Generic USB 2.0 hub showing up as USB 1.1

  • Thread starter Thread starter Yousuf Khan
  • Start date Start date
in message




Sounds like it is time to toss the flaky old USB hub and get an new
one for $7.
Click to expand...

I was thinking the same thing, but it sounded too simple. ;-) I
found one model I liked (seven-ports, two on top) so bought a
spare, just in case. I can't even buy the wall wart that came with
it for $7.
 
in message
I was thinking the same thing, but it sounded too simple. ;-) I
found one model I liked (seven-ports, two on top) so bought a
spare, just in case. I can't even buy the wall wart that came with
it for $7.
Click to expand...

There are usually price breaks for products after which the rise in
price is almost logarithmic. 4-port USB hubs are most common and
probably where you get the best price break per port. Of course,
popular branding will cost you.

A self-powered 4-port USB hub (which obviously includes the power
adapter) starts at $5 (and Iogear is an okay brand). A 7-port USB hub
(for a brand that I've heard of) runs about $20. It's just like CPUs:
you'll find a sweet price break afterwhich the jumps in price far
outstrips the meager increase in speed.

Sounds like you're trying to replace both USB hubs with one.
 
in message
$7? Where can you get it for $7?
Click to expand...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...&bop=And&Order=PRICE&SrchInDesc=4-port&Page=1

(or short URL = http://preview.tinyurl.com/3yx48d)

However, many are bus-powered (which they misname as self-powered) or
require the addition of an "optional" power adapter (at further
expense, of course). I noticed the cheapest 4-port USB 2.0 hub in the
list that includes the power adapter is $11 (but I've never heard of
the Anywhere brand). The next one up is the Rosewill for a $1 more.
So the $5 and $7 models are those that are bus-powered or don't
include the power adapter, sorry. It's possible you could reuse the
old power adapter provided it supplied the correct voltage and also
could push out the required milliamps.
 
in message


There are usually price breaks for products after which the rise in
price is almost logarithmic. 4-port USB hubs are most common and
probably where you get the best price break per port. Of course,
popular branding will cost you.
Click to expand...

I paid $7 for the hub *AND* wall wart. That's my point. I wasn't
near it when I posted earlier, but it's a Belkin.
A self-powered 4-port USB hub (which obviously includes the power
adapter) starts at $5 (and Iogear is an okay brand). A 7-port USB hub
(for a brand that I've heard of) runs about $20. It's just like CPUs:
you'll find a sweet price break afterwhich the jumps in price far
outstrips the meager increase in speed.
Click to expand...

How about "Belkin"? BTW, NewEgg is Charging $30 now for the silver
version:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817394056
Sounds like you're trying to replace both USB hubs with one.
Click to expand...

Huh? I said nothing about replacing anything. I did mention that
I bought a spare (nice hub for what I paid, why not?).
 
in message
$7? Where can you get it for $7?
Click to expand...


(Microsoft's NNTP is being stubborn again and accepting but not
submitting some posts, so I'll try this again.)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...&bop=And&Order=PRICE&SrchInDesc=4-port&Page=1

(or short URL = http://preview.tinyurl.com/3yx48d)

However, many are bus-powered (which they misname as self-powered) or
require the addition of an "optional" power adapter (at further
expense, of course). I noticed the cheapest 4-port USB 2.0 hub in the
list that includes the power adapter is $11 (but I've never heard of
the Anywhere brand). The next one up is the Rosewill for a $1 more.
So the $5 and $7 models are those that are bus-powered or don't
include the power adapter, sorry. It's possible you could reuse the
old power adapter provided it supplied the correct voltage and also
could push out the required milliamps.
 
VanguardLH said:
Are both of these a self-powered hub (i.e., they have a power adapter) or
a low-power hub that relies on the current supplied from the USB
controller at the motherboard? If they are bus-powered hubs, they CANNOT
be on the same USB controller. Each controller provides 2 ports
(channels) but these 2 ports still share the same controller and so both
are limited by a total amperage that can be supplied by the same
controller.
Click to expand...

Sorry, but that isn't true. Bus powered hubs are deliberately limited to
100mA per port precisely so that they don't exceed the 500mA available from
the root hub port. You can connect 8 of them to the 8 ports of the USB2
enhanced root ports if you want to. The current available from any root
port is 500mA per port regardless of what is connected to the others. In
practice you can get a bit more than that before the over current protection
kicks in. Current not used on one port does not become available to the
others because the over current protection is implimented on a per port
basis.

Of course, what you can't do is to *cascade* bus powered hubs.
 
Yousuf Khan said:
I have two generic 4-port USB hubs that are supposed to be USB 2.0
compliant. The older one is fine, works as advertised. Meanwhile the newer
one sometimes shows up under the USB 2.0 root hub (i.e. "Standard Enhanced
PCI to USB Host Controller"), or usually it shows up under the slower
"Standard OpenHCD USB Host Controller" (USB 1.1).

My motherboard (Asus M2NPV-VM) USB ports are all USB 2.0 compliant, and
they individually auto-detect whether they need to switch down to USB 1.1
speeds. I'm using a Microsoft tool called UVCView under Windows XP to
display the details of the USB devices, including the hubs and roothubs.

According to UVCView, the older hub and newer hub seem to have the same
chipset vendor (idVendor = "Genesys Logic, Inc."), although externally
they look quite different and have different brand names. So I'm not sure
why one would be consistently USB 2.0 compliant, while the other one is
not.

Now another interesting thing I noticed is that the inconsistent hub will
only show up as USB 2.0-compliant after I boot into Windows after having
previously rebooted from Ubuntu 7.10 Linux (dual-boot system). So maybe
Linux does something to the device that puts it right. But when I list the
devices while in Linux I see that it is listed under USB 1.1 just like
when in Windows. I have no idea why Linux leaves the hub fixed for
Windows, but doesn't fix it for itself?!
Click to expand...

There are actually surprisingly few different chipsets despite the wide
variety of different looking hubs. I would suggest that you problem hub
either has a poor cable connection or that the hub chipset itself is very
close to being detected as poor USB2 operation in which case it reverts back
to USB1.

Hubs are cheap enough these days that it is simplest just to replace it.
 
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