USB-Cable Reviews

This software says it's supports Windows XP but it does not. Voyetra does not have good customer service. This is what Voyetra had to say about this package:

"The USB Music Studio Kit is compatible with Windows XP. The drivers just aren't XP certified, but that doesn't mean they don't work.

They do work of course, otherwise how could we sell it?"

If you are on XP it will give you a warning that it is not XP certified and it may damage your system.

If you have $50 to gamble on this package then go for it.

I have finally connected my Yamaha PSR-225GM keyboard to my Toshiba XP laptop and now I am recording music directly from the keyboard into MIDI format. The software takes a while to get used to and there are some places where it might have been more user-friendly, but it is powerful and easy to use once you understand it. I like how you can select and move notes, change the length of the notes, change the musical instrument, and print out music. The music recording captured dynamics.

Getting things to work took a lot of time. I spent a few hours and was about to give up. I am still not sure which of the things I tried made the recording to work. I ended up using the Edirol UM-1SX (purchased separately) instead of the USB MIDI cable that came with the studio kit. I configured the keyboard MIDI settings to channel 1 and made sure the MIDI would be sent out. I uninstalled and reinstalled the application. Then tried recording and voila it worked! Used EDIROL as MIDI input and Microsoft MIDI Mapper as MIDI output.

I bought it because I neded USB to MIDI adapter cable to use my older Windows 2000 laptop with my MIDI keyboard. MIDI worked as soon as I installed the software from CD. The only thing I do not like is the registration with included Voyetra Record Producer software, it forces registration throught Internet to be able to use the software or it goes in 30 days demo mode.

This product does work, kinda, and not all of the time. I have found that if you leave your computer on for long periods of time that is seems to forget that it is there and stops functioning. This seems to happen about evey 8 hours. So, I would deffinately NOT recommend this for a person that leaves their computers on for long periods of time unattended.
Also, it seems to make keys stick from time to time, no explination as to why. You'st be typing along and all of the sudden one of your keysssssssssssssss will stick, like that. Annoying.
I would avoid this product unless your desperate, especially at such an high price.

first off, the product definitely works. i can plug my PS2 keyboards into the keyboard connector and type. no problemo. that's fine.

however, all of the keys that manufacturers have been adding to the top of the keyboards do NOT work with this adapter. windows (xp) definitely knows it's a keyboard with those buttons, and i can change what the buttons do in the driver setup, but from what i can tell, the signal can't get to the computer - it's not passed through the USB conversion process.

this was not mentioned anywhere on the cablestogo site before i ordered (i checked). i emailed them about it and they very quickly responded "nope, it doesn't work" (uh, gee, thanks - i knew that already).

so if you just want to type, it works great. if you need those keys, if you're addicted to those buttons up there, they will not work.

I had an intermittment problem where the print server would lock up. I would need to power cycle the router to fix this. Spoke with tech support last night and they had me download the firmware from the D-Link website and reinstall,even though its the same version as what was shipped. Did not work. I then had D-Link exchange my unit. Major hassle to do the exchange. Still have interimitent problem with print server locking up which requires reboot of router. Wireless connection also freezes up from time to time. Overall,not reliable.

The wireless connection has good range in my home. I bought this for the print server. It works well with either my HP PSC 1350 all in one, or my Hp Deskjet 970Cse. I will use this with a laptop so that I can print without docking the laptop.

The only thing that tripped me up was configuring the Windows XP printer port setting. After installing the DLink print server software, the IP address for the printer server port setting automatically defaulted to the correct value, but would not actually work until I typed the value into the field.

Other than that, very good.

This KVM is advertised to work without a power supply under Mac and PC (as specified on the startech.com website) but doesn't. It has a 5v recepticle but doesn't even include a cheapo wall wart. The 5v voltage is not even common enough for Radio Shack to carry them so they are expecting a lot from the end user.

The specific problem is I get a warning from my Macs about too much power being drawn and then the keyboad and/or mouse gets disabled.

I have 2 differnt setups where it fails to work. One consists of a PowerMac G4 and a PowerBook G4 with a ViewSonic 20" monitor, Apple Pro keyboard, and Microsoft Optical Mouse.

The other setup consists of a PowerBook G4, Old Micron Linux box, Sony 17" LCD, Apple Pro keyboard, and a Logitech Optical mouse.

These seem like common configurations so I am wondering if it is defective or unrealistic about its power requirements. I have written startech.com about this issue. I will update this review once I get a response.

This product is great. The picture quality on the monitor is excellent, even without a power adapter. This is the only switch I could find for under $100 that supports USB. Most switches in this price range only support PS/2 mouse/keyboard, but my printer is USB-only, so I needed a switch that supports USB. Startech also makes some cables ...that have monitor and USB bound together which I also bought.

