re the USB problem: i changed the USB socket i plug the DUE into and also found a "better" USB cable. the better cable alone was not enough to fix the problem but changing sockets seems to be what was needed. i don't know if this is a Toshiba computer problem or a win 7 problem but using the high current USB socket was the problem. the Toshiba notebook has two sockets with 500 MA USB power and one with something like 1000 or 1500 ma. i chose the higher current one because i have an LCD display and a couple of encoders connected to the development "shield" so wanted all the power i could get. well... it works just fine on the lower power sockets and extremely unreliably on the high current socket.