how to make laptop charge PDA via USB port?

[DarkManX]

I always charge my pocket PC via my dekstop PC, im goin on vacation and my regular wall charger is work and i want to be able to charge it via my laptop but it does not charge when I plug it in, is there an option somewhere to enable charging via USB port?

 

[Lord Evermore]

What model of PDA do you have? Some of them do not have the option to charge by the USB port, and there's no way to make it work if it doesn't, as the electrical circuitry simply does not exist in the PDA. If your PDA requires charging via a charging cradle which has a separate power plug, then the charging cradle probably is not designed to pull power from the USB port.

 

[DarkManX]

its a ppc6700 i normaly charge it via usb port on my home computer.

 

[cleverhandle]

That's a hardware thing, then. The desktop's USB ports are powered, and the laptop's aren't. Unpowered ports aren't good for much beyond simple peripherals like a mouse or a flash drive. If the laptop has several sets of USB ports, you may want to try other ones - some may be powered and others may not be. But past that, I think you're out of luck.

 

[oog]

you can always get a powered usb hub or even a power adapter with a usb port for this purpose if it turns out that your laptop ports really aren't supplying enough power.

 

[phisrow]

Question: Is the driver/Sync software, or whatever for the PPC installed on the laptop? While it is quite likely, as others have said, that the problem is in hardware, it could also be that the driver needs to be installed for USB charging. This is because, under the USB spec, devices are allocated an initial 100ma and have to request more in software. This is commonly ignored, particularly in desktops(hence those little fans, and lights, and fishtanks that work off USB); but is more likely to be enforced in laptops.

 

[cleverhandle]

Originally posted by: phisrow
This is because, under the USB spec, devices are allocated an initial 100ma and have to request more in software.

Interesting. File that under "new things I've learned today". 🙂

 

[Lord Evermore]

Originally posted by: cleverhandle
Unpowered ports aren't good for much beyond simple peripherals like a mouse or a flash drive.

You're saying a mouse and flash reader can run on an unpowered port? 🙂 Unpowered ports would be useless for anything that didn't have an external power supply or batteries, including mice and flash readers. So far as I know there isn't even any allowance in the spec for an unpowered USB port, unlike Firewire.

It may not be supplying ENOUGH power, as oog said, but at a minimum it should be 100mA on any port, and the ports on any laptop ought to be full power at 500mA. 100mA may not be enough for charging the PDA.

A review did specify that it can be charged via USB with or without a cradle, so it seems pretty certain that the laptop is in fact not supplying enough power. Crappy laptop. Does it at least get detected by the laptop as a connected device? USB ports ought to always be powered on whether there's anything detected by the OS or not, but who knows.

 

[cleverhandle]

Originally posted by: Lord Evermore
You're saying a mouse and flash reader can run on an unpowered port? 🙂 Unpowered ports would be useless for anything that didn't have an external power supply or batteries, including mice and flash readers. So far as I know there isn't even any allowance in the spec for an unpowered USB port, unlike Firewire.

Well, yeah... "low-powered/high-powered" is more accurate than "unpowered/powered". But I've always heard people talk about it using the latter terms.