multi port USB hubs question

[Walter Goldschmidt]

I recently received a multi port USB hub and plugged it into my laptop. It
seemed like a good idea as I only had 2 USB ports on my computer. This gave
me 4 where before I only had 1 which made a total of 5. I plugged a new
external DVD burning drive into one of the multi ports ports. The drive used
2 ports, 1 for drive and 1 for drives power. I also plugged 2 external hard
drives into the other 2 ports. The burning drive would not work and 1 of the
external hard drives was not detected in computer. I worked on this problem
all day surfing web for answers and finally got online with Microsoft
support and chatted with a tech. He took control of my computer and did some
troubleshooting for 3 hours. Nothing he did helped. I got to thinking about
the multi port USB hub and unplugged it from computer. Then I plugged the
burning drive directly into the computer using both USB ports on computer.
It worked flawlessly. Is this typical of these hubs or do I just have a
cheap one and need a better one. I think my ports on my computer weren't
generating enough power to run all the devices. Any information on this
would be very helpful.

Walt

 

[Richard Urban]

Please think about what you just wrote. You have a drive that has 2 USB
connectors (to plug into 2 individual USB ports). The reason is that one USB
port may not be capable of supplying sufficient to run the drive, hence the
second cable.

Now you plug both of these cables into a USB hub that is, in turn, connected
to 1 (ONE) USB port.

You are overloading the single USB port and are lucky that you didn't burn
out the port on your computer.

You need a USB hub with an external power supply to do what you want to do.

 

[Walter Goldschmidt]

Your replies make complete sense to me but I didn't know about hubs with
their own power supply. As a matter of fact this is the first time I've ever
been involved with this device, Thanks for the education.

Walt

 

[smlunatick]

Your replies make complete sense to me but I didn't know about hubs with
their own power supply. As a matter of fact this is the first time I've ever
been involved with this device, Thanks for the education.

Walt

FYI: There are two main types of USB hubs. One type is a hub that
just plugs in and uses the USB too power the other USB devices that
you connect to it. These are very useful when travelling since they
do not have the bulky power supplies.

The second type and possibly a "better" type are the powered hubs.
These come with a bulky "sqarish" transformer to provide additional
power to other devices.

Hard drives and DVD / CD burners tend to require more power than flash
drives.