Belkin Cardbus USB2 adaptors too hot.

Julian Stacey jhs at berklix.org
Thu Mar 19 03:13:28 PDT 2009


Hi Warner, cc usb@
Thanks for your reply :-)

"M. Warner Losh" wrote:
> "Julian Stacey" <jhs at berklix.org> writes:
> : Hi,
> : Anyone else noticed Belkin Cardbus USB2 adaptors run extremely hot ?
> : I've been having weird things happen 
> : 	umass errs, g_vfs_done()da0a[WRITE(offset=....,
> : 	length=131072)]error = 5 first errors after a 66G write,
> : 	subsequent errors after just 1G more, (in retrospect when
> : 	truly hot) 
> : I've built a break out box to check Voltages & Current
> : 	delivered into external USB2 to IDE enclosures,
> : 	just bought another new 250G IDE for another enclosure,
> : 	lots of enclosures & usb2 hub power blocks tried, then I
> : 	remembered this card used to run hot on FreeBSD-6, in this
> : 	Toshiba Satellite S5100-603, & I think BSD + this laptop
> : 	cooked my brothers identical Belkin card too last year.
> : 	The laptop BTW:
> : 	http://www.berklix.com/~jhs/hardware/toshiba/satellite.s5100-603/
> : So 2 things:
> : 	FreeBSD-7.1-RELEASE is still cooking by default.
> : 	I recall cardbus can run at 2 different voltages ?
> : 	Well we need to change something to detect that.
> : 	Anyone want to throw me an RTFM URL start point for reading ?
> : 	(Sorry to ask here & not read first, trying to catch a boat ASAP).
> 
> Cardbus runs at 3.3V only.  There's X.X and Y.Y low-voltage specs, but
> nobody seems to implement them.  PC Card (the 16-bit version) runs at
> 3.3V or 5.0V.  The usual reason for cards running really hot is too
> much current draw over the bus for supplied devices.  Many of the
> cards have an external power supply that can be used to provide more
> power over a path that is made for it rather than exceeding the
> CardBus specs to pull the power in over that power bus.  Don't know if
> this card has that or not...

I guess my Belkin Hi-Speed USB 2.0 Notebook Card is an earlier version of
	http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Product_Id=123940
	I've not found tech detail there though.

It gets too warm when just plugged into laptop's cardbus,
	nothing external connected, (but not painfully hot as when
	pulled out after heavy use with no external power, 
	connected to a powered hub driving an unpowered 2.5" disc.
	(But yes of course lots of stuff in a laptop to keep it hot.

Belkin doesnt seem to get hot, sitting idle under XP
	But I dont know how to load Belkin to do disc intensive IO under XP.
		(more accurately I have not looked for eg GCC under XP
		 to compile my 
		http://berklix.com/~jhs/src/bsd/jhs/bin/public/testblock/			)
	I wonder if XP turns off the card when not needed,
	& if that might be viable in BSD ?.

Powerd: I was not running powerd until last few days.
	PC fan went on & off OK before & still does.

Yes, this Belkin has a power socket, I hardly ever used it till now:
	Only ever used the Belkin via 1 or 2 powered hubs, which I
	assumed would buffer it + laptop from excess load.  I had
	assumed laptop supplies the Belkin at a well regulated 5V,
	& I measured a few 5V supplies for hubs as { 5.36, 5.41 &
	5.22 V }, (So unless disc pulled down hub voltage below
	5.0, hub would not load down the Belkin, pulling extra
	current, but I suppose an over voltage is also potential
	unwanted heat (& at square law V^2 / R for heat),
	if hubs were to feeds back to Belkin at full V (but hubs
	would not, as discs pull hub V. down from eg 5.36 to 5.2.

	Both Belkin sockets deliver no voltage, unless Belkin is
	externaly powered.  (& a memory stick requiring little
	current produces no /dev/da* so power supply from Belkin
	is not some OS related turn- on- if- something detected thing),
	but more simple: power must be supplied from { external
	socket or a device (in my case a powered hub).

Current into 2 unpowered hubs, with no devs on hub:
	Powered Belkin alone, not in laptop PC:
			Hub=Slim:	0.01 A
			Hub=Zediworks:	0.19 A				

	Belkin in PC:
		Unpowered Belkin:	0A
		Powered   Belkin:
			Hub=Slim	0.16 A
			Hub=Zediworks:	0.29 A
	
7.1-RELEASE /var/log/messages :
    Belkin after insertion:
	 cardbus0: Warning: CIS pointer 0 (no CIS present)
	 cardbus0: Warning: Bogus CIS ignored
	 cardbus0: <serial bus, USB> at device 0.0 (no driver attached )
	 cardbus0: Warning: CIS pointer 0 (no CIS present)
	 cardbus0: Warning: Bogus CIS ignored
	 cardbus0: <serial bus, USB> at device 0.1 (no driver attached )
	 cardbus0: Warning: CIS pointer 0 (no CIS present)
	 cardbus0: Warning: Bogus CIS ignored
	 ehci0: <NEC uPD 720100 USB 2.0 controller> 
		mem 0xfce05000-0xfce050ff irq 11 at device 0.2 on cardbus0
	 ehci0: [GIANT-LOCKED]
	 ehci0: [ITHREAD]
	 usb3: EHCI version 1.0
	 usb3: wrong number of companions (2 != 0)
	 usb3: <NEC uPD 720100 USB 2.0 controller> on ehci0
	 usb3: USB revision 2.0
	 uhub3: <NEC EHCI root hub, class 9/0, rev 2.00/1.00, addr 1> on usb3
	 uhub3: 5 ports with 5 removable, self powered
    Hub=Slim
	uhub4: <vendor 0x05e3 USB2.0 Hub, 
		class 9/0, rev 2.00/5.07, addr 2> on uhub3
	uhub4: single transaction translator
	uhub4: 4 ports with 4 removable, self powered
    Hub=Zediworks
	uhub4: <NEC Corporation USB2.0 Hub Controller, 
		class 9/0, rev 2.00/1.00, addr 2> on uhub3
	uhub4: single transaction translator
	uhub4: 4 ports with 0 removable, self powered

PS Ive tried a few runs since, with powered Belkin + powered hub,
running my testblock.c to fill a UFS FS on various discs.  It still
runs too hot. Curiously at that point, I can still open more remote
xterms on to the laptop, & run eg man etc, but the laptop just lets
commands such as halt & reboot hang, presumably as kernel is waiting
to talk to an overheated hanging USB system.

Cheers,
Julian
-- 
Julian Stacey: BSDUnixLinux C Prog Admin SysEng Consult Munich www.berklix.com
  Mail plain ASCII text.  HTML & Base64 text are spam. www.asciiribbon.org


More information about the freebsd-usb mailing list