USB Hub oddness

Soldato
Joined
18 May 2004
Posts
2,892
Location
Lincoln, Uk
Just wondered if anyone had ever had anything like this happen before. I've got a 4port unpowered anker USB hub (USB A ports with blue insides - so usb 3? / or c?) on my desk under my monitors that I connect my trackball and keyboard to (leads not long enough to reach through desk and down to system unit which is at the other side of me, plus anything else I need to connect on an ad hoc basis: memory keys, lead to my phone to transfer photos etc. Recently tried to get back into elecrtronics as a hobby and have a PIC micro programmer (PICKIT3 for reference) which is basically just a interface that connects to microcontrollers to program the flash memory in them. It refuses to work in the USB hub, but works directly connected to the PC. I thought it was a power issue, so I unplugged trackball and keyboard, so programmer was the only device connected and it was still failing in the same way. (It doesn't fail to see it completly, the software tries to connect to it, and if its plugged into the usb hub, hangs at that point, and then when I unplug it, it then declares its failed to find it, but while it remains connected, its obviously seeing something and trying to talk to it).

Do USB hubs sometimes limit the output power to less than they are able to pull from the host machine, or do some just set a limit of (in the case of a 4port unit) 25% of the total per port, even though the other three are empty, or is there likely to be something else going on here? If I could just buy a powered hub and know the problem would go away, then I'd do that so hoping someone has knoweldge of a similar situation with troublesome devices (and yes, I expect the PICKIT3 is quite likely to be classed as a awkward, picky device!) so perhaps the question could be phrased as "Spec me a USB hub that is less likely to cause picky usb devices to give problems"!
 
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