I use this switch for a desktop & a laptop. When I connect my laptop, I just need to plug in the monitor & USB, and I'm ready to go! It's so easy. I just wish it could control audio as well, though there's probably some USB device out there that you could plug into this switch.

The cable setup was a snap and there were no drivers to install. My system recognized the devices automatically.

On the down-side, my laptop (WinXP) is a little slow to recognize the mouse & keyboard when I switch to it. It usually takes about 3 seconds, but can be up to 20 seconds on occasion. Generally it's not long enough to bother me.

On my desktop (Win2000), it recognizes the devices much more quickly, but occasionally crashes the system when I switch to it. I think this only happens when I try to move the mouse or type on the keyboard before it has recognized those devices. Now, I just switch to it, wait a second until I see the mouse's cursor appear on the screen, and I haven't crashed it since. A little annoying, but now that I know how to use it, it's no problem.

After initially thinking this to be a God send I soon found it to be straight from HELL. This items works only sparadically at best. I called tech support took 1 hour on hold. Finally technical help said, "we have had lots of reports of sparadic data flow". In laymens term, it doesn't work all the time. Software is the issue as data seems to get compacted and lost. Unless they come out with a software upgrade steer away from this.

I bought this ethernet adaptor for my laptop to connect to a Linksys cable/dsl router (BEFSR41). The main reason was that this adaptor is a bit cheaper and comes with a CAT-5 cable.

I installed it per instructions, even went on the net to get the latest driver (which turned out to be same as one that came with it in the box) but it just sat there, no network, no connection to the internet. After many hours messing around with it, I did get it to connect to the internet once (loaded one page) then nothing.

I called tech support but after waiting an hour without being able to talk to a real person, I decided to give up. I returned the unit the next day, picked up a Linksys adaptor. With the Linksys adaptor, it took exactly 5 minutes to get my laptop connected and working perfectly. The moral of the story is to stick to one brand of networking devices.

It has been working without any problems so far on my laptop with Win XP Home. The drivers included on floppy were obsolete, but luckily Win XP had a better version in its database. So no installation was needed for it ! Just plug and play. Although in my opinion this peice shouldn't cost more than [$$$]! The companies making these products are ripping off laptop owners thinking all of these are bought by corporate America, which doesn't care for the price !!
Update: I returned this back to Staples. Found another seller on ebay giving me a Belkin one brand new [$$$]with priority shipping. (This confirms my suspicion that this product should cost only around 10 bucks). So guys don't pay 40 bucks for this simple piece of hardware.

As much as I've tried to get my temper under control, the piece of crap from Lexmark has almost sent me over the edge. I've finally given up toady as I ripped the entire unit off my desk, threw it out the door, and commenced to stomp it into oblivion in the driveway, much to the horror of my neighbors.. The paper jams, printing poblems and quality is THE WORST I've ever seen.

This will be my LAST purchase from Lexmark.

My real rating is minus ten stars. >:-<

I'm really surprised to read that anyone is a fan of this printer. I bought this printer after my daughter was born so I could print all her pictures and make photo albums. The paper never feeds properly. I tried everything I could to correct the problem but each time it yanks the paper to one side and reads "error". This is so frustrating. I've never had such a problem with any printer. Recently purchased a HP for a fraction of the price and it works perfectly. I've spent the past few months making those photo albums that Lexmark prevented me from making. This printer is very flawed and I'm not surprised that they no longer sell it. Did Lexmark even check it before manufacturing it and selling them? Can't imagine many of them faired well. Beware of the Lexmark X83!

I am a computer technician and one of my clients had purchased this printer in order to save the space of having multiple pieces of hardware lying around.

When it arrived, I set it up, tested it, and everything seemingly worked fine. The next day I receieved a call that his daughters had [messed] up the printer and he requested I return to repair it.

Once again, after a clean driver install it worked fine. I logged off and back on and it still worked fine. After shutting the computer down and restarting it, the software and driver loaded, but I recieved a "cannot communicate with printer error".

After working on it for an hour or so, attempting every possible solution I knew, and every solution lexmark had to offer (including replacing thier cable with one of my own), the printer still would not work after a restart.

After searching on the web, I found that this was common on about 75-80% of computers running on Windows NT kernal (NT, 2000, and XP).

I must admit, print speed and quality were good (not great), but images seemed oversaturated and the printer used roughly 1/4 tank of ink printing 10 test pages. There was such an excessive amount of ink that you could make copies just by laying the paper on another sheet.

If you dont mind reinstalling the printer each time the computer starts and you dont mind paying [money] in ink for every 50 pages printed then this printer is fine. Otherwise, I'd stay away from this one.

