Recently I bought a Hard Drive Docking Unit from MSY computer, this unit comes from China, and although many places sell them I think this is where it is made
YPZ-168UH —— Guangzhou Tengzhan Electronics Co., ltd
Anyhow, the problem with it is when a SATA HDD is plugged in and Windows detects it the drive after some times is not available, and other times Windows reports the device as faulty.
The worst problem is when shutting down the computer, once the computer shuts down this unit leaks enough power out from the USB in to the computers USB that it seems to be attempting to keep it powered up, for example my DVD Burner LED blinks and the HDD LED on the computer stays on. If I pull the power plug from the unit the computer goes off completely.
I opened the thing up to check for bad solder joints but the best I can tell is it's all ok, I got 2 of these (one for a friend) and it does the same thing, so I suspect a design flaw.
The socket they use for power is a 6 pin mini din connector, it is totaly useless and not a good fit, so I bought a 5 pin din plug from Dick Smiths and wired that in, bigger pins and tighter fit stopped a problem of the plug falling out but didn't fix the power leak problem (which I thought was from a faulty plug socket). I only modified one of this units not both so I am sure it is not my handy work at fault.
When the power is unplugged the 3 USB ports on the back work as a USB Hub should, the problem is only when the power is plugged in for the HDD.
Does anyone have some suggestions what I can look at to stop this power leak in to the USB ports.