Powered usb issues

[Frodo]

Wanted to post this in case anyone else has issues.

I got a new computer and also bought a powered usb hub for my controllers. With my other computers this was the way to go. I had all kinds of strange issues with my controllers. Wouldn't hold settings and copying my back up settings folder wouldn't always fix issues. Short story is I plugged all controllers into computer and solved the issues. So either the newer systems don't like the usb hub or I got a bad one. So if you are having issues like this, keep this in mind.

 

[xanax]

Wanted to post this in case anyone else has issues.

I got a new computer and also bought a powered usb hub for my controllers. With my other computers this was the way to go. I had all kinds of strange issues with my controllers. Wouldn't hold settings and copying my back up settings folder wouldn't always fix issues. Short story is I plugged all controllers into computer and solved the issues. So either the newer systems don't like the usb hub or I got a bad one. So if you are having issues like this, keep this in mind.

 

I had this exact issue the Thursday night flying with Mols and Yoyo. Was tooling around in a FW and lost all input except mouse and keyboard. All my HOTAS stuff was plugged into a powered hub. Turns out the hub may have been approaching 15 years old and just stopped working with all my VKB stuff and head tracking plugged in. I scouted some of the gaming Reddits and whatnot and bought an oft-mentioned one from Amazon. It was supposed to be here today but nope, still out for delivery. I did learn it's wise to use the USB ports with the blue tab on the back of the PC as they are for the stuff needing more power. My PC only has 2 of those ports.

I thought it might be because was flying a plane with cannons for once rather than 50's and it overwhelmed my rig along with my psyche.

[Bizman]

There's several reasons why even a powered USB hub won't work. In Frodo's case it might just be a lemon. For older ones like the 15 year old Xanax mentioned the power supply is the main suspect. Electronic components start to degrade after a decade and in case of a tiny power supply/charger the capacitors may not be of the highest quality to start with. Poor ventilation around them shortens their life quite dramatically - and isn't it convenient to hide them into a cable management box that will keep all excess heat inside?!?

The blue USB connectors are a sign of USB 3 which can deliver almost twice the power compared to the more traditional USB 2. Some motherboard manufacturers also have red ones which are basically the same as the blue ones but may provide charging power even when the computer is shut down. Bear in mind, though, that adjacent slots in reality are just one USB split into two. For data transfer they act as two but they share the very same limited power resources.

Regarding powered USB hubs, there may be ones that don't add much power - a single ampere split into four is actually the same as that of a split USB 2 port!

[SNO]

Any advantage to using a pci usb card vs a powered external hub ?

[Eagler]

Any advantage to using a pci usb card vs a powered external hub ?

You don't have to open your computer case with the hub

Eagler

[Bizman]

You don't have to open your computer case with the hub

Then again, with the PCI card you don't have to worry about the small power supply falling off the wall or hub, nor do you have to worry about it breaking. PCI can deliver quite a lot of power, hopefully the maximum nominal power to each slot.

[Animl-AW]

All electronics hate heat. Every time it heats up the metals will develop resistance. The more resistance the hotter it gets, the spiral progresses until a diode burns out. A diode is a type of switch in the circuit board. It regulates power/signal. On/off.

USB port can drop out on the MB, try a different port. If another port does the same the hub is probably bad.

[Animl-AW]

Then again, with the PCI card you don't have to worry about the small power supply falling off the wall or hub, nor do you have to worry about it breaking. PCI can deliver quite a lot of power, hopefully the maximum nominal power to each slot.

Gonna check into this

[Bizman]

Gonna check into this

When you do, please inform. There's lots of things I don't even know how to ask about them.

[Animl-AW]

in simple terms...

Basically, all USB devices on the same controller share bandwidth. If you add an external hub it will be sharing bandwidth with all the other devices plugged into it.

If you add an internal controller (note: not a hub) then it has its own bandwidth, allowing you to level out high bandwidth devices across multiple controllers. With an internal card each port would (presumably) be separately addressable, and could run at full bandwidth. It has a more direct connection to the CPU. Therefore latency should be lower, speed and power would be more stable/consistent.

Would you notice the difference? Depends on what you're doing with those ports. If you're copying large amounts of data between two external USB drives then I'd say yeah, you'd probably notice the difference.

With sims, stick, throttle, pedals and sound data is flowing constantly.

These cards have a wide range in their abilities, as well as the price...$25-150.

Also, with internal and external you can get more separation and less sharing of data flow

[Animl-AW]

a little trick from my page below

Disable Universal Serial Bus Controllers sleep mode

How to disable USB ports from automatically entering sleep mode on Windows. When the USB port enters sleep mode, it can cause a peripheral to “time out” and become unresponsive to the operating system.

1) Right Click the Start Menu Icon on lower left of screen. Select Device Manager to open it.

2) Scroll to the bottom and click the arrow next to Universal Serial Bus Controllers to expand the list.

3) Right click each item that has HUB in it and select Properties

4) Click the Power Management tab.

5) Make sure the Allow computer to turn off this device to save power box is unchecked on all HUBs that allow it.

6) Click OK to close the window.

[hazmatt]

Some motherboard manufacturers also have red ones which are basically the same as the blue ones but may provide charging power even when the computer is shut down.

I had wondered about those red ones a couple times but never enough to actually research it. Now I know! Thanks

[Bizman]

in simple terms...

Basically, all USB devices on the same controller share bandwidth. If you add an external hub it will be sharing bandwidth with all the other devices plugged into it.

If you add an internal controller (note: not a hub) then it has its own bandwidth, allowing you to level out high bandwidth devices across multiple controllers. With an internal card each port would (presumably) be separately addressable, and could run at full bandwidth. It has a more direct connection to the CPU. Therefore latency should be lower, speed and power would be more stable/consistent.

Would you notice the difference? Depends on what you're doing with those ports. If you're copying large amounts of data between two external USB drives then I'd say yeah, you'd probably notice the difference.

With sims, stick, throttle, pedals and sound data is flowing constantly.

These cards have a wide range in their abilities, as well as the price...$25-150.

Also, with internal and external you can get more separation and less sharing of data flow

The bandwidth thing is easy to understand as pci-e is made for fast speed. Even if the bandwidth is shared between the four ports of a pcie card it would exceed the nominal bandwidth of any USB on the motherboard. And as you said, an external hub is sharing the bandwidth of a single port. I guess bandwidth is rarely an issue even when duplicating external disks. Noticeable, maybe, but not critical.

But how about power delivery? That's what causes the brownouts. Do internal pcie USB cards provide full power to each of the four ports?