Blackberry - Charged Through USB?
 

Hello,

I'm having trouble finding the box (probably hidden in plain sight amongst all the other boxes) and documentation that came with my Blackberry this evening, so I'll ask here: Can I charge my Blackberry though one of the USB ports on my laptop? Any special drivers required to do this.

I'm off on MOAB2 (Mother Of All Biztrips 2) later in the week and am trying to keep charging bricks to the bear minimum.

Yes you can, though I get faster charges from a desktop than my laptop.

Yes you can BUT you need to have the Blackberry desktop software installed or the driver for the device won't be loaded, meaning it won't power the USB port.

As always, big thanks. The box was indeed in front of me (hidden between the box for my hx4700 and the box for my Nokia N70).

My 7100t does not need the desktop or driver installed to recharge.

I think it's the older 3000- and 4000-series models with a cradle that need the drivers installed. I'm recharging my 7250 from my home PC's USB port without any driver.

Weird, my 7100's, 7290, 8700 all needed the desktop manager installed.

It might be a machine specific thing, some machines won't power on a port until told to do so..

Wirelessly posted (My IV to the Net: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.0) BlackBerry7250/4.0.0 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1)

For my 7250, I have drivers and desktop mngr installed on laptop. Charges fine.
Nothing BB related installed on my desktop and it charges fine, although seems to charge more slowly. No time trials run to confirm though.

Sometimes my 7100g complains that it's not getting enough power when plugged into my laptop when linux is running, but it'll charge (slowly) anyhow. When I'm running the windoze partition, which has desktop installed, it's much happier, and charges very quickly. So there is still something too this driver business.

I have desktop MACs and work and home, and the BB will not complain when charging on them, but charges slowly.

YMMV.

My 7290 doesn't need to have the blackberry software or driver loaded to charge. I use two different laptops to charge my blackberry, and neither have software or driver. Sometimes when I plug it into the usb port, the computer tries to load find or load a driver--but I cancel installation to prevent that. The blackberry still charges fine. In a pinch, I have even charged the blackberry from the computer when the computer is not plugged in--thereby draining the computer battery to charge the blackberry.

I think the USB ports power down or try to IDLE / save power when not in active use w the Blackberry. Hence, depending on how ur USB port behaves.. the s/w driver becomes a KEEP ALIVE factor.