The missing driver that makes this piece of work, well, work on Mac OS X 10.2.+ can be found here:
http://www.sakarhelp.com/support/select.php?step=3&category_id=2&subcategory_id=8&product_id=60446

This adapter works pretty much like every other serial-to-USB device,the driver installs a new COM port that works through the USB bus. You just plug the cable from the cradle into the iConcepts USB Adapter and then plug the USB adapter into a USB port on your computer. You'll have to reconfigure Hot Sync to use the new COM port after installation, but other than that, installation was easy and the device is transparent to the user. I am really satisfied with this product and I have purchased 2 of them and been using it for over a month now with no problems, It works on my MAC and also works with Windows XP, I got the XP Drivers from the fellow over at iConcepts whom was very helpful. There Phone# is 800 637 1090 and ask for customer service(very informative) I'm really not sure why reviewers of other similar devices are so upset that they all work this way, given that the Palm must connect via a serial port.

Switching over to Mac OS X (10.2) from OS 9 was fearful because I thought there was no GPS supported mapping application in OS X.

Well, to my complete surprise, with the eTrex GPS connected to the iConcepts USB-Serial adapter, Street Atlas 6.0 running in Classic mode found the GPS and is more stable than in OS 9.2.2!
I am not sure which driver is being used - the native OS X driver or the OS 9 Extension - I am guessing it is the OS X (10.2) native driver since I have extensions turned off for Classic.

The adapter is smaller in profile than others and is much cheaper - so buy a couple.

This product doesn't work with Apple OS X 10.1.
Amazon and Belkin's manual say it needs Mac OS 8.6 and above.
On the back of package say Mac OS 8.6 - 9.x
I tried to find a drive for OS X on Belkin's web site, but none is available.
I am returning the product.

I could not even get the Targus drivers to install on my Windows XP Home Laptop--had to return product because it did not work.

Belkin has beta drivers for Mac OS X 10.1 and 10.2 at http://www.belkin.com/beta/#1 ... I think the trick (stupid though it is) is to disable HotSync in the HotSync Manager and then re-enable it, after having selected the USB seria port as the desired connection. From what I've seen, you don't even need to quit HotSync Manager between disabling and re-enabling the HotSync.

I cannot speak for PC users, but this product was absolutely worthless on my Mac. Although my computer met all system requirements and I followed the directions, the adapter simply did not work at all. The software included is amateurish and buggy, no user manual was included (despite advertisements to the contrary), and the read-me files contained on the CD were unhelpful and written in broken English. I contacted QVS tech support for assistance, and they attempted to solve my Mac problem based on their (limited) knowledge of the Windows version, because they didn't have access to a Mac. It seemed that anyone with a basic working knowledge of computers would have been better suited to provide tech support. In short, stay far, far away!

Works fine with Win 2000, video capture quality satisfactory, but captured audio doen't have low frequencies.

doesnt work, plain and simple...dont get scammed...I tried everything

In reference to a previous review: OK, granted it's cheap, but it does *not* work. There is a working alternative, though: see later in this review.

My goal was to use an EluminX keyboard (a backlit unit available at a good price from Amazon) with my Playstation2, for use in chatting during Everquest Online Adventure sessions. Previously, I was using an old Gateway USB keyboard, and turning a desk lamp on when I wanted to say something-- not too handy!

For reasons that are shrouded in mystery, the company responsible for the EluminX chose a crusty old IBM-PC interface called PS/2. (And you can imagine the confusion when I asked sales clerks for a device to use a PS/2 keyboard on a PS2.) It's a Mini-DIN similar to the serial connector of an old Macintosh. No problem, though; all you need is a converter-- right?

But not this one.

When connected, the keyboard started glowing, showing that there was power to the device. But, I couldn't type a word. Trying it on a couple of USB-equipped Macs and a Windows computer, the results were the same-- light but no type. Plugging it into the Windows box's PS/2 port showed that the keyboard was, in fact, working.

Not counting those abortions that have dedicated sound volume knobs, or eMail, Web, and other keys, keyboards are as standard as AA batteries. If the Micro Connectors device doesn't translate that, how can it translate something more complex? Sure, I may have got a bum unit, but based on what most of the others here are saying I would consider this to be a waste of seven dollars.

But lo! there is hope! I bought a Radio Shack PS/2 to USB Adapter, part number 26-226. It cost about $13. It worked perfectly in all three places, and now I'm happily chatting while slaying monsters.

Buy the EluminX from Amazon, but buy your converter from Radio Shack.

there is no driver at all.... where can find a driver for it????
I am using win XP system...

any suggestion would be appreciated...