Shoutbox

I have a new USB Hub (i-rocks 4100). Plugged into the hub I have a generic USB scroll mouse (Windows identifies it as a Cyprs USB Mouse) a printer (Epson R800) and a Webcam (Logitech Quickcam IM). The printer and the webcam are off most of the time.

The problem is, the hub seems to 'reset' itself periodically. When it does this 'reset' the blue power/operation light goes out and all devices connected stop working, and windows makes the sound that a USB device was disconnected, once for each device currently turned on. Within about 5 seconds everything returns to normal, with windows playing the 'USB connected' sound, for each device. 

I haven't had any bad effects from it so far, it's just frustrating when the mouse freezes in the middle of something like that. I don't know (or want to find out by experience) what would happen if it reset while using the webcam or the printer, or maybe while a USB drive was connected to it.

So anyway, the question is if anyone knows why this is happening, or if there is anything I can do to prevent it from happening. Thanks.

Other information that may or may not be useful:
Windows XP Pro SP2
Hub is USB 2.0 connected to a 1.1 port
Processor: P3 667MHz
Ram: 192MB

Some USB devices need more power than the supplied by the computer, make sure your power adaptor is connected and powering your hub. I've never had that kind of problem, so I don't know what else could be causing that.

I normally connect the mouse and keyboard to their own USB connector on the motherboard and trow everything else to the hub.

Later

quote:

---

Originally posted by D:Frag
I normally connect the mouse and keyboard to their own USB connector on the motherboard and trow everything else to the hub.

---

This is a great idea, since mobo-mounted USB ports won't suffer from the reset problem. If you have enough ports, connect all your USB devices direct to the machine. If you have to use a hub, then only put devices on it that won't suffer from caching problems e.g. printers. Don't put disks on it if it's playing up, as they usually have some form of caching, anbd must be disconnected properly using 'Safely Remove Hardware'.

Hey thanks for the tips. The computer is pretty old, it only has 2 rear USB ports. I'm planning on getting a PCI card with probably 4 USB ports on it. Those would act like Motherboard ports, wouldn't they?

Also, you mentioned safely removing USB drives and the like....how necessary is it to go through that process? I was always told that as long as you weren't reading or writing to it at the time, then it is fine just to remove it. I always just found it a hastle going through the 'safely remove' thing.

A USB PCI card will, from the outside anyway, look like motherboard-mounted ports. They shoudl also work 100% reliably, though maybe not quite as fast as they should (the PCI interface is slower than the max USB2 speed).

The 'Safely Remove Hardware' is mostly used for hard disk drives and the like, which use a small cache to enhance performance. If you disconnect the drive before the cache is written to disk, you risk losing data. Pen drives and memory card readers don't use caching AFAIK, so theoretically you can remove them without risking data.

quote:

---

Originally posted by raceprouk
The 'Safely Remove Hardware' is mostly used for hard disk drives and the like, which use a small cache to enhance performance. If you disconnect the drive before the cache is written to disk, you risk losing data. Pen drives and memory card readers don't use caching AFAIK, so theoretically you can remove them without risking data.

---

There's actually a setting...



I believe "optimize for quick removal" is the default, but it wouldn't hurt to confirm that setting...

Do you set that per disk, or is that a global setting for all USB drives?

quote:

---

Originally posted by raceprouk
Do you set that per disk, or is that a global setting for all USB drives?

---

It's per-device.