Connecting an Interactive Whiteboard to a Computer

Connecting an Interactive Whiteboard to a computer

Connecting an Interactive Whiteboard to a computer.

Connections

Interactive Whiteboards can be connected in one of two ways to your computer, either by a USB connector,

or by a Serial connector.

Drivers

A “Driver” is computer program that lets the computer communicate with an external device such as a Printer or Interactive Whiteboard.

The easiest way to understand the function of a Driver is to think of it as an Interpreter. Imagine that your computer only speaks Swedish and your Printer only speaks Russian. To allow the two to communicate you need something to translate Swedish to Russian and then Russian to Swedish. This is what a Driver does.

Drivers are very specific, a different driver will be needed for each type of printer you install, even if they are made by the same company.

Following the above analogy, each new development in printers, for example, means that a new dialect of Russian is created. You therefore need a different interpreter to do the translating.

Make sure the appropriate Driver is loaded before you plug in any connecting leads to the Interactive Whiteboard.

Power Supply

The Interactive Whiteboard needs its own power supply. You can tell if the Interactive Whiteboard is on by looking at the light in the top left hand corner.

Make sure the Interactive Whiteboard is on before you connect the cable to the computer.

If the correct driver is installed, power is going to the Interactive Whiteboard and you are using the appropriate cable, the Interactive Whiteboard will work.

What do you do if it doesn’t?

The most common problem when using laptops is that the computer fails to recognise that the Interactive Whiteboard is connected.

Two things to look for that show the computer is not connected to the board.

The message “Promethean Hardware not Detected” when you load the software it means that the computer cannot find the Interactive Whiteboard.

Similarly, having this symbol in the bottom right hand corner of your screen means that the computer cannot connect to the Interactive Whiteboard.

First check that power is getting to the Interactive Whiteboard by looking at the light in the top left hand corner.

Then trace the cable from the computer back to the wall box to make sure that the cable is properly connected and is of the appropriate type, i.e. USB or Serial.

Check that the wall box is switched to the side your computer is plugged in to. You will find the switch at the bottom of the box.

If the switch is pointing to the wrong side you may have to turn the computer off and then re-start it to establish connection with the Interactive Whiteboard.

If all the connections are correct, the switch is properly set and there is power to the board, the next step will depend if you have a Serial or USB connection.

Serial

Problems with Serial Interactive Whiteboards are usually due to the computer “forgetting” which socket it is using to connect to the Interactive Whiteboard.

Move the pointer to the Whiteboard Icon in the bottom right hand corner and click the right mouse button.

A short menu will appear.

Move the pointer over “Configure” and click the left mouse button.

This should open the control box. Move the pointer onto the arrow head next to the ACTIVEdevice port and click the left mouse button.

From the list select “Search” by clicking on it with the left mouse button. Search is at the top of the list so you may need to use the slider to scroll up.

Finally click on “Start” with the left mouse button.

This should re-establish the connection between the computer and the board.

USB

Occasionally the computer forgets which USB driver to use. In order to make the following changes you must have administrator’s rights on your computer.

Click on the Start Button in the bottom left hand corner of the screen and click on Control Panel.

Find the “System” Icon and double click on it to open the System Properties window.

Click on the “Hardware” Tab.

Click on “Device Manager”

You will be shown a list of all the devices attached to the computer. One of them should have a yellow flag to show that this is the problem.

You may have to open the Human Interface Drives by clicking on the +

Move the pointer over the yellow flagged device and click the right mouse button.

This opens a menu. Move down to Properties and click the left mouse button.

You should now have the USB Human Interface Device Properties window.

Click on the “Driver Tab”.

Click on the “Update Driver” button.

Click in the “Install from a list” circle.

Then click on Next.

You will be asked where you want to install the driver from.

Click in the circle next to “Don’t search”.

You will be asked to select which driver you want to use.

Click on USB ACTIVboard.

You will get a warning.

Click “Continue Anyway”.

The driver will be installed.

At the end of the process you will be asked to restart the computer.

The above has been sufficient to address every problem we have faced with Interactive Whiteboards.

Should you experience difficulty following these instructions or find that they do not address your problems please contact your technical support provider.

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