are you saying:
Flash > Hub > PC it works
Flash > hub > Galaxy it does not?
Dont forget a PC USB kicks out 500mA of power which is about the minimum a flash drive would need. If the PC is not supplying the power to the USB via the Hub, I doubt the galaxy could supply that much.
Can you power the hub using the PC?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
rootSU said:
Human input devices take next to no power. A USB flash drive needs More. I believe this is your issue as previously mentioned
Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Seriously?
How come I can't just use one USB on the hub then... I'm only plugging one device into the hub, surely that should just be extending it? Or does it constantly try to power all of the ports? Is there any way I can debug the USB port on the galaxy? Or even limit power to just 2 out of 4 ports?
EDIT: I just read that a micro usb port is generally rated for 500mA+, which explains why the usb works normally, is it just the fact that all of the ports are powered?

MicroUsb is rated for 0.5A, that's correct.
However Usb-to-go is not rated for any output power, only for a list of compatible devices.
It may or may not work with other normal Usb-Devices, and could even be damaged if the slave device uses too much power.
(Unlikely with highend-devices such as the S3)
LED's take next to no power, the keyboard too.
Modern (=optical) mice got some electronic but it's not really high either.
Usb-Hubs however take quita a bit of power and flash drives do so too (especially when erasing "overwriting" blocks).
You could try a powerd usb hub , there might even exist some with a battery pack.
If not, it shouldn't be too hard to strap a battery pack to a hub, however that makes it heavier, clunkier and requires charging...

d4fseeker said:
MicroUsb is rated for 0.5A, that's correct.
However Usb-to-go is not rated for any output power, only for a list of compatible devices.
It may or may not work with other normal Usb-Devices, and could even be damaged if the slave device uses too much power.
(Unlikely with highend-devices such as the S3)
LED's take next to no power, the keyboard too.
Modern (=optical) mice got some electronic but it's not really high either.
Usb-Hubs however take quita a bit of power and flash drives do so too (especially when erasing "overwriting" blocks).
You could try a powerd usb hub , there might even exist some with a battery pack.
If not, it shouldn't be too hard to strap a battery pack to a hub, however that makes it heavier, clunkier and requires charging...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Okay, that makes sense then.
The hub is tiny and that's the idea, if I could get a tiny battery that'd okay, just irritating really. To be honest, I could do with just two ports, it is just that I sometimes want to use my flash drive in conjunction with another device or something and it's yet another inconvenience to buy another hub.
I may buy a charging pack for my phone, because honestly the battery life is abysmal, do you reckon that I could hook that battery pack up to the hub? Although I don't see that working because the hub in question has a dedicated power input.
Is there a set up you think might work? The idea is to be able to connect some extra storage and keep it fairly compact so that I'm not lugging a load of extra crap around. The hub I'm planning to use is a tiny square, probably about 1.5inches large.
I love the idea of my phone being a mini computer, it really does do just about everything I want, that would make it even better.
EDIT: I've tried a 2 way female splitter, no success there either. I think what I'd really need is a bluetooth keyboard that I can connect to my phone, that also has a usb port I can connect a mouse to, so I can then plug in my stick and use a mouse+keyboard combo.

