USB Mouse on KVM won't work until External hard drive..?

musiclover7

Member
Member
Messages
219
This is a weird one, that started once I updated to Windows 8.1, and has persisted. At first I thought the problem was with my Siig KVM switch, that allows me to share my mouse and keyboard with two different computers. Essentially, after the upgrade, every time I would click over to my Windows 8.1 machine on the KVM, I would then have to wait like 20 seconds for the new hardware tone to chime before I could use my mouse/keyboard. This was frustrating, as I tend to switch back and forth between these computers numerous times a day. I would also hear what I thought was my external hard drives powering on every time I would switch to the computer.

Then one day recently, I decided to take one of my external hard drives with me somewhere, and for a while I did not plug it back into the PC. Walla, my problem went away! The issue has something to do with this Toshiba DWC130 3TB external drive. When it is not plugged into my computer, I can switch back and forth between the two computers with zero delay. Starting with 8.1, when this Toshiba drive is connected to my machine, and I switch to it on the KVM, I have to wait for the drive to power up from sleep before I the mouse will take and I can start using the computer. I am hoping there is some sort of work around for this. I am contemplating taking the drive out of it's external enclosure and seating it inside the computer, as this has gotten to be quite frustrating.

Any help appreciated!
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 Pro 64 Bit
    CPU
    Processor AMD Athlon(tm) II X4 635 Processor, 2800 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 4 Logical Processor(s)
    Memory
    8gb
    Graphics Card(s)
    Nvidia GTX 460
Some external drives have bundled software(or sometimes you can download from the driver maker's site if they don't give you the software in the package) that can set the drive to stay spinning rather than spinning down after an activity time-out.

I wrote a small hack to keep drives from spinning down. I call it DriveAlive. You may download from this page:
Miles Ahead Software

I bought a Seagate external USB 2.0 drive that didn't come with any software. Turned out another more expensive Seagate external had a bundled software package I could download. The utility to control if the drive would spin down due to time-out worked on my drive. So if your external doesn't have any software see if there's a higher priced version. If it's essentially the same drive inside then the software may work on the economy model. :)
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.0 x64
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Toshiba Satelite C55D-A Laptop
    CPU
    AMD EI 1200
    Memory
    4 gb DDR3
    Graphics Card(s)
    Raedon 340 MB dedicated Ram
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Built in
    Screen Resolution
    1366 x 768
    Hard Drives
    640 GB (spinner) Sata II
    Keyboard
    Built in
    Mouse
    Touch pad
This was a non-issue prior to 8.1. Do you know what happened with the new version that causes this?
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 Pro 64 Bit
    CPU
    Processor AMD Athlon(tm) II X4 635 Processor, 2800 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 4 Logical Processor(s)
    Memory
    8gb
    Graphics Card(s)
    Nvidia GTX 460
I have no idea. I'm running 8.0. I bought a Laptop then 2 weeks later the SP comes out. I think I'll stay with 8.0 since I don't have the bandwidth to upgrade anyway. :)
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.0 x64
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Toshiba Satelite C55D-A Laptop
    CPU
    AMD EI 1200
    Memory
    4 gb DDR3
    Graphics Card(s)
    Raedon 340 MB dedicated Ram
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Built in
    Screen Resolution
    1366 x 768
    Hard Drives
    640 GB (spinner) Sata II
    Keyboard
    Built in
    Mouse
    Touch pad
Back
Top