"duke", our MythTV butler, has a related issue: the BIOS really doesn't like USB hubs, either self or bus powered.

They seem to confuse it at POST time, causing a multi-minute delay before it finally decides to boot. And sometimes it never decides to boot.

It also gets confused by certain other USB devices from time to time. And the motherboard also has the (common, it seems) flaw of leaving USB devices powered even when the computer is "off".

Gag.

So I plug most USB stuff into a hub, and use a power relay to keep the hub switched "off" until after the BIOS has loaded the operating system.

Then, a startup command trips the relay, causing the hub and connected devices to power-on and become available for use.

Heh.. and the relay, of course, is controlled over USB..

Cheers