There's a lot of "USB 3.0 hubs" on the market that have only one 3.0 port, I went back and forth buying/returning a lot on Amazon before giving up on getting one that had all 3.0 ports.
What do you recommend?
They left us hanging.
Teardown: A Generic 7-Port USB 3.0 Hub That Wasn't
81–90 of 112 posts
Re: Teardown: A Generic 7-Port USB 3.0 Hub That Wasn't
#82The trend of slapping two STT 4-port hubs together is so common, that even name-brand hubs for reputable brands are often this, including the back feed issues. I purchased hubs form a solar-named company, and one that has a similar name to a large US department store, and they were cascaded 4port, STT, ganged overcurrent and switching. I've started buying PCBAs from Ali, where the vendor advertises the exact chip set…
Why not name the sellers?
I have no idea what the solar named brand is, but maybe the department-store-like one is Targus?
Re: Teardown: A Generic 7-Port USB 3.0 Hub That Wasn't
#83Re: Teardown: A Generic 7-Port USB 3.0 Hub That Wasn't
#84There's a lot of "USB 3.0 hubs" on the market that have only one 3.0 port, I went back and forth buying/returning a lot on Amazon before giving up on getting one that had all 3.0 ports.
What do you recommend?
There was actually one I managed to find on Aliexpress, out of all places, that turned out to be legit.
It looked like that, I can't guarantee they're all created the same though, also it has RGB lights for some reason.
https://ae01.alicdn.com/kf/S6b270a53da9b4179af73036c5f6f9c89...
Re: Teardown: A Generic 7-Port USB 3.0 Hub That Wasn't
#85Well, of course there is the "buy cheap, get trash, duh!" talking point. But if I pay more, who's to say I'll get a better product? The OEM or some middleman or whoever might just pocket the difference and push crap anyway. Well-known brands have done this as well, either intentionally or because they got shafted by their supplier as well.
The stance ‘all hubs are trash’ has served me well.
I recently built a usb hub.
I got a box, some usb cables that have a female end and are fitted to mate to the box. If you are curious, it’s a box made for pro-audio equipment with precut holes. The holes are made for xlr ports, and the usb cables are terminated with xlr ports.
Now I have a usb hub where all four ports are wired directly to my motherboard’s ports. I probably should write a blog post with a parts list.
Re: Teardown: A Generic 7-Port USB 3.0 Hub That Wasn't
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
The stance ‘all hubs are trash’ has served me well.
I recently built a usb hub. I got a box, some usb cables that have a female end and are fitted to mate to the box. If you are curious, it’s a box made for pro-audio equipment with precut holes. The holes are made for xlr ports, and the usb cables are terminated with xlr ports. Now I have a usb hub where all four ports are wired directly to my motherboard’s ports. I probably should write a blog post with a parts list.
So it's not a "hub", but a box around extension cables?
Re: Teardown: A Generic 7-Port USB 3.0 Hub That Wasn't
#87Well, of course there is the "buy cheap, get trash, duh!" talking point. But if I pay more, who's to say I'll get a better product? The OEM or some middleman or whoever might just pocket the difference and push crap anyway. Well-known brands have done this as well, either intentionally or because they got shafted by their supplier as well.
I came to that conclusion when buying electric milk frothers. Several, because there is no difference between cheap and expensive. At all. They're all crap :')
If you live in Europe, I recommend trying one from Lidl. It was cheap and so far I've been quite satisfied with it.
Re: Teardown: A Generic 7-Port USB 3.0 Hub That Wasn't
#88I haven't seen a USB 3.0 hub that I've liked, and I've paid top dollar.
USB 1.0 had a model where you really could enumerate 127 devices attached to a hub. The USB 3.0 makes no promises for what should be possible with hubs and if you actually try it you find that at some point plugging in a new device makes other devices drop out. Like I've never been able to plug 7 devices into a 7 port hub.
Re: Teardown: A Generic 7-Port USB 3.0 Hub That Wasn't
#89Well, of course there is the "buy cheap, get trash, duh!" talking point. But if I pay more, who's to say I'll get a better product? The OEM or some middleman or whoever might just pocket the difference and push crap anyway. Well-known brands have done this as well, either intentionally or because they got shafted by their supplier as well.
The other day my bicycle light gave out, so I took it apart - was not the most expensive option, but also not the cheapest. It was advertised as having a 2600mAh battery, but when I opened it up, inside there was a 1700mAh cell. Also no sign of purported weatherproofing, as the lens was not even glued in. I have a 2000mAh cell in the same form factor (approximately 500Wh/l, so believable) on its way from China, which…
> how did they come up with that 2600mAh figure.
The same capacity corresponds to different mAh at different voltages, maybe they are playing games with that.
Re: Teardown: A Generic 7-Port USB 3.0 Hub That Wasn't
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've yet to come across truly reliable Thunderbolt 3 and above stations. Seems like every brand has, like this 7 port wonder in the article, lots of 5 star reviews. When you dig deep into the weeds of the reviews, Reddit, user forums, etc., you find the undercurrent of people who actually bother to check the stats reported by their OS, or have disconnect issues, etc, etc. I'm somewhat sympathetic because from what I…
I use Dell Thunderbolt docks because that's what my employer gives us and as such I've collected a few of them. I've had zero issues with them. The only complaint is that the power button on the dock only seems to work with Dell laptops, not a huge issue since I don't think that's a typical feature anyway.
I don't know about yours but anything I've seen that works has a limited number of plugs on it. Keyboard and mouse and a USB hard drive and the occasional thumb drive... You are fine. The 7-port hub is a bad smell, like you can't plug 7 devices into a USB 3.0 bus due to undocumented limits.
But if you have that AND a USB bluetooth dongle, a USB ethernet adapter, USB DAC with SPDIF output you run into the "USB-C is best effort at best when you plug in a lot of devices" problem... Which never gets talked about, though if you talk to Copilot or Gemini about it they will tell you don't waste your time with USB 3.