Experiences with USB hubs? Anyone have serious problems?

[Mattiekrome]

Hi all, just a quick question about USB hubs that I would think some of you probably have encounted before.

I'm planning on building a portable CP in the coming month, and would like to have the following plugged into a 7 port USB hub (then all I would have to worry about would be plugging one USB cable into the PC)...

- Ipac2
- USB spinner
- USB trackball
- 4 GB flashdrive
- USB mini keyboard

This may be wishful thinking, but would a 7 port USB hub be able to run all of these without an external power supply?  I know about the Milliamp ratings and all that, but I would like first hand accounts of success or failures in this type of setup.  I'm trying to avoid having to plug up an AC adapter (in addition to the USB hub) every time I want to play.  Also, has anyone gotten any IRQ conflicts while using a setup similar to this?  If so, was it an easy fix?  Thanks in advance!   

[divemaster127]

I am some issues like this before I ended up going to a powered hub & it fixed my problems
dm

[missioncontrol]

you are going to need to get  powered hub...

The keyboard and trackball will most likely pull most of the power

[lanman31337]

I had problems with the TOPGUN guns with a crappy usb hub.  It would break the port and I'd have to restart.

[u_rebelscum]

- Ipac2
- USB spinner
- USB trackball
- 4 GB flashdrive
- USB mini keyboard

This may be wishful thinking, but would a 7 port USB hub be able to run all of these without an external power supply?

No, a bus powered (powered through the usb cable from computer) hub is only supposed to support 4 other USB devices.  You're trying to hook up 5 devices.

USB current (related to power) is allocated in units of 100 mA up to a maximum total of 500 mA per port. Therefore a compliant bus powered hub can have no more than four downstream ports and cannot offer more than four 100 mA units of current in total to downstream devices (since one unit is needed for the hub itself). If more units of current are required by a device than can be supplied by the port it is plugged into, the operating system usually reports this to the user.

Just power the hub.

I had problems with the TOPGUN guns with a crappy usb hub.  It would break the port and I'd have to restart.

AFAIK, the topguns are very power hungry, so much so to basically be out of USB spec.

[SavannahLion]

There are reports here on the forum of the USB devices re-arranging themselves when Windows restarts.

I can't recall the exact details of the posts though. Using a powered hub and keeping it powered was deemed to be the only viable workaround, but that probably won't be a good option in your case.

[Fozzy The Bear]

There are reports here on the forum of the USB devices re-arranging themselves when Windows restarts.

I can't recall the exact details of the posts though. Using a powered hub and keeping it powered was deemed to be the only viable workaround, but that probably won't be a good option in your case.

Yeah that relates to Windows XP which dynamically assigns USB devices. Thus screwing your setup in Mame every time something gets plugged or unplugged.

Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)

[Mattiekrome]

Wow, thanks for the info everyone, looks like I have some more planning to do :/

And while we're at it, I found a thread elsewhere on the forum that deals with flush mount USB connections.  They look super professional, and will probably use something like that in my CP somewhere.  The question is, does anyone know if its possible to take a standard AC adapter, cut the wire in half, then splice some type of connector in line so it can be plugged and unplugged?  I had originally thought of trying something like this in order to have a "clean" way of plugging an AC adapter into something hidden inside of my CP.  Is that confusing?  I've looked online, and dont think I'm looking for the right search terms, since I have yet to really find anything close to what I'm looking for. 

[ahofle]

They sell male/female connectors for those DC adapter wall warts at radio sack.  You'll find them near all the other DC adapters.  You can just splice them inline with the hub power cable.

[richms]

If the hub doesnt know its powered then windows will still report overloads when you connect a second hub to it since it believes it still only has the 500mA that the port supplies.

You could get a powered hub and hook the DC in socket back to the 5v and ground from the computer on the USB cable and essentially overload the motherboard port, should be fine since there is loads of junk sold that pulls an amp upwards from those ports like cup heaters and feet warmers and other crap.