[SOLVED] Why can I not boot when I have >1 device plugged into this PCIe hub?

[Mox1]

I bought a USB hub a while back, and I could never get it to work. When two devices are plugged into it, it prevents booting: not even the POST report shows up, nor any beep is heard.

Interestingly enough if a USB power cable is plugged in, it still works with the one other device.

Upon boot, the hub functions as normal, and newly-plugged in devices work fine. Rebooting the PC from this state prevents booting as above.

Motherboard: https://www.asus.com/uk/Motherboards/Z170-K/
The USB hub: https://smile.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00Y2F6274/

Please let me know if you need any additional information.

 

[SamirD]

Sometimes usb devices are fickle like that. I've even had an issue where I an external drive caused such an issue, even though the booting was still coming off of the internal drive like normal.

ccc hubs (cheap chinese crap) will have all sorts of issues, least of what like you're experiencing. Buying some sort of reputable brand that does a better job at testing and quality control will help alleviate these type of oddball system problems.

 

[Mox1]

Sometimes usb devices are fickle like that. I've even had an issue where I an external drive caused such an issue, even though the booting was still coming off of the internal drive like normal.

ccc hubs (cheap chinese crap) will have all sorts of issues, least of what like you're experiencing. Buying some sort of reputable brand that does a better job at testing and quality control will help alleviate these type of oddball system problems.

It has good reviews though. Surely people would review badly of the product if it was inherently faulty, especially if they couldn't even boot with it? And the company has sent me another one when I left a 1 star review. Neither of them work, so is it not possible it's some configuration or other issue?

Also, it can be any two devices, but any particular ones. If I plug any four devices into the motherboard's ports, the PC boots fine. Plug into into the hub, and it doesn't boot.

 

[SamirD]

It has good reviews though. Surely people would review badly of the product if it was inherently faulty, especially if they couldn't even boot with it? And the company has sent me another one when I left a 1 star review. Neither of them work, so is it not possible it's some configuration or other issue?

Also, it can be any two devices, but any particular ones. If I plug any four devices into the motherboard's ports, the PC boots fine. Plug into into the hub, and it doesn't boot.

Fake reviews for the fake products--standard game. 'Have problem? Ship new one so stupid customer shut up.'

The 'free replacement' technique is frequently used by the ccc types, not to actually fix the problem, but as cheap PR. The products are so cheap and shoddy that they know they'll have a 20% defect rate, but if only 10% of those people need a 'replacement' that's only 2% of their total sales, which is nothing. So they still make money. And as long as they keep good PR, no one will know they are peddling crap.

Now a lot of times the same manufacturers are actually making the products for more reputable brands (many times even ripping off their design for the ccc products), but since these companies are a customer and demand a certain quality, the ccc companies produce a higher quality product that meets their customer's specs. These products are worth getting as they have a quality control process through design and manufacturing.