[kwlug-disc] Strange poweron problem

[Andrew Kohlsmith (mailing lists account)]

> On Sep 23, 2016, at 5:38 PM, Jeff Smith <crankyoldbugger at gmail.com> wrote:
> Sorry I haven't responded to this in a while, but I think I found the culprit:  a USB 3 hub.  I purchased some USB hubs off of Amazon a few months ago, and I've noticed that all of them are showing signs of degradation already.  In the case of the one attached to this particular Ubuntu box, I swapped it right out and it the computer seems to be booting from the power-off state without any problems now.
> 
> I can't tell you what brand these USB hubs are, as they are no-name generic, but they are the ones with power switches for each port, and the USB cables are inserted on the very top of the hub.  I've had failures with three of these now.  I thought the individual power switches were a nice feature, but the rest of the hub is crap.

If you’ve ever taken apart one of these generic hubs you wouldn’t be surprised by this behaviour. It’s amazing that they work at all at USB3 speeds. I routinely buy oddball hardware that is super-cheap just for the curiosity value. :-)

If I can find my pictures I’ll share them here. Long story short: unwashed circuit boards, poor routing, two-layer design… utter crap. It’s unfortunate, but that is part of the cost of cheap electronics: you pays your money and takes your chances.

-A.


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