Powered USB hubs - yes or no?

[Max]

Just threw this question at Google and the answer was: today's 3.0 & 3.2 USB ports benefit from powered hubs for printers, storage drives, etc. Unpowered hubs may be used for game controllers.

What say you?

[Drano]

My mobo has a ton of ports on it. I still use a powered hub for my controllers. It's just easier to sort out than in the back of the PC. I have another one I use specifically for my RiftS. While Oculus says it should work on any 3.0 port I had constant random crashes when using the on board ports. Even tried the USB - C port. Never happened again once plugged into the hub. I think it depends on what you plug into it. High draw devices like a VR headset aren't like plugging in a mouse or keyboard current wise.

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[Bizman]

What Drano said.

A lot depends on the USB devices you plug in. Some may use the USB power resources up to the limit. I recall having read about a Saitek stick/HOTAS being quite thirsty...

That said, I've never used one and have rarely had any issues. For what it may be worth I haven't plugged two game controllers to the same dual USB box in hope they'd get a different power line each - the power distribution for USB ports is something that only the manufacturer knows and won't tell! USB 3 should provide more power than USB 2 so if you haven't been using a powered hub before and your peripherals remain the same it doesn't hurt trying to just use the built-in ports. If problems arise, getting a hub is easy.

Storage drives can use a lot of power but you should only plug them in when doing a backup of files. An external drive that's always plugged in is always on which will cause wear. An external spinner is also more prone to accidents which can damage it beyond (inexpensive) repair. And should you get some nasty ransomware on your system, a plugged in external may get locked as well, making your backups futile.

[Brooke]

Many years ago, I had unstable signals from my joystick, which were fixed by using a powered hub.

Now I use a powered hub, just in case.

[save]

I experienced exactly the same as Brooke did.

[Wiley]

The conventional wisdom on Saitek stuff was to use powered hubs.  It's what I always did and never ran into issues.  Apparently the usual issue when a Saitek was power starved was calibration issues.  I would expect if a motherboard is putting out correct USB 3.0 current, it would be no problem to use it.  Although I'd also expect if a motherboard was putting out correct USB 2.0 current, it should theoretically be no problem.  YMMV, but I am using a powered hub.

My VKB's documentation says hubs can introduce unspecified issues.  They recommend going straight to the motherboard.  I hooked mine straight to a USB 2 port and have had no issues with it.

Wiley.

[Drano]

Wiley I have my VKB stick, MFG pedals and CH throttle all plugged into the same powered hub. That's their own hub, nothing else on that one. No problems whatsoever.

I think the issues I had with the RiftS plugging right into the mobo is that it likely literally rides the bleeding edge of what the port is supposed to supply insofar as current goes by spec. I got the Oculus recommended USB 3.0 PCI-E card, which also had a power connector of it's own. Still had problems. Once I put it on a powered hub by itself and isolated the current draw to one device separated from the mobo the problems went away.

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[Shuffler]

I have my controllers on a powered hub. All else plugged in to machine.

[Ack-Ack]

You really shouldn't need to use a powered USB hub anymore, unless you have one of those budget motherboards or an old motherboard that doesn't output the 3.5v necessary through the USB ports on the motherboard.

[Shuffler]

You really shouldn't need to use a powered USB hub anymore, unless you have one of those budget motherboards or an old motherboard that doesn't output the 3.5v necessary through the USB ports on the motherboard.

This is true. I do out of habit as I had it on my old system.

[Drano]

Oh I have a year old X570 board. I know what it's spec'd to put out and there's ports aplenty. But I also know my RiftS crashing issues are a thing of the past since giving them their own hub. No problems at all with anything else plugged into any port on the mobo.

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[Wiley]

Wiley I have my VKB stick, MFG pedals and CH throttle all plugged into the same powered hub. That's their own hub, nothing else on that one. No problems whatsoever.

Yeah.  It looked to me like some kind of CYA thing, logically there should be no problem putting it on a hub.  Was just saying that's what their docs said.

I think the issues I had with the RiftS plugging right into the mobo is that it likely literally rides the bleeding edge of what the port is supposed to supply insofar as current goes by spec. I got the Oculus recommended USB 3.0 PCI-E card, which also had a power connector of it's own. Still had problems. Once I put it on a powered hub by itself and isolated the current draw to one device separated from the mobo the problems went away.

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I've got my Quest 2 straight to the adapter card I had to get to get USB 3 on my Sandy Bridge(!) system, haven't had an issue with it, and the drain if I'm flying AH is only on the order of 5-10% of the battery an hour or so.  It's just running straight off the PCI-E slot, no power connector.

I haven't bought any other link games because I don't think they'd run very well on this system, but I'm going to be getting a new rig as soon as the place I buy from gets stock.  Not going quite top shelf, but I figure a Ryzen 7 3700X and a 3060Ti will keep me going for a while.  IMO going above that gets diminishing returns vs price. Hopefully I'll get another 10 years out of that with a video card upgrade somewhere along the way.

Wiley.

[Eagler]

Powered hub with 2 year old motherboard

Have used one since my saitek X36 days

Eagler

[Pudgie]

Interesting..............

Well I'll fall on the other side as I've used a Belkin ExpressPort 4-port USB 1.1 hub in bus power mode (drew power from the mobo USB cluster) w\ my CH HOTAS for 15+ yrs w\o issue until the Belkin finally gave up the ghost but to be fair the only items plugged into the hub were the CH controllers & this setup was the only USB items plugged into the mobo USB cluster I designated for their use to maintain the necessary power regulation to the hub thus controllers.....just as AckAck has stated.

I ran this config thru 6 different mobos & 3 different power supplies w\o issue so it is possible & does work well but it will depend somewhat on the controllers being used along w\ the quality of the USB hub & it's A-B cable as far as power regulation\usage & signal quality is concerned. I will also agree that using a powered USB hub does give a much wider margin of stability as long as it's power supply isn't overloaded.

Either way it all comes down to quality\capability of power regulation to either make or break the setup. I would imagine that the advent of VR ramps the power usage requirements up a few...........

I now currently run my CH HOTAS off the usually unused 2 internal mobo USB 2.0 headers thru a USB 2.0 4-port slot adapter out the back of my box using 3-3' USB 2.0 extension cables to get the connection points for my CH HOTAS outside of my desk slot so that I can disconnect my controllers w\o having to pull my box out if desired so in effect I'm still using them off the mobo USB 2.0 headers (MSI MPG X570 Gaming Plus) along w\ a Seasonic PRIME Gold 850W PSU feeding it all & they've been rock steady ever since for the last 5-6 yrs.

Hope this helps.