Related

[Q] adapter miniusb to usb

hi:
i think i will try to get hptp from ebay.
i see that it doesnt have usb for flash drive..
assuming that if connected to a dongle, it will read/write to flash drives,
which adapter should i search for.. mini male (for tp) > usb (flashdrive)?
thanx
I have read a thread on the usb host mode for the TP (can't remember which of the 8 forums I am on) that the micro usb port WILL support host mode BUT you will need a "Y" cable to provide power at the same time. Do a search for "host mode " on the TP forums and check it out. I have not attempted it so far as I have not found the correct "Y" cable mentioned in the thread.
Sent from my Touchpad using Tapatalk
You can find infos here :
green said:
There is fully functional USB Host support, you don't even need to do any SW modification, everything is supported out of the box with one caveat, you need external power.
Support for keyboard, mice, harddrives and cameras is fully built in the default WebOS software.
I guess HP planned to sell their own USB attachments, iPad-style.
The only thing you need is USB OTG cable. Like this: http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-micro-U...781644?pt=PDA_Accessories&hash=item19c7d49acc
Basically just search for "USB OTG cable" on ebay, costs about $3. And USB Y-cable. The only two things you need are OTG microUSB cable and USB Y cable to provide external power.
I am still looking into possibility of self-powered usb host mode, with all the support HP built in for it it almost sounds like a given there must be a way to enable it one way or another. Unfortunately chipset documentation is almost nonexistent.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
well i got hptp today..
the ebay link USB OTG cable for was great..
the y cable search was confusing:: i do not know which kind to look for plus.. i dont see how to use this thing.. how does it get power.. i spose the USB OTG cable plugs into one of the "y" but im lost really...
i appreciate all responses..
thanx
What i've bought:
OTG: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Micro-USB-O...070399?pt=PDA_Accessories&hash=item3f0e501abf
USB Female to Female: http://www.ebay.com/itm/280732594049?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649
Y cable: http://www.ebay.com/itm/120626863147?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649
External battery with USB: http://www.dealextreme.com/p/2400ma...a-cable-for-htc-desire-g5-samsung-i9000-57905
What i've got: unusable pile of crap. The whole system can power up a mouse or gamepad, or external HDD (which is need to be powered from wall socket in addition to TP) but it's much worse with anything else: 16gb flash stick - lights up, but not enough power to read data, USB card reader don't even lights up. And situation with powering from PC USB (instead of ext. battery) is the same.
Anyway, even if the whole system would work, i doubt that you would take all those cables with you wherever you go, so it's useless.
i watched the russian vid..
hassle w/ capital H
little to zero hope of this gonna ever work
thanx for replies

