MBox 3 Lights flashing

[Pinball Wizard]

Originally Posted by albee1952

One of the required Windows system tweaks is to turn OFF the power management feature on all USB ports

Yes, that & all other windows optimizations were done before these problems & tests.

I believe that is exactly what happened to Augster. I'm guessing that for some crazy reason, his power management got turned back on. When he uninstalled & reinstalled drivers, he probably did the optimization and turned it off (it would have defaulted on).

The lesson here is that if you are experiencing this problem, check the power management EVEN IF YOU AT ONE TIME TURNED IT OFF!

[augster]

Pinball,

I can also confirm the same results you got.

I hadn't used the laptop and MBox in an entire week. When I set it all up again, the MBox failed to initialize yet again. I was able to get it going with the steps I outlined in one of my earlier posts but it was now obvious that doing so was only a temporary solution.

As you, I also decided to get an external powered USB hub and I can report that it definitely fixed my particular issue.

[augster]

Originally Posted by albee1952

One of the required Windows system tweaks is to turn OFF the power management feature on all USB ports

Yes, that's basic Windows troubleshooting and I made sure it was off.

[carolpengmusic]

I think that you can try to delete the history of USB!!

[AyanSanyal]

Hey.
I am having the same problem on my imac.

iMac 2.5Ghz Intel Core i5
OS 10.6.6
Mbox 3
Protools 8.0.4

Help?!
I realize this is a USB power issue. I had my external harddrive connected via usb, but now my ports are still working but the Mbox is giving me this light show (cycling through all the lights) and its still not being recognized with nothing else plugged in. Don't use USB external harddrives!!! lesson learned..but how can i get my mbox to work now?

[RTFM]

Originally Posted by AyanSanyal

Hey.
I am having the same problem on my imac.

iMac 2.5Ghz Intel Core i5
OS 10.6.6
Mbox 3
Protools 8.0.4

Help?!
I realize this is a USB power issue. I had my external harddrive connected via usb, but now my ports are still working but the Mbox is giving me this light show (cycling through all the lights) and its still not being recognized with nothing else plugged in. Don't use USB external harddrives!!! lesson learned..but how can i get my mbox to work now?

In your case getting a powered (MUST be powered!) USB hub and connecting your USB drive to that should help.

[Deehoya]

Avid repalace my MBox TRE not being seen with my Comp. Call them for repalacemant plenty MBOX 3 similar porbulem

[Pinball Wizard]

Deehoya: I am not clear on your post. Have you solved your problem with a new mbox or do you still need help?

[AyanSanyal]

Hi all,

I somehow solved this problem for my mac

I want to share my knowledge on this board for anyone's future reference and what I've learned.
This is what I did:
I called Avid support and they were very helpful but did not solve my problem.
Or maybe they did, but I left that phone call with no solution.
My problem seemed unique, my mbox was working fine with another computer, but not the imac, and other things were working on the usb ports, so it was hard to isolate the problem.

Here's what they did:

They optimized my computer for Protools (which you all should def do first and foremost, the directions are on this board)
They installed the most recent drivers - still to no avail.
They tried a different usb cable, different usb ports - still nothing
Then they told me to try my mbox on another computer - and i downloaded the drivers successfully there, that proved the mbox was being recognized by another computer.

So then the AVID support guy told me to try a powered external usb hub..like everyone in this post and I was like -__-

Then I thought:My mac's power cord was hooked up via a surge protector...maybe I should try to plug into the wall directly.
I have NO idea if that's what did it, but after I plugged the mac into the wall directly and tried a second USB hub, the mbox was recognized and i successfully loaded pro tools.

however, I guess I learned the hard way - the reason why this problem happened in the first place for me was that I had a usb external harddrive and a mbox and a midi keyboard plugged into my (direct) usb hubs on my mac. That led to a power overload and these problems...

So don't use a usb external hard drive and try a bunch of different things!

Best of luck to everyone, let me know if i wasn't clear about anything!

Ayan

[Pinball Wizard]

Ayan: Thanks. Could you do us a favor and try using your computer directly & with the power filter a few times so that we can either list that as a problem or eliminate it? I highly doubt that it was the problem----but what do I know, anything is possible. Thanks again.