Resolved New Canon scanner turns on whenever desktop woken from sleep

I just got a Canon LiDE 220 scanner. It is working just fine. I do have one question. There is no separate adapter for it--it has a USB cable that connects to the desktop, and that also provides the scanner with power.

When teh desktop is woken up, the scanner itself makes a few sounds.

I'm suspecting that this sound is simply the scanner being turned on--which I'm ok with, as long as this won't prematurely wear out the scanner. I can only assume that it is being turned off when the computer goes to sleep or is shut down. I don't recall hearing these noises with our older HP ScanJet 3500c, which had a separate adapter and was pretty much always plugged in.

Does being turned on and off a lot, hurt a scanner?

 

Just called Canon customer service and they said that it is only 5 volts that goes to teh scanner when this happens, and that it won't hurt it at all.

 

We could do that easily enough if it would help--but do you agree with the statement that this starting of teh scanner whenever the desktop comes out of sleep, won't hurt it?

I'd rather have a second opinion on this. The first time I called Canon's tech support, they assured me that the USB cable was simply A to B, although the cable actually is A to B mini (5 pin).

Some confirmation here would be nice.

 

Interesting. I actually went back and marked this as "unsolved" to see if others want to weigh in on this.

As I said, my poor experience with Canon tech support the first time is making me wonder if they gave me bad advice.

 

I would make sure that scanner is plugged into a separate pair of USB ports, or better yet, a self powered USB hub. The specs claim "Max. Power Consumption 2.5W (1.4W Standby) ". USB 2.0 provides a maximum of 2.5W.

I used to be the same way. But back in the good ol' days, all HDs were designed for 24/7 operation and let's face it, sleep modes with Windows XP and before were not that reliable.

But Windows 7 and Windows 8 (and now W10) are NOT XP. And most drives in home computers are not "enterprise class" HDs. Tree huggers have been successful (and rightfully so) at influencing "green" practices.

So since migrating W7 in Oct 2009 (I never went to Vista), I have all my W7 and W8 PCs set to use "hybrid" sleep mode with no regrets. Note "hybrid" sleep was designed specifically for PCs. Hybrid sleep takes advantage of the ATX Form Factor requirement for ATX PSUs to provide +5Vsb standby voltage to across several points on a PC's motherboard (including the RAM) whenever the PC is simply shutdown.

The worst case scenario I have seen with hybrid sleep mode is upon occasion - typically after several weeks with no reboots or shutdowns, the PC will not go to sleep. The monitors will, and drives will, but not the computer itself. But a simple reboot has always cleared that.

I think it is important to keep in mind that what was necessary with XP and before is probably not with modern OSes like W7/8/10. MS has had a lot of time to sort those type issues out, and has done a pretty good job of doing just that. And so have the hardware makers.

 

For what it's worth, my Dell PC speakers are powered via USB as well. This is the first time I have ever seen such a thing like this, but these speakers do a fairly decent job from such a small voltage source.

I know my comments may be a little off topic, but I like the idea of not having another AC cord to deal with.

As for Canon support, their printer / scanner depart has been a big help to me, but their camera department was not so good.

 

Nobody likes a big rat's nest of dusty cables under/behind their desk. The problem with powering all these devices through the USB ports is this puts a greater demand on the motherboard and its regulator circuits, not to mention the computer's PSU. If you have speakers, external drives, thumb drives, scanners, wireless network adapters, wireless keyboard and mouse adapters and more all powered by the USB bus, that could end up with a big demand on the circuits - like plugging in too many Christmas lights.

Unless your motherboard has USB ports designated for USB Charging, I would be cautious about how many USB devices are connected to the computer.

 

From what has been said above, it appears that chances are it won't matter, but just to be on the safe side, I'll keep it unplugged until those occasions that we need it. If we used it all the time, it might be more convenient to keep it plugged in, but I'll err on the side of caution here--as it really won't be used more than once a week, so no need to keep it turned on all day long every day.