[Found] OTG hard Drive

Today, a friend asked if I had an extra laptop. He needed one for his 10 year old son.
While rummaging through my closet (you know, the one with all the old computers, shotguns, and half empty Jack Daniels bottles) when I found one of these.
Two Pics … http://db.tt/GY4wfof6 and http://db.tt/rzkodoMi
Now, I have no idea as to how, where or when I got this. I had to search the net to even know what it was.
Ebay link … http://www.ebay.com/itm/230328510631?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2648
Continuing my search of the closet I also found a 2.5 inch 160 gig IDE hard drive. Assembled the two and I now have a portable battery powered drive that works great with my Flyer.
That looks kinda old school. =)
So you connect to the flyer via bluetooth or microUSB?
It connects with microUSB.
Now that I’ve had a chance to use it a while I’ve found I can set its switch to PC or DC.
When set to PC I just plug it in to my Flyer and can copy files both ways.
When set to DC it will function as a standalone unit (because it has its own battery power). I can plug thumb drives and USB sdcard adaptors into it to move files both ways.
It will even plug into my camera and copy the pictures.
Kind of handy as the Flyer doesn’t supply power at its microUSB port to spin a hard drive.
It’s not what I call well built but seems to work.
At least it does the job! I didn't know we could use OTG harddrive for the flyer...
That's very cool. Vastly increases the number of movies I could take with me on a long trip!
ARRR
Ok so spent about £40 on one of these and it doesn't work with my Flyer(32GB WiFi 3G). Flyer is not rooted and running the latest official version of HC. I have tried both DC and PC but device still does not detect the OTG drive. My samsung mobile finds the device fine.
Are you using a standard micro usb cable ??
simtech1976 said:
Ok so spent about £40 on one of these and it doesn't work with my Flyer(32GB WiFi 3G). Flyer is not rooted and running the latest official version of HC. I have tried both DC and PC but device still does not detect the OTG drive. My samsung mobile finds the device fine.
Are you using a standard micro usb cable ??
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes using a standard micro usb cable
Try this ... Shut down your Flyer (make sure Fast Boot is unchecked in settings) then turn on your drive in DC mode and restart your Flyer.
Your Flyer should find it then and will work from then on.
Using your file explorer of choice you should see a new folder called USB
Hi, tried this but still no go. Ran a USB host and USB OGB diganostics app which still fail to detect the device. The drive works with my camera/Samsung phone and brothers PSP. May have to fork out for WIFI drive.
Still no go with the OTG device. Tried with a friends Flyer and same results. I am going to try this device, is fairly cheap.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/USB-2-5-For-OTG-LCD-Partner-Storage-Backup-HDD-/260990399369?pt=UK_Computing_HardDrives_RL&hash=item3cc43d7389
simtech1976 said:
Hi, tried this but still no go. Ran a USB host and USB OGB diganostics app which still fail to detect the device. The drive works with my camera/Samsung phone and brothers PSP. May have to fork out for WIFI drive.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Strange … My Flyer is the 16 Gig Best Buy wifi model and is rooted I wonder if that makes a difference
I use an OTG USB cable on my US BB Wifi Flyer , the standard usb cable doesn't work for me.
DigitalMD said:
I use an OTG USB cable on my US BB Wifi Flyer , the standard usb cable doesn't work for me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have an OTG cable from my samsung but this did not work. what OTG cable are you using? I gather you are connecting the USB device into the OTG cable via a powered hub?
Got it working but it's a hackjob, was going to root but having to downgrade then upgrade again was a pain and was not guaranteed to work. Tried running the OTG cable into a powered hub but for what ever reason would always come up USB device not recognised when plugging in any memory device. Tried 3 USB hubs with the same result. Ended up cutting up an OTG cable and a few other USB cables so I could provide power to the device and then power to the tablet as well. For whatever reason i need to provide power to he memory stick before plugging into tablet. I have tested 4 different memory pens and 1 external harddrive and they all work.
I just bought a generic OTG cable, its about 6 inches long. I think it may have come from HP. I have used both a powered hub and a y-usb hard drive cable and both worked for me.
You have to have power on the device before you plug it onto the FLyer so that on connect the Flyer software knows what type of device it is and can load the driver. Otherwise the Flyer will label it unknown and disable the device.
Managed to get USB on the go to work on my Jetstream. See the following post. as the flyer very similar, should work for flyer too.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=24814701
Sent from my HTC PG09410 using XDA

