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Help Computer Hangs/Stutters when Droid 2 Unplugged

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breNTx22

Newbie
Thread title says it all. When I unplug my droid 2 from my computer (usb) the computer will slow down/stutter/freeze for about 30-60 seconds then it will be fine. As I said, it only happens when I unplug my droid 2. I have tried different USB ports and other devices (ipod and hard drive), nothing else causes this problem.

Any suggestions?
 
I never do the "Safely Remove Hardware" feature. Do you think that this is the cause of it? If so, what precisely did it affect?
 
It's best to do that with all types of external memory or drives, your phone included. Windows will sometimes buffer data being written to the device. If you just quickly disconnect, and Windows hasn't written everything yet, you could lose data. This could also be the cause of Windows running slow for you, it's looking for that device to finish writing data or to sync folder info.
 
It has been doing this for a few months (maybe 2) but 4 days ago it stopped doing it, then it started again yesterday.

What should I do to fix this?
 
This isn't a phone issue, it's a computer issue. It could range from Windows just acting funny, your computer hardware (CPU, RAM) being faulty, the USB ports on your computer are going bad...the list can go on.
 
USB ports are fine. I've tested it in multiple ports that other devices successfully use.

I don't think it is faulty hardware in the PC because if that was the case it would happen regardless of the phone being present or not.

I was hoping this would be a quick fix but I guess not. I think I will try...

1) Reinstalling Phone drivers
2) Reimaging Phone
3) Reinstalling Windows 7
4) Suicide
 
Try using the safe hardware removal function. See if there is any change in Windows' behavior. If you just jerk the USB cord out, the removal of the device does get Windows' attention, so this could be the cause.

And, the caution a couple of posts above is correct. If you have written data to your device, you can have a data loss if you just pull the plug without telling Windows first you are going to do so.
 
"I don't do what I'm supposed to do when I unplug my phone, and it makes my computer act weird" is essentially what you said. Try clicking the safely remove hardware prompt, OR just go to the notification bar on your Droid, go to USB, and choose charge only, which unmounts the SD card and does the same thing. If THAT still causes issues, then we might be able to help you. The first thing to do when troubleshooting ANYTHING is remove rookie mistakes from the equation..
 
NiceGuysFinishLast said:
"I don't do what I'm supposed to do when I unplug my phone, and it makes my computer act weird" is essentially what you said. Try clicking the safely remove hardware prompt, OR just go to the notification bar on your Droid, go to USB, and choose charge only, which unmounts the SD card and does the same thing. If THAT still causes issues, then we might be able to help you. The first thing to do when troubleshooting ANYTHING is remove rookie mistakes from the equation..
Click to expand...


"I don't know what's wrong so i'm going to assume it's something you caused" is essentially what you said.


I will note that I did not know about the charge only mode. I think it might be in 'PC mode' by default so I will try 'charge only' and see if that fixes it. Thanks.
 
breNTx22 said:
"I don't know what's wrong so i'm going to assume it's something you caused" is essentially what you said.


I will note that I did not know about the charge only mode. I think it might be in 'PC mode' by default so I will try 'charge only' and see if that fixes it. Thanks.
Click to expand...


No. SPECIFICALLY what I said is that when you're troubleshooting ANYTHING, you remove things that aren't up to standard. There are established procedures that are SUPPOSED to be followed when you do just about anything... If you omit one of the steps and get weird results, the FIRST thing you do is do the process with ALL the steps, to see if your weird result is eliminated.

It wasn't an attack, it was a statement of fact. Have you never tried to fix anything?

If I came to you and said "I bought this toy. It has 5 step directions to become a space ship. If I only do steps 1,2,3, and 5, it doesn't become a space ship!", the first thing you'd say is "Well, try doing ALL the steps", right?
 
I work in IT, I'm very familiar with troubleshooting steps. I just don't know how much weight I put on the "Safely remove hardware" feature. I'm not saying it doesn't work, I just question how much it is needed. I understand the logic that if you unplug it at the wrong time it can cause data loss (or other smaller problems) much like if you hit 'shut down' on your computer but you pull the power cord out before windows has enough time to execute all of the shut down procedures.

My logic is that if I have been pulling out countless devices over a span of ~8 years and i've never had a problem, how necessary can the "safely remove hardware" feature be. But that is neither her nor there.

Is there anyway for me to check what mode i'm in without connecting it to my computer? As I said, I think I may be in PC Mode so I will change it to charge only mode and see if that resolves any issues.
 
breNTx22 said:
I work in IT, I'm very familiar with troubleshooting steps. I just don't know how much weight I put on the "Safely remove hardware" feature. I'm not saying it doesn't work, I just question how much it is needed. I understand the logic that if you unplug it at the wrong time it can cause data loss (or other smaller problems) much like if you hit 'shut down' on your computer but you pull the power cord out before windows has enough time to execute all of the shut down procedures.

My logic is that if I have been pulling out countless devices over a span of ~8 years and i've never had a problem, how necessary can the "safely remove hardware" feature be. But that is neither her nor there.

Is there anyway for me to check what mode i'm in without connecting it to my computer? As I said, I think I may be in PC Mode so I will change it to charge only mode and see if that resolves any issues.
Click to expand...

If you work in IT, then you know where I'm coming from. You assume the customer knows nothing, until they prove otherwise. You start with simple things, and go from there. I'm not saying that it's LIKELY that not switching is causing your issue. I'm saying that GUESSING whether or not it's causing your issue is stupid when we can eliminate it as a culprit very quickly and easily.

I don't think you can check or change what mode you're in until you plug it in via USB. I'm pretty sure that it just defaults to whatever you had it on last.

Just flip it to charge only right before you unplug it next time. Give it a second, as it has to unmount your SD card (You'll probably see a message in your notification bar that says "preparing SD card or something like that)
 
breNTx22 said:
I work in IT, I'm very familiar with troubleshooting steps. I just don't know how much weight I put on the "Safely remove hardware" feature. I'm not saying it doesn't work, I just question how much it is needed.....
Click to expand...
Hmmm... OK. When you plug in your phone, the plug and play USB features recognize the device, check that the proper drivers are loaded, load them if they are not, and (in the case of a smart phone, MP3 player, flash memory drive, etc.) mounts the "drive" as a removable drive so Windows can access it. When you remove the device, Windows undoes all of this... gracefully if you use the safe removal function, ungracefully if you don't. I gather your work in IT does not involve sys admin of Windows systems... not a slam, just an observation.
breNTx22 said:
...As I said, I think I may be in PC Mode so I will change it to charge only mode and see if that resolves any issues.
Click to expand...
Setting it to charge only mode means the SD card is not mounted as a drive, but the phone itself is still mounted. Open "My Computer" and you will see it there even in the charge only mode (at least on Vista that is true).
 
Just an update to anyone who might look in this thread later down the road.

I switched it from 'PC Mode' to 'Charge Only' and I haven't had the problem yet. As I said before, I recently had a day or two where it worked fine then the problem came back again. I will update this thread if the problem makes a come back.

Thanks.
 
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