usb questions

[emazur]

I need more than just the 2 ports built into my system. Is it better to get a usb hub or an internal usb card? Why? And is there anything I should look for if I buy a card or are they pretty much all the same?

 

[Gallstaff]

I just got a card with four ports on it. They're pretty much all the same, they just differ in the amount of ports on them. I dnt know why you'd want to get a hub unless you needed more than 4. In total right now i only got 6 so you should do fine.

 

[Pearl Jammzz]

I would say a card......w/ a hub it seems all the go around would slow stuff down a lil bit and make it less stable. Dunno for sure though, I have 6 built into my mobo and 2 in the front of my case, haha. More than I need for sure.

 

[Curtis]

Depends what you are going to do with the extra ports really...

 

[mal]

I'd say go for a card - unless you want some extra ports that aren't at the back of the case.

 

[schi0249]

From my experience, the hubs don't work well with certain items plugged in. For example, modems whether DSL or Cable tend to drop frquenly and even more so if you have a printer connected.

 

[Alexvrb]

Hubs generally are not that great a solution for adding a lot of ports. Especially if you are hooking it up to a USB 1.x port. You can get a good 4-port USB 2.0 for less than $20. Many of those also include a 5th internal port that you could use with a small hub to bring a couple of extra ports to the front of the case if needed. I wouldn't think that devices on the front are going to be things that would stress it heavily anyway, maybe a couple of gamepads, etc.

 

[racketboy]

Originally posted by schi0249@Feb 18, 2004 @ 03:17 PM

From my experience, the hubs don't work well with certain items plugged in. For example, modems whether DSL or Cable tend to drop frquenly and even more so if you have a printer connected.

That depends if you have a powered hub or not.

If the hub doesn't use an AC adapter, a lot of high-speed stuff won't work

 

[IceDigger]

Think of it this way to. With an internal card you have less of a mess in back of your computer. :smash

 

[racketboy]

Originally posted by IceMan2k@Feb 18, 2004 @ 04:04 PM

Think of it this way to. With an internal card you have less of a mess in back of your computer. :smash

Not necessarily.

Actually I've considered getting a hub even though I have like 6 ports on my machine.

The reasoning: It would fairly nice tojust have one cable coming from a hub instead of a while bunch of misc ones. Makes less cables coming out the back and shift them to a hub a few feet away.

Unfortuanately that's not enough to justify me shelling out an extra $30-50 for a nice hub just to shift some cable clutter

 

[ExCyber]

I'd say hubs for stuff like keyboard/mouse/gamepad, card for anything serious like printers, drives, modems, network adapters, sound interfaces, etc, especially if it's USB Hi-Speed (the 480Mbps mode; btw, a device being USB 2.0 compliant does not mean that it is Hi-Speed).

 

[Alexvrb]

Originally posted by ExCyber@Feb 18, 2004 @ 04:56 PM

I'd say hubs for stuff like keyboard/mouse/gamepad, card for anything serious like printers, drives, modems, network adapters, sound interfaces, etc, especially if it's USB Hi-Speed (the 480Mbps mode; btw, a device being USB 2.0 compliant does not mean that it is Hi-Speed).

I agree with this. As I said before you can get a card with 4 port + an internal one, so you could use a 3.5" hub to add front ports for gamepads or whatever without messy wires and without sacrificing dedicated plugs on the back. This would be ideal if you had to hook up a lot of stuff. Otherwise just get a PCI card, then you'd have 4 + your 2 onboard.