R50P Dock/USB Problem

[Harryc]

I have an R50P that I sometimes use in a Dock II. The dock has 2 x USB 2.0 ports, one of which is hooked to a USB KVM. The USB KVM has a built in USB 1.1 hub, off of which I run a USB 2.0 scanner and a USB 2.0 printer (yeah I know I couldn't afford a proper USB 2.0 KVM). The printer works fine, but the USB scanner crashes the scanner program I use. The keyboard and mouse that are hooked to the KVM get signal through the exact same single USB cable as the scanner and printer, which of course is hooked to the dock. The scanner is an Epson 1660 and the program is Smart Panel.

Ok, with that background out of the way, here's what I've found so far;

1.) If I hook the scanner directly to the R50P while undocked, it does not crash the program and it works fine.
2.) I replaced the USB cable from the Dock to the KVM, that did not make a difference.
3.) I Have several other machines that work fine (with the scanner) in this dock with the exact same setup/cables/etc. One of which is the T30 that I am typing on right now.
4.) The printer works fine that's hooked to the KVM from the docked R50/P (I think... I have to try it again but it was working last night)
5.) I reloaded XP Pro from scratch. That did not make any difference.

So, I'm scratching my head on this one. Could it be that the scanner requires more power than the R50P USB port (while docked) is producing? How would I go about troubleshooting that? Come to think of it, I might try a powered USB hub in front of the KVM, although I think that the KVM hub might be powered as well....need to check that out. Any other ideas?

[basketb]

A couple of thoughts:

1. Have you tried using different software to drive the scanner? (usually they come with a dedicated program to scan a page and plug-ins for well-known graphic programs to scan pages directly from within those programs)
2. Given that it works with a T30 (and without the dock and KVM in between), it sounds as if there could be an incompatibility somewhere in the USB 2.0 (scanner) - 1.1 (KVM) - 2.0 (T50p/dock) chain. (does it work when docked but without the KVM?)

[Harryc]

basketb, some good thoughts there, thanks!. Well, I ran a cable directly from the scanner to the 2nd port in the dock and it works fine. So it is definitely some incompatibility issue with the KVM, the R50P, and the scanner combination. It's interesting that the T30 works, but then again it is USB 1.1 and the R50/P is USB 2.0. I also didn't mention that my Thinkcentre desktop also works in this environment, and it is USB 2.0 for sure. Oh well, I'll have to think about another solution for sharing this scanner. Maybe a straight USB 2.0 switch with separate cables to each of the (4) PC's here.