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10 years ago
---
layout: post
title: 'USB hub: AC-powered vs self-powered'
created: 1148449745
categories:
- review
- accessories
---
<p><img src="http://media.mycapsules.com/com/test/003/12.jpg"> <p>&nbsp;&nbsp; This is not my first time to buy USB hub, but at that time, I met a bad experience about USB hub; it worked only use for mouse, keyboard, that's all. It didn't work at all when I used bluetooth or flash drive. Anyway, now I have to try again in order to respond to my mom asking. I grab two of three available choices in WalMart to do a comparison test. First, it's plain USB hub without power adapter which its price is $9.73 and second one is USB hub with a power adapter, $19.73. They are all 4-port USB hub and another one that I didn't choose is 7 or 8-port USB hub, it's pretty expensive, $3x.xx. <p><img src="http://media.mycapsules.com/com/test/003/1_cable.jpg"> <img src="http://media.mycapsules.com/com/test/003/1_connect.jpg"> <p>&nbsp;&nbsp; First one, while I was tearing the package, I found its line, it's pretty big one, it seems good due to R=p*l/a --&gt; the bigger line should be better to conduct a current! Good design for practical use, this line is permanent attach to the hub. Another point that I have to look is alignment of all 4 ports, they are too tight to use 4 peripheral or not; however, it looks so tight but it still does a good job about this, it can plug easily and not conflict each other. In contrast, it hard to pull out due to small space between 2 ports. <br>&nbsp;&nbsp; Let's try to use! Immedialty I plug this hub into my laptop, it is found and installed driver by Windows XP. I have a 3 categories of USB peripheral to test, that is, <ul>&gt;&gt; low power consumed and discrete signal device, such as mouse, keyboard. Anyway, all I have is mouse. <br>&gt;&gt; low power consumed and continuous signal device, such as Palm Pilot, bluetooth USB, flash drive. This category is the most peripheral we used. <br>&gt;&gt; high power consumed and continuous signal, such as hard disk drive. One group I'm not sure of is printer, scanner or kind of these because even if they transfer data continuously but they required only signal to communicate with computer in order that they have own power source. then I don't think this group has a problem if second group works properly.</ul> <p><img src="http://media.mycapsules.com/com/test/003/1_use.jpg"> <p>&nbsp;&nbsp; Go back to test the first hub, while I attached mouse to the hub, windows also respond like plugging into original USB port and it works properly. So I move on to test with my palm and flash drive, both of them work properly at the same time but I found that this hub is only USB 1.1 supported. <p><img src="http://media.mycapsules.com/com/test/003/1_slow.png"> <img src="http://media.mycapsules.com/com/test/003/1_delay_failed.png"> <p>&nbsp;&nbsp; Oh! There still has non-USB 2.0 supported selling today -_-! I should look more careful than this. Anyway, it works good whether it's darned slow USB 1.1. Next I plug my notebook hard drive plus USB converter to the hub, surprisely windows can detect that correctly. Though it alerts "Your device can perform faster that this!". But when I try to access my data, it alerts "Write delay failed" and sound from my hard drive is not good at all, it likes I'm gonna die 55 I have not enough energy to work at all. My windows is darn slow either, I have trid to safely remove this hard drive to avoid data corrupt but it seems it doesn't work, after that all I can do is restart to prevent any consequence effect of my data. So, this hub is not gonna work with high powered device at all. <br><u>Result <br></u>&gt;&gt; 1st category - passed! <br>&gt;&gt; 2nd category - passed but slow. <br>&gt;&gt; 3rd category - failed! <hr width="90%" size="1"> <p><img src="http://media.mycapsules.com/com/test/003/2_1.jpg"> <img src="http://media.mycapsules.com/com/test/003/2_3.jpg"> <img src="http://media.mycapsules.com/com/test/003/2_cable.jpg"> <p>&nbsp;&nbsp; after finished testing the first one, it's not impressed me as much as my expectation. Though it looks better than my old one. Go on to second one, by the way, they claimed that it supports high speed USB,