MacBook – Connecting any device to wired Keyboard USBs makes it stop working

keyboardmacbook prousb

I have an Apple Keyboard with Numeric Keypad and a MacBook Pro (early 2015) with Yosemite (10.10.5).

This keyboard comes with two 2.0 USB ports, which, as per own product description, states:

enable you to connect your mouse as well as a high-speed peripheral such as a digital camera or printer.

Every time I connect anything to these ports, the keyboard stops working (and of course, the connected device won't work either in almost all cases).

I tried different USB flash drives from different brands and sizes (1GB, 8GB), 1TB external drive, charge my headphones.. nothing.

Is there anything to be done in order to make the USB ports work in MacBook Pro (a hidden "use full power on usb" hidden feature perhaps)?


Oddity: One thing I discovered while testing was that if I plug iPhone on the right slot then the external hdd on the left, keyboard will work while hdd mounts and iPhone charges. But if I only plug one of them (hdd, headphones, etc), keyboard dies. I tested once in iMac and worked fine though. Is it broken perhaps?

Best Answer

I think the keyboard is not usb upward compatible so you might need to pay attention to USB 2 or USB 3 connection.