Ok, I can't help asking: why so many USB devices?

Uhhh.. because I have a lot of USB stuff?

1) Kindle. To charge it or put books into it, I need USB.
2) Vantec. That's the dock for one of my two external hard drives.
3) Fan. That's a little USB cooling fan for the external HD in the Vantec.
4) Olympus. That's how we download pictures from my wife's camera.
5) Panasonic. That's how we download pictures from my camera.
6) Std. USB. Sometimes I need to connect something, like an empeg.
7) iPod. The only way a Shuffle can charge is through USB.
8) Printer. It was easier to network the printer with USB instead of Ethernet.
9) iPhone. Sometimes SWMBO wants to charge her iPhone at my desk.
10) Webcam. What can I say? My webcam is a USB device.
11) My second external HD. (All my SATA ports are used by my four internal hard drives plus the DVD burner.)
12) USB Hub. It was easier to daisy-chain the second hub than direct connect it.
13) Mouse. Are there any optical mice that are not USB?
14) Scanner. I don't know how to connect it other than USB. (There is a 10-pin round connector that I don't know what it is for.)

I guess not all of the devices need to be plugged in all the time, but it's easier not to have to dig through drawers to find the right cords and fumble around behind the monitor to plug them in when I need them. The six cords that are used intermittently are all ready to plug into the appropriate device at a moment's notice. The remaining eight pretty much need to be connected all the time.

tanstaafl.

Retirement in Mexico sounds stressful.

Ok, I see many USB devices I would normally connect to back ports you are connecting to USB hubs. That explains it.

I have webcam, mouse+touchpad (Logitech Unify, so 1 USB dongle for all), card reader, and keyboard connected to the back of my PC case.

Then I have two USB cables - one terminating with USB mini, one terminating with USB Micro - on my desk ready to accept occasional devices such as phone, camera, GPS, etc.

Only partly. While all 14 of the cables have standard connectors on the hub side, I have (and need) nine different connectors on the device ends:

Kindle, Olympus, Panasonic, iPod, and iPhone are all proprietary. Then there are four different USB connectors: Standard-A, Standard-B, Micro-B, and Mini-B.

USB... Universal Serial Bus. What part of "Universal" am I missing here?

Then there is my "Charging Closet" which at last count had ten wall-warts plugged in for everything from cameras (three different kinds) to electric razor to Dewalt cordless drill to Rio Karma to Nokia cell phone to electric toothbrush to... some I don't even remember off the top of my head.

tanstaafl.

Possibly for a 35mm slide scanner attachment.

-ml

My Kindles are standard microUSB. Maybe you have an older version?

Also, all my cameras are MiniUSB, but I do remember having few ones in the past that had no standard connector.

Yes, I had a similar scanner.

I believe the last couple of Kindles are microUSB, and most of the market is standardizing around that, but it would not surprise me at all if Doug's cameras had proprietary connections. Apparently they haven't gotten the memo that nobody wants to carry around a cable that only works with a single device. I really hate that.

For example, I have a set of bluetooth headphones that have a proprietary cable, but what bothers me is that it's just barely different from microUSB, and they really could have gone with the standard instead of doing their own thing. Grr.

I can't admonish you, Doug. I have the following USB devices plugged in:

-Logitech unifying receiver (for keyboard and mouse)
-Logitech C910 webcam
-Blue Snowball microphone (for client calls - I love this thing)
-Fitbit charging station
-External hard drive
-External DVD burner (because my computer case is too far away and I'm lazy)
-Griffin Powermate (volume control and some other fancy stuff)
-My monitor (so I can plug things in temporarily directly to the monitor)
-USB hub (for some of these devices that don't have long USB cables so they can't reach the back of the computer)

It's not as many as you, Doug, but sometimes these USB devices accumulate...

I usually make use of the USB hubs that are included in my monitors. Connected directly to the PC, I have just a Unifying receiver and the receiver for my wireless headset. Of course, a factor in this is the flaky USB hub on my motherboard, which doesn't seem to cope with a large number of devices.

For charging phones, etc., I use the AC/USB adapters, and plug them directly into the wall -- USB ports don't generally provide enough power to charge quickly. And all of that stuff's in the kitchen, 'cos it's downstairs and convenient.

That said, I don't have a printer or scanner, and I use an SD reader for the camera and video camera.

Any USB device using Standard-A as a slave port is a witch. Burn it.


