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Problems with my new Mac Mini - Can anyone help?

Marina

Marina

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Hello,
I've got a Mac Mini for 5 days but I have some problems with it. At first it all went well, but when I plugged my HP 845 C Printer in the USB plug in my apple keyboard (one of the old series, with black keys and a German model) my Mac crashed after a while (You see the little 'rainbow coloured' ball and can't do anything anymore). I plugged the printer out of the keyboard. I restarted the computer and got a kernal panick. I restarted again but again a kernal panick. I did an (extended) apple hardware test but results were good, no problems there. Then I had nothing to do but install Mac osX again (without overwriting my files). It took me like two hours, but then it worked again. Ofcourse I haven't used the priner since. Also it seems you have to be very careful installing software; if it isn't mac compatible I've noticed the computer gets confused again. Today I plugged my digital photocam (HP 735 photosmart) in my keyboard, a photocam it had recognized early, but now it crashed in the same way. Ofcourse I plugged the cam out immediately. I had to restart and restart over again. The apple logo came but nothing else. At the 8th restart or something finally it started working.
So when at fist I thought it was the printer, now I'm starting to think it is the keyboard there is something wrong with, at least, when I plug something into it. What do you think? Has anyone got similar problems? Sometimes it crashes anyway, when I've got too many programs open I think. But then you do force quit or restart and it works fine again.
 
I think not: my digicam worked earlier on, probably because I plugged it in the Mac itself. Now I don't dare try again... Hm okay I have to try, so I will do that now.
 
Okay, I put the cam in the Mac itself and no problem! So now I really start to think it is the keyboard? Is it possible Mac Mini doesn't work well with older model keyboards? Typing etc. is no problem, but the usb connector on the keyboard apparently is... If that's the case I'm going to have to buy a new apple keyboard.
 
Marina said:
Okay, I put the cam in the Mac itself and no problem! So now I really start to think it is the keyboard? Is it possible Mac Mini doesn't work well with older model keyboards? Typing etc. is no problem, but the usb connector on the keyboard apparently is... If that's the case I'm going to have to buy a new apple keyboard.
Click to expand...
Maybe there's something wrong with the USB ports in the keyboard?

Maybe buying a separate USB2 hub would be a cheaper option - preferably a powered one?
 
hmm that's an interesting problem.. are all (both?) the ports on the keyboard bad? i mean.. would plugging the mouse into the other port crash the computer?
 
Don't worry, your keyboard is fine. The USB ports on your keyboard aren't as...robust...as the ports on the back of your mini. They are unable to power something as data-intensive as a printer or camera. You are better off plugging your mouse into the port on the keyboard and plugging the big stuff in the back 🙂
 
Thanks!

thank you for your comments!

mmmdreg: There is only one usb connector on my keyboard..... (edit) oooh now I see there are two! Didn't know that! 😀

pwrMikeG4: I just connected my mouse to my keyboard instead and it works fine now, thanks! Sounds very logical indeed that the keyboard usb isn't strong enough for a printer or cam.

You know I mentioned that I finally managed to get my computer to work again? Well, as I expected a little, when restarting it wouldn't work again (ofcourse I kept my keyboard usb empty then) Then I put the installation disk in again but it took multiple restarts for it to get the installation to work. But during installing it crashed again, the cd simply stopped. After two times of this happening someone mentioned I could reset some chips by pressing apple+alt+p+r. Then it rebooted normally. So now I've got a working mac again (hopefully for a while...) and all my files are still on it. But still I have two unfinished installments of osx ofcourse, so will that be a problem do you think? That I now have an incomplete osx system? All my programs seem to be still there though...
 
Just to be sure, you might want to wipe the drive and start over with a clean install. An unfinished install of ANY operating system is almost never a good thing.
 
No Power

I think the keyboard USB doesn't have "power" to them so unless your
device has got its own power supply they won't work or at least won't work
well at least thats the story on the older Imac keyboards.
I bought a hub with power USBs but it seems its a USB2 system
and mine I think is only USB1 . I was hoping it wouldn't make much
difference but it seems to foul things up like cutting off my audio.
 
rueyeet said:
Just to be sure, you might want to wipe the drive and start over with a clean install. An unfinished install of ANY operating system is almost never a good thing.
Click to expand...

Okay I did that and this time the installation didn't stop untimely, fortunately 🙂
Now my mac is working again but I still find it a bit weird, all these problems that I've had. I mean just because I connected a digicam to my keyboard, does that mean the system has to become confused to this degree??
 
I heard reports that the Mac mini's USB ports are very... to-the-spec, if you know what I mean. Any slightly more power being drawn from it brings the system down.

I suggest you keep the "big" USB devices away from the keyboard. If the machine acts up again, then call Apple and get a replacement.
 
Raven VII said:
I heard reports that the Mac mini's USB ports are very... to-the-spec, if you know what I mean. Any slightly more power being drawn from it brings the system down.

I suggest you keep the "big" USB devices away from the keyboard. If the machine acts up again, then call Apple and get a replacement.
Click to expand...

You are right about the USB issues with the mini -- though you will be hard pressed to get Apple, or the people over at the Apple discussion boards to recognize the issue. I have problems all the time with my scanner. When I use the scanner for the first time after launching Photoshop the app crashes (I've never seen Photoshop crash in the 14 years I've used it!). The scanner is connected to my ACD -- but if I connect it directly to the back of the mini there is no issue.

In the end, its only a minor problem for me. I simply know that Photoshop will always crash the first time the scanner is launched and make sure I have no files open, or unsaved. But is a pain, nonetheless.
 
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