Question Regarding USB Hubs.

Hypomixolydian · Post by **Hypomixolydian** » Fri Jul 29, 2005 3:58 am

Hello all,

I am running out of USB ports on my laptop. Of course I know that the solution is buy a hub. However I have heard that hubs can be problematic. First of all I would prefer not to buy a powered hub if I can avoid it. It just means another thing to plug into a wall socket.
Before I go out and buy a hub, do you think that a hub would be able to deal with two dongles (needed for Logic 5.5.1 and Cubase SX 3), a Novation X-Station 25, an external hard disc, a mouse and external floppy drive (that I very rarely use, but comes in handy sometimes).

Which of those devices I mentioned would need their own dedicated hub and which can share a hub without problems? At the moment I have 4 usb ports on my laptop and everything runs smoothly. The only thing that needs to be powered is the external hard disc.

PS. One more question. If I dedicate a usb port for a particular device, should I always use that same port every time I plug it in or can I plug it into any other different port without hassles?

Thanks in advance for your responses and please respond quickly as I need to buy one today. Plus which is a good brand, or doesn't it matter?

DJ VAKIS · Post by **DJ VAKIS** » Fri Jul 29, 2005 5:46 am

Astral Fridge Magnet wrote:Hello all,

I am running out of USB ports on my laptop. Of course I know that the solution is buy a hub. However I have heard that hubs can be problematic. First of all I would prefer not to buy a powered hub if I can avoid it. It just means another thing to plug into a wall socket.
Before I go out and buy a hub, do you think that a hub would be able to deal with two dongles (needed for Logic 5.5.1 and Cubase SX 3), a Novation X-Station 25, an external hard disc, a mouse and external floppy drive (that I very rarely use, but comes in handy sometimes).

Which of those devices I mentioned would need their own dedicated hub and which can share a hub without problems? At the moment I have 4 usb ports on my laptop and everything runs smoothly. The only thing that needs to be powered is the external hard disc.

PS. One more question. If I dedicate a usb port for a particular device, should I always use that same port every time I plug it in or can I plug it into any other different port without hassles?

Thanks in advance for your responses and please respond quickly as I need to buy one today. Plus which is a good brand, or doesn't it matter?

I thing sould not be a problem, I use USB Hub 1port for the mouse,1 for the keyboard,1for the printer.

Hypomixolydian · Post by **Hypomixolydian** » Fri Jul 29, 2005 6:36 am

DJ VAKIS wrote:
I thing sould not be a problem, I use USB Hub 1port for the mouse,1 for the keyboard,1for the printer.

Can you be a bit more clear please? Sorry.

DJ VAKIS · Post by **DJ VAKIS** » Fri Jul 29, 2005 7:00 am

Astral Fridge Magnet wrote:
DJ VAKIS wrote:
I thing sould not be a problem, I use USB Hub 1port for the mouse,1 for the keyboard,1for the printer.

Can you be a bit more clear please? Sorry.

I dont have any problems with my USBHub,You can choose any port you want

klarky · Post by **klarky** » Fri Jul 29, 2005 7:04 am

how about a pcmcia usb card? powered from the laptop, i have a usb2 one that gives me another 4 ports - but i dont really use it now as i got a newer laptop with more ports than i need plus i use the slot for an indigo dj card now

aex1 · Post by **aex1** » Fri Jul 29, 2005 7:32 am

hi,

i assume when you say usb you mean usb2.0? i think mouse, floppy and dongles will run without probs on any hub since theyre not timing critical nor cause much traffic. I use mouse, dongle and motu midi onterface on a noname usb1.1 hub connected to the usb2.0 port of my laptop without a problem. Im on osx/ibook, not sure if that would make a difference.

is your xstation the one with the built-in audio/midi interface? then obviously the xstation and the external hd are the critical devices. i guess i would try to keep those running of their own ports on the laptop if u can do this. or at least have one of them on the laptop, the other on the hub.

i had problems myself with a supposedly good quality powered usb2.0 hub with 7 ports (by Kensington). it worked fine with mouse, printer, dongle but whenever tried to run my midiinterface off it, the timing was unusable and i got hanging notes all over. even when the midiinterface was the only device connected. shop assisstans didnt really have clue, only one guy said he suspects the processing overhead in the controller leading to the timing being screwed and suggested trying a 1.1 hub instead (with the midiinterface being a 1.1 device by the way). to my surprise, this solved my problem.

thats why i'd suggest leaving the xstation on its own port (for timing) and the hd to its own port (for transfer rate).

inis · Post by **inis** » Fri Jul 29, 2005 4:48 pm

I can run devices like mouse, keyboard, dongle, etc on my hub since they dont seem to require as much power, but if I ever plug more than one midi controller in, the lighted screen alone is enough to need to power the hub. The easiest solution is to buya cheap hub with a removable power adaptor. If it works without power, cool. If not, plug it in.

Question Regarding USB Hubs.

Question Regarding USB Hubs.

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Re: Question Regarding USB Hubs.

Re: Question Regarding USB Hubs.