slammish

Aloha all,

Had my HHR for a couple of years now, 2010 with the pioneer package and subwoofer (no GPS nav).

I've tried multiple USB drives with the stereo and they all tend to stop working, very intermittently, but for days at a time. I have used a Corsair and a Sandisk so far and they both just stop working.
I did a search and the last page of this thread seems to detail a similar scenario, but no responses. Resolution seemed to be that the guy just gave up on the unit: https://www.chevyhhr.net/forums/audi...g-29434/page3/

I have come to the conclusion that the USB port is not passing power through it at all during its downtimes. The way I tested this was to use a 3rd flashdrive that had a red indicator light, which did not turn on, and to use a low-amp cellphone charging/data cable, and that didn't provide power to my phone. I've tested both of these when the USB is working properly and the USB drive's red light turns on, and the phone detects a "slow" charge(which is fine, that's just because of the low amp cable).

Any thoughts? Fuses, loose connections, etc?

Thanks in advance.

donbrew

I don't think the USB is supposed to supply power, if it does it is most likely .5 amp or less. The cable does not limit the power, it is rated to carry that much before failure (catastrophic). Some cables don't even have the power wires, data only.

Older USB devices can only handle a max of 8-16 Gib, some even less. When the book was written there may have been only 8 Gib available so they don't mention limits. 6 years ago a 8 Gib USB 1.0 drive cost $20-30.

USB technology changes very quickly we are on something beyond version 3.0 now, and moving on to newer technology.

The contacts on the USB port can get dirty. The plastic can get cracked and cause the contacts to be flakey.

A friend of mine has to buy new charger cables on a weekly basis because the mini end suddenly won't plug all the way in.

Will the drives work in other devices? Is it the drive or the device?

I would probably blame cheap electronic components being mistreated over time and failing. Probably cheapest to get a new head unit.

slammish

USB supplies power, it's what's called a hot plug. That's why flashdrives work- they get power from the USB port and use it to make stored data available.

Cables have a maximum power rating and are unable to exceed it- for instance, a fast charger is 1.1 amps, while a typical dollar store or bargain cable will not exceed .5 amps. I encourage you to experiment with odd cables and your phone's fast charger to see it firsthand if this is still a topic for debate. And true, micro usb cables can be purely power, but they cannot be purely data. It goes against the nature of what a USB port is.

They can, however, be incompatible or too low amperage to supply enough power to register that a phone is charging, which is why I included that variable in my original post:

" I've tested both of these when the USB is working properly and the USB drive's red light turns on, and the phone detects a "slow" charge(which is fine, that's just because of the low amp cable)."

The sandisk is 8 gigs, the Corsair is 16 gigs. The results are identical with either drive. Also, 1.1/2.1/3.0 USB is a rating of speed, not capacity; that's controlled by the device's processor/chipset.



My flash drives have had their contacts cleaned, no cracks are present, they work in all other devices that I own (2 laptops, 1 desktop).

Again, this is intermittent and the port will go weeks or months working just fine, but then anywhere between 1 hour and 3 days not working at all. Both drives work just fine in 2 laptops and one desktop.

Any thoughts?

donbrew

Exactly how does a wire limit current through it. By melting, unless there is a circuit in the connector. The amount of current memory or LEDs require is tiny. My Raspberry Pi 1 runs on 1.2 amps and will handle at least 2 small USB powered devices like a wifi adapter and a thumb drive or BT adapter, but not a USB hard drive, and an ethernet port.

The USB ports supply 500 mA.

I was talking about the connector on the radio being dirty / cracked. The plastic divider/tongue.

Then why does my old laptop do fine with a 8 gig SDHC 10 card but not even see a 32 gig SDHC 10 card that both work fine in my PC and my Raspberry Pi.

If one drive stops working will the other drive work?

The USB port in the HU is broken. Cheaper to replace the HU than repair it. I can't think of anything that would be time related on that scale, usually a heat related problem fixes itself in a few minutes. A lot of people have reported USB problem.

