What's wrong with this stupid USB hub?

February 14, 2009 7:11 AM

Can you recommend a USB hub that will work flawlessly with my Macbook Pro (or tell my why this one isn't working properly)?

I currently own this Belkin USB 2.0 7-Port Mobile Hub, and it's easily the worst piece of technology I've ever owned. The power cord is embarrassingly short, and my devices *constantly* become disconnected several times throughout the day.

The fail point seems to be the USB plug; it doesn't snugly fit into the USB port on my MBP. Any time the cord is barely jiggled, it disconnects and I lose all of my devices along with the damage warning for unplugging a hard drive with out first ejecting.

But it's also worth noting that, even when I'm 100% sure I never touch the hub or any cords associated with it, the device disconnects. I can be in the other room, and I hear the beep from my iPhone that signals a sync, meaning it came unplugged.

Could this be any other issue beyond just a shitty USB hub? Could it be, like, a power problem? The hub is plugged into a UPS, and my lights don't flicker or anything. Could I be plugging too many devices into it? It's has 7 ports, so I'd assume it has the ability to handle 7 devices. I'm not daisy chaining it or anything.

So, can you either A) suggest a new USB hub that can go more than a few hours without disconnecting, and is proven to plug into my MBP without problem? Or B) explain to me what other factors in my setup could be causing the hub to randomly disconnect every few hours?

Here's what's plugged into the hub for reference:

-iPhone
-Canon printer/scanner
-WD Passport HD
-Logitech headset
-Occasionally a Canon HF100 (it always seems to disconnect when I'm transferring video from this thing. Argh.)

posted by nitsuj to computers & internet (13 comments total)

My iPhone has never worked properly though any kind of hub. I have it connected directly and everything else off a cheap generic hub. Once I remove the iPhone from the hub, everything else worked a lot better.
posted by Mwongozi at 7:17 AM on February 14

If the hub and Passport are both USB powered (no AC adapter), it might be trying to draw too much power through the hub and everything shuts down. Might take a look at that.
posted by deezil at 7:32 AM on February 14

I have this USB/Firewire hub that's been sitting under my iMac for many months and has worked flawlessly with every Firewire and USB device I've connected to it, including my iPhone, Canon scanner, external WD MyBook HDs, several brands of portable USB and Firewire HDs, my Brother laserprinter, and a Minolta slidescanner, and several models of USB keychain drives. It's not as many ports are you're looking for, but I give it high ratings for reliability, versatility, and performance.
posted by mrbarrett.com at 7:33 AM on February 14

try a new cable. here are a few different device ends used, make sure you have the correct one.

it could also be the port you're using. my MBP has one on each side - try the other.

hubs shouldn't do this and i have had good experience with belkin ones. i would star with a new cable, then maybe go for a new hub.
posted by KenManiac at 7:42 AM on February 14

FWIW, I use this USB hub my on MacBook and have 5 or 6 components plugged into it all times with no issues, including my blackberry and a ps2 --> usb converter.
posted by jmd82 at 7:53 AM on February 14

If the hub and Passport are both USB powered (no AC adapter)

Hub is plugged in to AC, Passport is not.
posted by nitsuj at 8:25 AM on February 14

Based on the answered received for this AskMe, I went with a Kensington Domehub as advised.

I use it with my MacBook Pro, and my regular peripherals are very similar to yours: syncing iPhone, a WD MyBook external drive (for backup), a couple of smaller hard disks, a Brother printer/fax/scanner, an old Wacom tablet I should replace someday, and numerous occasional cameras and flash drives.

It's been perfect. A++ would buy again, and so on.
posted by rokusan at 8:45 AM on February 14

Oh, but yes, use external power for HDs when you can. They're huge power sucks, and they demand/expect nice smooth quiet AC. Other peripherals are more forgiving.
posted by rokusan at 8:46 AM on February 14

Seconding rokusan -- the hard drive might just be drawing too much power from the hub. Try an AC adapter.
posted by rdn at 10:12 AM on February 14

I suspect that it is a quality problem in the design of the hub. If you scan through the comments on the Amazon site you linked you will see a couple of people complaining of the same problems you describe, flakey behavior and a poorly fitting USB connector.

Power should not be a problem with a well designed hub. When plugged into its power supply, the hub should provide 500 mA power to each hub port. No USB device is allowed to draw more than 500 mA, not even your hard drive.

The hub could have a poorly designed power supply or a poorly designed USB plug.
posted by JackFlash at 12:13 PM on February 14 [1 favorite]

If you scan through the comments on the Amazon site you linked you will see a couple of people complaining of the same problems you describe, flakey behavior and a poorly fitting USB connector.

I wrote one of those reviews. :)
posted by nitsuj at 12:54 PM on February 14

There is one thing you can try, although it really shouldn't make a difference on a well-designed hub. You could try swapping around which device is plugged into which port.

The way you make a 7-port hub is you take two 4-port hub chips and daisy chain the second from the first. The first chip provides three external ports and the fourth port connects to the second chip. The second chip provides four more external ports. So internally, you have a hub plugged into a hub.

By plugging into the first three ports you are closer on the chain to the PC. There is no easy way of determining which are which but you could try swapping your devices around to see what happens. Your headset is probably the lowest bandwidth device, probably only 12 Mbs, and can be farthest downstream.
posted by JackFlash at 1:36 PM on February 14 [1 favorite]

No USB device is allowed to draw more than 500 mA, not even your hard drive.

Yes, but "what the USB specs allow" and "what devices actually do" are often a fair distance apart -- hard drives can be problematic because they pull a lot of current at spin-up.

(The de-facto standard for USB is "works with Windows"; this is a big problem for Linux and/or embedded USB hosts, because Windows bends over backwards to support quirky devices. Because Windows supports shoddy devices, devices don't have to be any better than shoddy and can get away with cutting corners; and so hosts have to behave like Windows to get shoddy devices to work; and so it goes. It's amazing that USB works as well as it does; the specs are good, the implementations are often awful.)

By plugging into the first three ports you are closer on the chain to the PC. There is no easy way of determining which are which.

The host should be aware of the bus topology as it has to enforce the maximum depth rules. ISTR that in Windows' Device Manager you can see how hubs are chained, maybe by choosing "show by connection"? Dunno about OS X though.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 10:29 AM on February 15