My Little Tragedy

[elerouxx 0]

Hey there! So... I am a new (two days old) user of the Surface Pro.

 

I've been always in love of wacom penabled tablet pcs, long before the concept of a 'tablet'. 

I have been using a Dell Latitude 10 (Atom powered) tablet with wacom technology. I love that one, despite its performance and limitations - the battery lasts forever!

 

But I decided to finally go for real power, found a used (as new) Surface Pro 1 and bought it on Saturday.

 

 

My debut with the Surface Pro was, however, a little tragic. In only one day, I managed to burn out  the USB PORT!  I was messing with a cheap USB 3.0 HUB, it seems that the HUB was broken, even so I insisted by connecting a external power source to the HUB. Nothing. And that evening I realized no device or pen-drive was working  Finally I concluded that I fried the port, in that regrettable instant. No UNDO.

 

 

It took me two days to get over it, forgive myself for being such an idiot, and take it to the light side.

 

I don't think fixing the usb port will be possible. However, this is still a very cool piece of hardware, a great tablet. I almost never use the USB port anyway, I store everything in the cloud.

So I will take this as an "introductory" Surface Pro, until I'm able to get a new one, maybe the SP3 in about a year or so.

 

And now, to install the apps! Blender and After Effects are waiting!

Edited December 1, 2014 by elerouxx

[callihan44 4]

One thing to try is factory reset the tablet

[elerouxx 0]

Thank you! I did that already. However the problem seems physical. 

 

Yesterdey I found out that the DATA part of the usb port still works. The problem was that the cheap HUB I powered and connected to it, provided energy into the VCC pin of the port, and apparently burned out the ability of the Surface to provide the energy to any device, even a simple flash drive. The energy on the hub should NEVER provide energy INTO the usb port.

 

I wish the Surface was easy to open and take a look inside. I am sure I would be able to draw the 5V power from anywhere else to the port. But the Surface Pro is GLUED tight - I saw that in a scary "tearing apart the Surface" instructable on the internet.

 

Another partial solution would be to build some kind of USB adaptor that connects to the USB port but draws the power from somewhere else. Maybe even another connector from the USB that provides energy. 

 

Or, at least, use the USB power connector from the AC adaptor/charger of the Surface to provide energy to a PROPER powered hub. I mean, it's a shame to lose the ability of using simple USB devices on the surface, but at least I could access external drives when the Surface is sitting on the table, connected to external power and hub. (Some kind of "docked" mode).

 

Ahhhh... still feel so much regret of breaking this thing. I hope I learned my lesson.

Edited December 3, 2014 by elerouxx