Touchpad USB OTG Compatibility List

Thanks to a recent video by reverendkjr on Youtube, we now have a confirmed USB OTG method for CM9.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nc7tlPwFQpg
This has lots of potential and since I did not see much talk about it here, I decided to create a thread with what you need to buy listed in reverendkjr's video and what works. I would recommend only buying from Amazon Fulfilled sellers as they are backed by Amazon's return policy. All 3 items only cost a little over $10.
OTG Cable:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005QX7KYU
USB Y Cable:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0041CFFBM
2AA Battery Powered Portable USB Power Supply:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003M9Z5F6
(Added September 7th)
OTG Cable With Female MicroUSB (Allows you to use any microUSB charger as the power supply)
http://www.ebay.com/itm/130740524313?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1438.l2649
OTG Cable With Male Full Size USB (Allows you to use any power supply with regular USB port)
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Micro-USB-H...i9100-S3-i9300-i9220-i9250-XOOM-/140825132367
You can use whatever source of USB power you want including a wall charger, but I bought the 2AA battery powered supply above and can confirm it works.
Compatibility List:
-Multiple USB devices will work if you use a USB hub. A non-powered one works fine for me since you will already have a separate power source.
-USB keyboards and mice work fine including all basic functions like scroll wheel on the mouse, num and caps lock on the keyboard.
-FAT32 formatted flash drives will mount by default under "/mnt/usbdisk".
(Added September 7th)
-If you want to mount NTFS drives or multiple flash drives, download Drive Mount. This software will mount drives under "/mnt/sda1", "/mnt/sdb1", etc. I can confirm it works for multiple drives and NTFS/FAT32. It was removed from Google Play so the apk has been posted. If anybody has had success with other NTFS mounting software please post your results.
(Added April 6th)
-I tried a Rosewill USB SATA/IDE externally powered hard drive reader and was able to mount a 400GB SATA 3.5" HDD using Drive Mount. Just to see what would happen I tried a SATA DVD drive but Android doesn't recognize it and probably doesn't even support the CD/DVD file system.
(Added April 7th)
-USB card readers will work, but I've had mixed results.
USB Device Info:
If you want to diagnose items and see some info about what the Touchpad is detecting, download USB Device Info free from Google Play. Everything shows up under the Linux tab. This shows some useful info about devices including current draw, device identification, etc. I tested it with a USB hub and a few flash drives and it successfully showed entries for the hub and the flash drives. It wont tell you if Android has drivers for the device, but merely IDs the device(s) confirming the connection if working.
(Added Dec 9th)
A plugged in USB OTG adapter will show up as "Qualcomm On-Chip EHCI Host Controller" under the Linux tab regardless of whether or not power is present. This is a good way to see if you have a working OTG adapter.
Flash Drive Unmounting Issues:
Flash drives are called an SD Card when mounted. There is no option to unmount a flash drive unless you use Drive Mount, so if you notice SD card removal error messages they are referring to your flash drive and not the Touchpad's internal memory partition that is mounted as /sdcard.
When a flash drive is removed or powered off without being unmounted, its common to get a "android.process.media" force close, just tap OK.
Charging:
You will not be able to charge via micro USB while using OTG even if your power source has enough current. You can charge via the Touchstone just fine. Knowing this, you can set up a really nice docking station by using the Touchstone as a stand/charger and then using the microUSB slot for peripherals like a USB keyboard and mouse connected to a hub with spare ports for flash drives, etc.
(Added September 7th)
Insufficient Available Bus Power Fix:
If you get this error, I haven't yet, some users have had success using this app posted on Rootzwiki.
I didn't feel like buying anything and already had some things laying around so I modified an Adafruit MintyBoost to accept a device via usb, add power, and continue on down the line...
Really all I did was solder a usb cable onto the female USB port on the MintyBoost, drill a hole on the other side of the tin and feed it out. The card reader conveniently fits inside of the mint tin so it's a pretty compact package.
The only down side I've noticed is that it also charges the TouchPad (the batteries will die quicker) and continues to send power to the card reader after the OTG cable has been unplugged from the TouchPad.
Excuse the crappy pic. I really don't feel like taking a better one.
I could never get the OTG cable to charge the Touchpad, I always thought when the Touchpad sensed OTG (grounding on pin 4) it refused to take power. You can disconnect the +5v Vcc to the Touchpad (red wire) on your OTG cable and OTG devices will still work.
spunker88 said:
I could never get the OTG cable to charge the Touchpad, I always thought when the Touchpad sensed OTG (grounding on pin 4) it refused to take power. You can disconnect the +5v Vcc to the Touchpad (red wire) on your OTG cable and OTG devices will still work.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I came to the same conclusion some days ago ,touch pad can't be charged using org cable,needs a regular micro USB cable and the barrel AC charger.I did many tests but having otg devices working and really charge at the same time its not possible,it seems like charging but its not.
