Interesting problem with USB hubs on 2x Dell 2001FP screens

Now that I'm over the moon with the maaasive desktop, I've gone into plugging the USB cables in each monitor to effectively provide me with an extra 2x 4 ports (4 ports on each screen).

However, there appears to be an incompatibility if you have both plugged in at the same time.

In my case, I had my USB webcam plugged in on monitor1. Everything OK. I go to plug my camera into a USB port on monitor2 (detects it as a mass storage device), then it continuously connects then deconnects from it. You get the doo-dink sound, shortly followed by the di-doonk. Goes on forever. Get the "there may be a problem with your hardware" message appear in the system tray.

I've tried changing over the PC to monitor connection at the PC side with no difference.

Then, I tried plugging the webcam in monitor2 with the camera still connected and all's ok.

It looks like my PC can't cope with having two devices on two different hubs.

Any suggestions? :confused:

Try plugging a hub into the other hub like this:

Compy>hub>hub

instead of

Code:

---

        >Hub
Compy
        >hub

---

Ignore me if you are already doing this!

Might be a power issue.

I think USB controllers control 2 ports each. (Each chip can have a few controllers) Try Put them in ports far away from each other (e.g. one to the PCI USB bracket and one to motherboard backpanel). One controller may have problem controlling two hubs at the same time.



Also is the problem only go from Hub1 to Hub2 but not Hub2 to Hub1? Use the second monitor as Hub1 instead and see if the problem still exist. If thats not the problem may be its windows drivers' bug. It thats the problem may be one of your monitor's hub is broken.

Oh by the way try to see if there is any option in your motherboard bios. Since NF2's USB controllers are pretty crap and have trouble with alot of devices. I think there is some option to slow down the port speed (I don't mean USB1.1) for better compatibility.