From Wikipedia:

slammish

Nope, not by melting. Gauges, typically. plug a 28ga cable wire rated for 500mah into a 2.1amp Samsung fast charger wall adapter and no, the wire won't melt, because the wall adapter regulates the power to not overload the wire via capacitors, resistors, smart circuits(alternate paths for the current to travel in that limits the output. Think fire hazard prevention). The end result will be the cable's max amperage passing to the phone's battery, whatever that happens to be. The back of most cables' boxes will usually list the max amperage it's capable of.

So, the short answer is yes, USB ports do provide power. Try plugging a 2.5 laptop HD into that raspberry pi if you want- it'll run without an external power adapter off of 500mah no problem. I don't understand why this is necessarily relevant to the question- it seems more like you're trying to debate the efficacy of my testing and I don't think it's conducive to the issue.


Then it wouldn't work at all, or i'd be able to get it to respond by fidgeting with it. Definitely not the case.


Because the chipset of your old laptop does not have handlers built in for memory at that capacity. Also, you may have misunderstood my statement about USB 1.1/2.1/3.0's "capacity". I did not mean power capacity, I meant storage. If you really wanted to, you could have constructed RAIDs of 10 1TB hard drives on USB 1.1, provided you had an adequate controller, and still can. USB1.1/2.1/3.0 has nothing to do with storage capacity. The chipset/bios simply wasn't programmed with the ability to understand a flash-based storage device of that size. If you were to somehow hardcode an update and flash it onto your bios with instructions on how to read a 1TB USB 3.0 flash drive, it would function just fine on a USB 1.1 port(albeit very slowly) because USB employs modular/cross compatibility(Forwards and backwards).

Nope. The port doesn't provide any power whatsoever during these periods of time, so nothing is going to work. The hot plug isn't hot.

I highly doubt the issue is with the head unit's usb port(considering the long periods of time that it works perfectly fine). I could speculate that it's an overheated capacitor(at worst) or loose wire, possibly a corroded fuse, but that's why I thought to ask here before digging around inside of my dash and fusebox, especially since it's a common issue.

With these people that you've seen reporting USB issues, what were their solutions (other than shift-canning their entire head unit)?

slammish

Nope, not by melting. Gauges, typically. plug a 28ga cable wire rated for 500mah into a 2.1amp Samsung fast charger wall adapter and no, the wire won't melt, because the wall adapter regulates the power to not overload the wire via capacitors, resistors, smart circuits(alternate paths for the current to travel in that limits the output. Think fire hazard prevention). The end result will be the cable's max amperage passing to the phone's battery, whatever that happens to be. The back of most cables' boxes will usually list the max amperage it's capable of.

So, the short answer is yes, USB ports do provide power. Try plugging a 2.5 laptop HD into that raspberry pi if you want- it'll run without an external power adapter off of 500mah no problem. I don't understand why this is necessarily relevant to the question- it seems more like you're trying to debate the efficacy of my testing and I don't think it's conducive to the issue.


Then it wouldn't work at all, or i'd be able to get it to respond by fidgeting with it. Definitely not the case.


Because the chipset of your old laptop does not have handlers built in for memory at that capacity. Also, you may have misunderstood my statement about USB 1.1/2.1/3.0's "capacity". I did not mean power capacity, I meant storage. If you really wanted to, you could have constructed RAIDs of 10 1TB hard drives on USB 1.1, provided you had an adequate controller, and still can. USB1.1/2.1/3.0 has nothing to do with storage capacity. The chipset/bios simply wasn't programmed with the ability to understand a flash-based storage device of that size. If you were to somehow hardcode an update and flash it onto your bios with instructions on how to read a 1TB USB 3.0 flash drive, it would function just fine on a USB 1.1 port(albeit very slowly) because USB employs modular/cross compatibility(Forwards and backwards).

Nope. The port doesn't provide any power whatsoever during these periods of time, so nothing is going to work. The hot plug isn't hot.

I highly doubt the issue is with the head unit's usb port(considering the long periods of time that it works perfectly fine). I could speculate that it's an overheated capacitor(at worst) or loose wire, possibly a corroded fuse, but that's why I thought to ask here before digging around inside of my dash and fusebox, especially since it's a common issue.

With these people that you've seen reporting USB issues, what were their solutions (other than shift-canning their entire head unit)?