USB stick super heat + locks fileserfer/web interface

[flexusz28]

Hello,

When I got the router I first installed my USB printer, which started running within 10 minutes (easy).

Then I wanted to start playing with the USB storage options.
I have a 2GB SanDisk Cruzer Micro device. After doing the settings and learning how to connect to the drive from windows, mapping it and user permissions etc, I browsed through the stick a little, uploaded 5mb file, connected download master. After about 10 minutes of accessing the drive I started having the problems.

After a few tests I noticed the following: a few minutes miuntes after starting the router with the USB memory drive in it, the USB stick gets pretty hot. If I try to access it or do ANYTHING on it - copy/write/browse/downloadmaster it gets SUPER HOT and soon after fileserver/router web interface/network drive access fails. Internet and wireless still works, although as long as the USB drive is in I don't get transfer speeds above 2MB/s. Without the USB drive I get 6.5MB - 7MB.

Has anyone else had problems with USB drives overheating REAL BAD and freezing up things / slowing down wireless etc ? Is there something wrong with my USB drive or the router?

Thanks!

[wpte]

is the U3 enabled on your usb stick?
a guess is that the asus firmware does not expect a CD drive (U3 functionality) to be plugged in and may have problems with it.

If I remember correctly you can remove the U3 function, and add it later on with sandisk U3 sticks.


I guess your stick is not broken... but testing it on a pc never hurts

[flexusz28]

The stick works perfectly fine on the laptop, only gets warm under normal usage. I've put it back and forth in the router and back in the laptop, formatted it a few times... Even when it's completely empty (there's no U3) it still burns up and freezes everything within a few minutes of opening the network share or connecting to it with the download master (it sais connecting, 1% - 60% etc, then freezes up sais there's a network problem etc, but the router web interface is dead, the share can't be accesed on the network and the USB stick burns my hand when I take it out...).

I figured it's because of the "use self powered usb devices" but a lot of people are saying they're using flash drives on the router...

I'm puzzled

[wpte]

The stick works perfectly fine on the laptop, only gets warm under normal usage. I've put it back and forth in the router and back in the laptop, formatted it a few times... Even when it's completely empty (there's no U3) it still burns up and freezes everything within a few minutes of opening the network share or connecting to it with the download master (it sais connecting, 1% - 60% etc, then freezes up sais there's a network problem etc, but the router web interface is dead, the share can't be accesed on the network and the USB stick burns my hand when I take it out...).

I figured it's because of the "use self powered usb devices" but a lot of people are saying they're using flash drives on the router...

I'm puzzled

yes that is very strange...
The usb stick isn't supposed to eat a lot of power... almoast sound like a short circuited stick.

what about if you only insert the usb stick (no other usb devices)
and if you have one, you can try to connect it via a powered usb hub

[flexusz28]

Well the stick, as I said, works perfectly on any PC (I'm an IT guy for some companies).

Actually the problems with it started when the printer was already plugged I think... I'll give it a go without the printer plugged in. Not a solution tho since I do need the printer there, but will help diagnose the situation.

I don't have a USB hub actually. I'll try to find one soon. Does the router actually work with more than 2 devices connected (1 directly and more than 1 on the hub)?

Thanks for the replies wpte.

[flexusz28]

Took out printer, tried the stick on upper and lower USB ports alone, each with reset of router. Same outcome. Once I access it, either by windows network, ftp or download master connect the stick goes super hot, all file server functinos freeze, etc.

I'll go buy a USB hub with power adaptor tomorrow morning, it's like 10$

[flexusz28]

Got a powered USB Hub. First test, same result, not working (not so hot, probably cause router adds to heat at it's usb port).

Emptied stick, formatted to FAT(16), put it back in. Download manager sais the file system is bad (ntfs) and sais I should try ext2/3/fat. Still can't download anything from the drive either in windows networking or FTP, it locks down immediately.

Only thing that APPARENTLY does work is copying TO the drive, at least temporarily. I moved more files but when I try to get them back everything stops. When I pulled the stick out it was empty. Sent them on FTP, about 40MB 3 files, said they went but they're nowhere O.o

Also something to mention is that the Asus firmware (2.0.0.6), at Status&Log, USB, doesn't change when I copy things to the drive, remains as if the drive is empty.

[wpte]

you can try to format the disk to EXT2
as far as I remembered it doesn't support EXT3 on asus fw

with the gnome partition editor live cd/usb you can do this: http://gparted.sourceforge.net/download.php

and here a driver for reading ext2/3 filesystems in windows: http://www.fs-driver.org/

maybe you think the usb hub is not needed anymore, but a powered hub never hurts on a router

I hope it works for you

[flexusz28]

Hehe that's just what I was trying to do actually

I isntalled the ext2 file system drivers for windows already, and burned a GParted CD but guess what, FAIL, it won't load. Tried all the failsafe and shit options and it still won't load. Says something in linuxspeak (can't mount to squashfs or something).

I'm also out of blank CDs so I'm either out shoppin or finding another way of formatting that mofo

[flexusz28]

Well I finally got around to testing the features with another memory stick. Everything works perfectly, even with FAT32. I downloaded 2 torrents overnight, can copy on and off, no heat, no problems.

Guess it was my stick after all...

[flexusz28]

UPDATE: As said before it works fine with this 8GB stick on FAT32, but using download master with torrents only works if they're under 1GB or something. Every time I try to get a 2GB+ torrent the router crashes a few seconds after I start the download - file sharing, web interface, etc.

I wonder if this has something to do with the FAT32 file system implementation or the download master software just can't handle it? Some torrents I've tried had more files of 1GB and it still crashed...

I'll give it a go with EXT2 and see what happens

[wpte]

UPDATE: As said before it works fine with this 8GB stick on FAT32, but using download master with torrents only works if they're under 1GB or something. Every time I try to get a 2GB+ torrent the router crashes a few seconds after I start the download - file sharing, web interface, etc.

I wonder if this has something to do with the FAT32 file system implementation or the download master software just can't handle it? Some torrents I've tried had more files of 1GB and it still crashed...

I'll give it a go with EXT2 and see what happens

well FAT32 should be able to handle files with a max size of 2GB
according to wikipedia this is 4GB: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_Allocation_Table
at least, I thought max size was 2GB (just like the max size of avi files)
and if you want FAT32 can go up to 2TB of hdd

EXT2 is a lot more advanced (EXT3 or EXT4 even more)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ext2
it has a bad blocks table to prevent corrupted data, but as far as I can remember this doesn't work as good as on EXT3. (available on olegs)

just trying to enlighten you a bit over all the different formats