USB

Gordon has a BaoFeng UV5R+ ham radio, and it keeps displaying an error whenever he tries programming the radio through Windows. Leo says that less expensive ham radios don't have an ideal user interface to allow the user to troubleshoot easily. Leo suspects that the USB cable is broken, but he also suggests making sure the drivers for Windows are installed first.

The Chatroom says it's the "prolific driver" that's causing the connection. They recommend using Chirp on Windows to find it.

Trish's keyboard seems to randomly type letters and numbers when she's not touching it. Leo suspects the keyboard could have shorted out or the USB port it's plugged into is shorting out. She should try a different keyboard. If that doesn't fix it, then that would point to a different problem. Leo also suspects that the computer may still be paired to the wireless keyboard and her daughter is playing with it, causing the issue!

Robert wanted to create a bootable operating system on his USB key, but his computer won't recognize it. Leo says it may not be formatted properly. He should go into the BIOS and make sure USB is an option to boot to in the boot order. The Chatroom suggests holding down ALT+O when booting up and it'll tell the computer to look at the USB, but Leo hasn't done that so he can't vouch for it.

Leo says if the head unit in the car has bluetooth, that would be the easiest way. Dave says his car does not have bluetooth, though.

Another possibility is to connect the phone via USB instead. Or he could try getting an adapter, like this one from Belkin, to go from the iPod 30 pin connector to USB.

Autorun software on the USB key may be the culprit. There was a virus that got transmitted via USB keys running autorun, and if Zach's USB key has autorun, it may be wreaking havoc with his Internet connection.

It could also be that the USB driver is corrupted and it could be affecting the network stack. If it's powered and drawing current from the system, his power supply may not be powerful enough to handle it. Try using a USB connection that doesn't draw power and see if there's still a problem. There could also be a motherboard issue at work.

Manuel has a Lenovo A2109 Tablet and he'd like to hook up a portable hard drive to it. It isn't working because his portable hard drive isn't powered, and the tablet doesn't seem to be giving it enough power to work.

Chris is wondering whether or not the USB external drive connected to his Mac Mini is causing it to boot up so slow. Leo says it probably is, and he recommends choosing StartUp disk in the settings so it'll boot up directly by the SSD. He should also try disconnecting the USB drives before booting up. The Mac Mini may be scanning the drives to mount them first when booting up.

Judy bought a new Dell computer and the USB ports aren't working. She contacted Dell and they actually made things worse by tweaking the drivers and formatting the hard drive in system recovery. Leo says that putting the computer back to the way it was is an easy fix for Dell, and they're looking for a software fix. But Leo thinks it may be a bad USB hub on the computer itself and that's a hardware issue. To get a replacement, Judy will have to go through a lot of steps. It's important to backup the hard drive before she does because they will wipe the drive when repairing it.