I've got a Dell U3011W, and as a monitor it's just lovely: a huge step up from the Apple Cinema Display that I had before. But its onboard firmware is an absolute festival of "yes, this is technically a way of doing it, but it's very clearly the wrong way". There are programmable buttons that you can assign functions to (tick) but although you can assign "bring up the inputs menu" to them, you can't assign actual entries on the inputs menu (slap). And, which is what made me bring it up, it has a built-in USB hub (tick) which when the monitor is turned (soft) off, doesn't become an unpowered hub, it just goes dead along with all downstream devices (slap).

Peter

This is why my Logitech Unifying receiver is plugged into the PC, rather than (either of) my Dell 2209WAf monitors. Otherwise, wake-from-keyboard-or-mouse doesn't work.

You know, I could have sworn I had one here on my desk. I thought I had a PS/2 mouse that was optical here. But now that I dig around, I think I was mistaken.

It's possible that the PS/2 plug specification doesn't supply the necessary level of power for the LED and/or laser circuitry required for optical mice, thus making PS/2+Optical impossible. On the other hand, something in my brain is tickling me, telling me that once I used to have a PS/2 optical mouse.

Anyone know for sure if such a beast ever existed? I'm curious.

I believe the old Sun stations (like 1980s) used a serial (RS-232?) interface for their optical mice.

Using one right now - Logitech M-SBF69. IIRC it came with an adapter so it could talk USB as well, but it's quite a while ago... Keep switching between this and a Logitech optical marble thumb trackball, but that one is USB.

Yes, they were optical and serial - not sure it was RS-232 or something else.

Those old mice with that silly grid turned me off optical mice for a very long time. It wasn't until I saw a new one being used by a friend for gaming that I got over my phobia.

That's odd. I have the first Dell 30" model, and it doesn't do that. I charge my keyboard and mouse exclusively using the monitor's USB ports, and I'm able to leave the monitor overnight and the devices will charge even when it goes to a soft sleep.

I've never seen a PS/2 optical mouse, BUT I seem to remember that at work we used for years USB optical mice + USB to PS/2 adapter, connected to a PS/2 port. So, IIRC, PS/2 would provide needed power.

(Responding for fun, and to share differences, not to criticize. I'm actually pretty impressed by the USB setup you have Doug


For me 2 and 11 are covered by having a NAS. Benefits for my setup, I can get to the files from my desktop, laptop, or iPad. Lower power use from the NAS being on and sleeping the disks when idle then a desktop PC serving files.

8, I have a network printer, but I've found I print so infrequently, it's still in the moving box. Work has printers too (obviously being retired, not a possibility for you Doug these days. I think I'd trade positions with you if I could

9 I have a charging dock near my bed that charges the iPhone 3x faster then standard USB. For data exchange it's all via WiFi now. And since my iPhone is my camera, 5 also goes away. Second I walk into range of any WiFi, my phone sends the photos up into a private cloud spot. I think if I ever get a full sized camera again, it will be one that can use an SD card, and the Eye-Fi card.

10 is covered by having a webcam built into my desktop monitor, laptop, and iPad.

13, I had a bluetooth optical mouse, and now have a bluetooth laser mouse for gaming. Bluetooth trackpad for everything else. Also bluetooth keyboard. With a bluetooth receiver built into every machine I own, no USB port is taken up. Pretty sure I have enough blueteeth for a full set of dentures now

We have a few of these 12-port switchable USB hubs at work:

http://www.cyberguys.com/product-details/?productid=60801.

One of them isn't even plugged into a computer. Just used to charge various wireless mikes and laser pointers.

Cyberguys now list a huger "Mondo Hub" with 20+ ports. But like $80.

Wait one. There are four power modes on most monitors:

• Off at the wall
• Turned off by the button, but still powered from the wall. The power indicator is generally off.
• In standby. The indicator is generally orange.
• In use. The screen is showing cat videos and the indicator is generally blue or green.

Which one are you and Peter referring to when you talk about "soft"?

I generally turn my monitors off at the button, because even the low power modes use power (and my desktop PC doesn't standby when it should, so I just turn it off when I'm not using it).

Right, it's when "turned off by the button, but still powered from the wall" that the USB hub unjustly goes dead. Perhaps "soft off" was the wrong word for that, but the button on this model is clearly a button (controlling the firmware) as opposed to a switch (physically switching mains power).

Peter

Look at what I found.