Answers...

to commonly asked questions.

Final Cut Pro keeps asking for serial number

I keep getting this message:

"Because a USB device was drawing too much power from your computer, one or more of your USB devices have been disabled."

Can you advise me on what's wrong and how i might fix it? Googling for answers, i have followed suggestions to unplug for a while but no luck so far.
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Ever since Apple has been making iPods, iPhones, and iPads each new device often requires a different amount of electricity to charge it sufficiently. The new iPad Air requires 12 volts where the older iPhones required 5 I believe. We go through more portable devices than we do computers, so often the computer is a little out of date with the needs of our portable devices.

If you use a usb hub on your mac, then it’s best that it be a powered hub. In other words, one that plugs into the wall as well as your computer. This gives us a better chance of charging a device. By the way, forget about the usb ports on the sides of a wired keyboard. Those supply very little power and have no good way of charging. Those would work for printers or scanners but that’s about it. Maybe a flash drive.
By the way, even different usb ports on your laptop or mac have different wattage output. You may notice that your iPhone charges faster on one port than it does on another.

So to more directly answer your question, sounds like you are plugging up too many usb devices without giving them more power to pull from. Try getting a usb hub that plugs into the wall as well. But keep in mind, Apple changes the power requirements of iOS devices so often these days, you’re bound to see this issue again down the road. Even certain Apple cables will not charge newer devices.

The price of progress.
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