Multi-USB Port Adapters - Good or No ?

March 21, 2009

Hello MG's ,

I bought a multi-USB port adapter on EBay. My eMachine has 4 USB ports in the back, and each is attached to a peripheral that is not usually 'on' until I need it. Like printers, scanners, and an external hard drive.....
....When ever I turn on such a device (attached directly via USB port), a 'ding-dong' sounds from the PC (XP Home) and I can always see it and check it out in the 'Device Manager'.

Now, I have bought one of those ac powered "four extra ports-from-one" USB adapters that they sell on Ebay. I also had an old one which didn't work, so I had a chance to try & test both.

Neither work. The PC and Device Manager do recognize the new USB device, but will not recognize anything attached further from that. The device manager > properties say that a driver is missing.....

Are these multiple USB 'extension' cord devices no good ?? It does have its own ac power supply, but is there a driver I can download from somewhere that will help the PC recognize the extended peripherals
that get attached two steps away from the origin port ???

Thanks,

-scottportraits

 

March 22, 2009

Well, I had an old one from a previous PC that worked fine with it, so I tried both, like I said. Tried the new one and the old one. Both are recognized by the device manager as a USB unknown device, and the properties show it is working properly. Also, both make the PC ding-dong sound when plugged in while the PC is on. The icon tray has balloons about a new hardware device being detected, and that the new device is now properly installed.
Any additional add on after that is not recognized and the device manger says it doesn't work because a driver is missing.
Is there any reason my eMachine might be thwarting the operation ? Or XP Home ? Or the motherboard's sensors ??

- scottportraits

 

March 22

Oh well, maybe this eMachines model can only take so many devices plugged into all the 4 USB ports....or my copy of XP Home got smashed in some way during one of the past 'Trojan Wars'.....
At any rate, I can still do what I have to do, it just requires a manual pulling out and plugging in each time to add the 80 GB external hard drive, or the second inferior (draft copies only) printer.
Next time I buy a PC I will spend the bucks and get a better one than the cheapest I could find.

Thanks again, see you soon, and this will close the topic....

-scottportraits