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I have a USB powered DVD drive connected to my laptop. I put a DVD in and left the room. Didn't come back till a few hours later. When I came back I found the DVD drive continuously trying to spin-up but failing. I guess the single USB port wasn't able to provide enough power (I found a "Y" cable which solved the issue).

So what actually happens when a device tries to draw too much power from a USB port? Can that actually damage a USB port or the motherboard in any way?

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  • Sheesh, I just looked at the tiny label on the back of the DVD drive. It says 5V 2.0A. Wow. This thing can pull 2A?! That means only 2 x USB 3.0 ports can properly power this thing. You're screwed if you try use USB 2.0 ports. Correct me if I'm wrong.
    – misha256
    Oct 22, 2015 at 9:46
  • In most cases a motherboard manufacture is going to design the circuit to avoid this. This can be done with a simple resistor. What can or will happen depends on the situation though.
    – Ramhound
    Oct 22, 2015 at 10:53
  • Properly designed boards will have either a fuse or regulated output or both to prevent it ever supplying enough power to damage itself. Of course, anything can still fail, including failsafes.
    – qasdfdsaq
    Oct 22, 2015 at 12:39

1 Answer 1

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If a device tries to pull too much power on a Windows Machine one of the two following responses should happen:

  1. The Machine shuts down instantly.
  2. The USB port/bus is disabled and windows will give you a message saying something along the lies of "Power Surge on Hub Port or USB device has exceeded the power limits of it's hub port"

A simple way around this is a powered USB hub, this way any power surge does not affect your computer.

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