Powered USB Hubs Sending 5v Back To The Workstation

[TheWizardU]

Hello All,

So in our office we have Dell Optiplex workstation, (mixed revisions 380, 390 etc)

So we have rolled out some cheep USB powered hubs, they need to be powered due to using USB headsets along with a Keyboard and Mouse.

When powering on the workstations they do not boot, flashing yellow power led.

Removing the USB lead (A to B) linking the USB hub to the workstation, it will power on and boot as normal.

Reconnecting the lead after POST both the workstation and HUB work without issue.

I found that the reason the workstation was not booting was due to the hubs sending 5v back to the pc,

And by cutting the red wire from within the USB lead that carries the +5v all is well,

I have two different variants of USB hubs and they both send 5v back to the workstations.

I was wondering if some of you can provide me with your opinions on this issue?

is this just cheep crap or am i missing something?

 

[Lutfij]

Can you pleas state the brand/make and model of your USB hubs? Is the issue found on all the hubs you've rolled out on? If you're talking about using headsets I think the best course of action would be to forgo the USB hub(reduce on downtime fixing something that doesn't need fixing) and the USB headsets altogether and connect analog headsets to the Optiplex's off the onboard audio inputs/outputs.