Are the left/right USB ports different on Mid-2012 Mac Air?

[amdhunter]

It's driving me nuts. I have a mid-2012 Mac Air (few days old) and my right USB refuses to work with my Microsoft Mouse, and freezes with Android File Transfer with my Galaxy Nexus.

Left port works fine with both.

All my USB sticks and iPad/iPhone work perfectly with the right port with no problems. I can boot off the right one perfectly.

It's just my Nexus and mouse receiver. They don't work there.

I've tried booting off another OSX installation and same thing, and booting into OSX setup disk same thing.

What gives? Is it just some USB 3 quirkiness?

 

[Printer Bandit]

take it back and exchange it 😀

 

[amdhunter]

take it back and exchange it 😀

I thought about it, but I think a firmware update did it in. I don't care, other than my Nexus and mouse, the USB port works fine. I have a year to bitch about it if it gets annoying. I found my old wireless mighty mouse and happily chugging along for now. I ordered a MS Bluetooth 5000 which should arrive Tuesday.

I did just install a new firmware for my laptop - The update says this:

About MacBook Air and MacBook Pro Update 1.0
This update fixes an issue that can lead to increased CPU power consumption, and it improves compatibility with some USB devices.

This update is recommended for all Mac notebooks introduced since June 2012.

Don't know what they did, but I guess they tweaked voltages or something on the different ports.

 

[oRdchaos]

On some older MacBook Pro's, the left side port was for higher powered devices then the right side supported. Most of the time if you plug a device in to the right side port it will inform you something's trying to draw too much power. I think newer devices are smart enough to negotiate that, however, so they probably will just silently fail like you described.

So it's not entirely out of the question that ports would work differently. Not sure why a mouse receiver would be causing much trouble though. I could see a phone charging, possibly.

 

[amdhunter]

On some older MacBook Pro's, the left side port was for higher powered devices then the right side supported. Most of the time if you plug a device in to the right side port it will inform you something's trying to draw too much power. I think newer devices are smart enough to negotiate that, however, so they probably will just silently fail like you described.

So it's not entirely out of the question that ports would work differently. Not sure why a mouse receiver would be causing much trouble though. I could see a phone charging, possibly.

It just stopped working after the firmware update. I am just using a Bluetooth mouse now. It's kind of nice not having anything (but the magsafe) sticking out of the laptop.