Too Much USB?

  • Thread starter Thread starter illapino
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illapino

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There are six USB ports on my Dell P4 PC. Two are for keyboard and mouse, two are for dongle keys, and the front two are for my midi keyboard controller and my midi drumpad controller ... Now I want more devices, but they tend to also use USB connections. Should I be conerned as to how many USB connections I make my computer have? Yes, at this point, I'd have to get a seperate USB interface with more USB holes to plug into (a USB extension or expander or something), so I was curious as to whether such an interface would be draining too much power or be lacking in power being an external device, or not be able to perform as effectively as the USB ports that are actually on the computer?

What are the limits in the USB world?
 
Usb, 127 devices on the bus, power limitations of a usb hub will need to be addressed by havin an external power supply. This what usb was made for, chainin multiple devices to a Universal Serial Bus. I'd suggest makin sure that you get a hi-speed usb2.0 hub with it's own seperate power supply, not 1 that runs off bus power, make sure all the usb cords r hi-speed and plug in the more important stuff first. Aside from that ur good to go. Now for audio stuff, i'd recommend using a firewire bus, it's limited 63 devices, and is rated slower then usb 2.0 (400mbps compared to 480mbps) but is much more solid performance-wise. But if ur talkin non-audio peripherals, then ur good to go. Hope this helps.
LevLove
 
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127 is 127.

But that is not an excuse to buy 100 keyboards.

The USB controller assigns up to 127 IDs to the various devices.
 
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don't you mean the USB port assigns up to 127 ID to various devices?

"The USB controller assigns up to 127 IDs to the various devices" doesn't make sense to me because a USB controller IS a device, isn't it?

sorry, fumbled here, not that it matters
 
Good question. I had the same question having

1 tascam usb 144
2 Maudio Oxygen 49
3 Akai MPD24
4 M-Audio Midi interface
5 Wireless int. Adaptor
6 MPC coby card reader
 
LoL, this reminds me of laural and hardy's "Who's on Third" or was that abbot and costello? LoL Anyway, the usb "controller" that we're speakin of is what ur calling the usb "port". We're not sayin usb controller as opposed to firewire or midi controller; we're sayin usb contoller as in the chipset and firmware behind the usb port that actually shuffles the 1's and 0's back and forth from the peripherals (ur usb keyboard/drumpad) to the motherboard inside ur computer. if u bought a scsi card to put in ur computer, it'd be referred to as a "scsi controller". So basically the usb controller (the technology behind the usb port, not ur midi over usb keyboard controller) will let u hook up 127 different usb thingys to ur computer. Hope this helps.
LevLove
 
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my next question is
1: the more usb devices i have running, does this effect CPU meter any. I was told that the USB uses CPU, where as the Firewire doesnt and has it's own "something" that doesnt require much CPU usage, if any. N e one know if this is true or not????
 
naw they both do... anythin that is powered with the help of the computer uses the CPU so you wont get away with that i dunno how much ur really aloud to have for sure.. but i have a crap load... i have like a hub with 5 different usbs in use.. in the back of the pc i have 2 more and then a seperate usb with a firewire which i use the firewire as well but then again i gota duo core amd processor with 4 gigs of ram so maybe i have enuff power for it i dunno but its working good to answer ur question... i mean does it matter if its not killing ur computer?!
 
As long as all usb devices aren't sending data simultaneously, you shouldn't notice any problems.
 
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