Today I accidentally found this http://direct.sanwa.co.jp/ItemPage/400-GADR002W that by first look it could be awesome...
Edit:a mini review in english http://www.gadget.pdamu.com/2012/03...r-dock-station-for-android-smartphone-tablet/
says that it can be also powered be micro usb charger....
Bummer. Tried linking my phone evo3d, but no luck.
Sent from my PG86100 using XDA
wolfgr said:
Today I accidentally found this http://direct.sanwa.co.jp/ItemPage/400-GADR002W that by first look it could be awesome...
Edit:a mini review in english http://www.gadget.pdamu.com/2012/03...r-dock-station-for-android-smartphone-tablet/
says that it can be also powered be micro usb charger....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If its provides its own 5v power it would likely work, but I don't really see anywhere for an external power connection and it looks too small to house a battery.
spunker88 said:
You can disconnect the +5v Vcc to the Touchpad (red wire) on your OTG cable and OTG devices will still work.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For whatever reason, when I tried that the card reader wouldn't initialize. Once I connected the +5v from the OTG it'd light right up...
After it lit up I could disconnect the +5v and it'd stop the "charging" notification on the touchpad and keep working.
spunker88 said:
If its provides its own 5v power it would likely work, but I don't really see anywhere for an external power connection and it looks too small to house a battery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
it has the regular usb port to connect otg device plus a micro usb female to connect. our ac charger
wolfgr said:
it has the regular usb port to connect otg device plus a micro usb female to connect. our ac charger
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Then it should work fine as the Touchpad uses a standard OTG pinout, it just doesn't provide power so if it has a way to provide power to devices than I see no reason why it wouldn't work.
quick question that i didn't see answered above :S can i use the otg cable adapter without another power source (like can touchpad power it?)? Saw it asked above but didn't see anyone saying that the power source is required :S
kind of want to plug a usb flash drive into touchpad so I can type documents when I'm on the go and switch to computer. don't want to carry another power source either :S
eyeb said:
quick question that i didn't see answered above :S can i use the otg cable adapter without another power source (like can touchpad power it?)? Saw it asked above but didn't see anyone saying that the power source is required :S
kind of want to plug a usb flash drive into touchpad so I can type documents when I'm on the go and switch to computer. don't want to carry another power source either :S
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, the Touchpad doesn't provide any power for OTG devices which is why you need to supply it power. The cheap USB charger I linked to in the original post will work fine for a portable power supply if you don't want to build something yourself.
And it also appears you can't just plug the other USB into the wall?
Sent from my PG86100 using XDA
can someone get a group buy going for these???
spunker88 said:
If its provides its own 5v power it would likely work, but I don't really see anywhere for an external power connection and it looks too small to house a battery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This would be fantastic... but i dont speak Japanese!!
mrtomaso said:
And it also appears you can't just plug the other USB into the wall?
Sent from my PG86100 using XDA
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So, we can't just plug it into a wall for power? I have to buy a battery powered unit or use a powered hub?
Sent from my cm_tenderloin using XDA
Nice and cheap and the best part it works.
USB Hub works...sort of.
I tried this with a cheap USB hub I bought. I had bought it for my laptop and made sure it had it's own power supply to keep the load off my laptop, so I thought it would be perfect for this. Nice try though.
Turns out it needs 5V from the host to activate as well as the additional external power supply. Just fired it up with my TouchPad connected via a Y-Cable and my Laptop providing the 5V to fire it up. Works like a charm.
As yet to find out if it works with my travel charger providing the 5V and no external power supply plugged in, and how many devices I can hook up. It's got 7 ports so I suppose the supply might be useful then, but do I really need to hook up that many devices? Otherwise...pointless. Back to the drawing board I go.
wolfgr said:
Today I accidentally found this http://direct.sanwa.co.jp/ItemPage/400-GADR002W that by first look it could be awesome...
Edit:a mini review in english http://www.gadget.pdamu.com/2012/03...r-dock-station-for-android-smartphone-tablet/
says that it can be also powered be micro usb charger....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This would be really handy and it's a much more elegant solution than a y cable and external power source.
Too bad it seems like we won't be able to get one easily.
Am i missing something here or can i use my 3.5" external HDD (with a power supply) to provide power to my External so i dont have to plug the cable into a USB hub?
mafu6 said:
Am i missing something here or can i use my 3.5" external HDD (with a power supply) to provide power to my External so i dont have to plug the cable into a USB hub?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You should, I did this on my Touchpad running CM7. Haven't tried since going to CM9.
Sent from my Nexus S using xda premium

