Belkin 7 Port USB HUB and Finicky USB
Though the special ends today, MicroCenter has a Belkin 7 port USB 2.0 hub on sale for $29.99. I picked one up over the weekend; I’ve wanted a larger hub for sometime now. My previous hub was a Belkin 4 port model. In conjunction with a Belkin USB switch, it controlled my USB network consisting of an Epson Scanner, a HP Business Inkjet, a 100 MB IOMEGA ZIP drive, and assorted USB thumb drives and mini-hard disks hooked into my PowerMac, my G5 iMac, my PowerBook, and my Windows XP PC. (The computers are hooked into the switch, sometimes through extension cables; the switch to the hub; and the peripherals are connected to the hub.)
Swapping out hubs was fairly simple. I simply unplugged the old unit and its power adapter from the network and substituted the new unit and its power adapter. The acid test for how well the network is working has always been to scan a color photo or document. So, I started the testing using my dual G5 PowerMac and my G5 iMac. They worked flawlessly; but, in true Windows fashion, the scan bombed on my XP machine with a “scanner did not send data” error message.
Officially, that message is to be expected anytime the scanner is not plugged directly into the scanning computer, at least according to the Epson website. Still, it was frustrating and so characteristic of Windows that the Macs would work perfectly and the Windows machine would revolt. I knew from previous experience that my only hope of getting everything working together on my XP PC was to find some compatible combination of switch, hub, and USB 2.0 ports.
I was a bit surprised that the SIIG PCI card in the XP PC was not compatible. It had solved this problem with the earlier hub, but not this time. The first thing and only thing to try before looking at spending some money was to plug the USB 2.0 cable from the switch into the PC motherboard’s USB 2.0 ports instead of the SIIG card’s. Fortunately, that worked. The scanner began working with XP again.
To be fair to the Windows PC, I’ll mention that my wife’s G5 iMac did not like the 4 port Belkin USB 2.0 hub when I first plugged it in. It did start working after the second or third shut down and reboot of the iMac…for reasons I do not understand.
So, my USB 2.0 network is up and running again. But the episode reminded me that USB networks are finicky things; and if you can get one up and running, it is probably more a matter of luck than good standards.
Swapping out hubs was fairly simple. I simply unplugged the old unit and its power adapter from the network and substituted the new unit and its power adapter. The acid test for how well the network is working has always been to scan a color photo or document. So, I started the testing using my dual G5 PowerMac and my G5 iMac. They worked flawlessly; but, in true Windows fashion, the scan bombed on my XP machine with a “scanner did not send data” error message.
Officially, that message is to be expected anytime the scanner is not plugged directly into the scanning computer, at least according to the Epson website. Still, it was frustrating and so characteristic of Windows that the Macs would work perfectly and the Windows machine would revolt. I knew from previous experience that my only hope of getting everything working together on my XP PC was to find some compatible combination of switch, hub, and USB 2.0 ports.
I was a bit surprised that the SIIG PCI card in the XP PC was not compatible. It had solved this problem with the earlier hub, but not this time. The first thing and only thing to try before looking at spending some money was to plug the USB 2.0 cable from the switch into the PC motherboard’s USB 2.0 ports instead of the SIIG card’s. Fortunately, that worked. The scanner began working with XP again.
To be fair to the Windows PC, I’ll mention that my wife’s G5 iMac did not like the 4 port Belkin USB 2.0 hub when I first plugged it in. It did start working after the second or third shut down and reboot of the iMac…for reasons I do not understand.
So, my USB 2.0 network is up and running again. But the episode reminded me that USB networks are finicky things; and if you can get one up and running, it is probably more a matter of luck than good standards.
posted by Andy Foster at
5:47 PM
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