Flash drive on USB hub not working.

Hi there.
I got my Galaxy S3 about 3 days ago and love almost everything about it.
I've been experimenting heavily with USB OTG, and it's such a great feature to have. I have got a Mouse, keyboard and USB flash drive all working over the USB OTG cable. I can also get the Mouse and Keyboard connected at the same time over a USB hub. However, USB flash drives refuse to work over a hub on USB OTG, even though they work directly from the phone to the USB. This is pretty confusing to me, considering two higher power devices work over the hub.
I've tried two different varieties of hub, both giving the same result and have also tried two flash drives. I'm using an un-powered hub and I honestly don't see how just because I'm using a hub the USB Flash drive isn't working. There is no way that it can have a higher power usage than a mouse/keyboard at the same time.
Just to note, I'm using the hub unpowered externally, it's going directly into the phone. I can't seem to find the power cable to try.
I have the UK (GSM) variant of the phone in blue and am running on the Stock 4.0.4 ICS firmware (i9300XXLF2) and haven't tried to root or anything.
Could someone suggest what might be the issue I'm having, or some things to try?
Thanks

[Q] OTG with external power/USB hub

I'm looking to be able to use my external HDD (1TB WD passport) on my phone via OTG. As I understand, ntfs support varies with kernels etc but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it as I think there's a more fundamental problem.
I've got an OTG cable, and my mouse, usb pen drive, keyboard etc work with it. The HDD doesn't, because the phone can't provide enough power to operate the thing. I thought I could get around this by connecting it via my usb hub (which runs off external mains power) but when I connected this up to the phone and plugged the HDD in nothing happened. Likewise, the mouse and pen drive etc could also not be recognised by the phone when they were each plugged in via the hub (one at a time, I wasn't trying to run 8 things at once!) even though they worked perfectly when the phone itself was powering them when they were directly plugged into the OTG cable (if that makes any sense).
So, assuming it was a problem with the hub, I instead tried the method in this thread http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1828032 and made my own y type cable so that now rather than the phone providing power to the OTG peripheral, the power now comes from a standard USB phone charger. I'm fairly confident that I did all the soldering correctly and there weren't any short circuits.
When I tried using this, I had the same issue as with the hub. None of the mouse, the pen drive etc could be recognised with the modified OTG cable, which was odd as physically nothing had changed from the point of view of the peripheral plugged into the OTG (the data cables connecting it to the phone were unchanged, and it was still getting 5V power, just from the wall rather than my phone) which makes me think perhaps the problem is a software one where the phone only recognises a USB peripheral/begins USB host mode if the peripheral is actually draining power, since the power leads running from the phone side of the OTG cable are now just an open circuit.
Just to confirm I hadn't just snipped a data cable by accident when modifying the OTG cable, I re-soldered the OTG cable to how it originally was and it worked the same way it had previously. This means all the data cables are still intact, so I think it must be a software issue.
I thought maybe a way of testing this would be to modify the y cable and connect the red and black power cables coming out of the phone to each other via a fairly hefty resistor (so you still get power flowing from the phone even though the USB peripheral is powered by the wall). But it seems a bit dangerous!
Has anyone else had trouble with this? I've read around on forums and for a lot of people USB hubs and y type OTG cables seem to "just work", although I've not seen anyone with an i9300 reporting success. I'm running the latest version of liquidsmooth, but have also tested on CM10.1 and have the same problem. It might be an AOSP thing that stock samsung firmware will fix?
Let me know your experiences!
TLDR: I'm pretty sure I've got a software issue where my i9300 only recognises a USB peripheral/begins USB host mode via OTG if the peripheral is actually draining the phone's power, and so doesn't work when a USB hub or externally powered (y type) OTG cable is being used.
Thank you!
It apparently only supports 500GB regardless of power source
Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2
rootSU said:
It apparently only supports 500GB regardless of power source
Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2
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Click to collapse
Really? That's odd - is that an android limitation or samsung? Either way it still seems weird that my y cable/hub didn't work for the mouse/keyboard, is that something you'd expect?
Sorry I didn't read that part.
I have a portable passive hub. Kb and mouse working fine...
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