🚀 go-pugleaf

I think it may be that often the usb wires to the front panel are NOT
twisted or proper USB cabling.  I have seen many that are flat multi
colored ribbon leads and I suspect they create a transmission line of
sorts but the impedance etc will be wrong.  Kind of like using some 50
ohm coax and then 75ohm coax (looks similar but in Vietnam Tee shirt
language "Same Same But Different").
In the days of coax ethernet I saw this quite often where someone had
tinkered with the network cabling.
J McC  jmccardl@bigpond.net.au
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On Sat, 14 Jun 2008 22:20:40 -0700 (PDT), BigAl.NZ@gmail.com wrote:

>Hi All,
>
>I have come across this once or twice and its never really bothered
>me, but I am curious as to why:
>
>Occasionally I fond certain devices wont work on front panel usb
>headers, yet when plugged into the rear USB connectors that are "hard
>wired" to the motherboard, they are fine.
>
>At the moment, I have two external HDDs (with there own power supply)
>that wont work on the front but do work on the rear, however various
>other devices such as mouse and USB thumb drives do work on the front.
>
>Why????
>
>Cheers
>
>-Al
>PS: seen it on both XP and Vista.

On Jun 15, 6:01 pm, Jim McCARDLE <jmcca...@bigpond.net.au> wrote:
> I think it may be that often the usb wires to the front panel are NOT
> twisted or proper USB cabling.  I have seen many that are flat multi
> colored ribbon leads and I suspect they create a transmission line of

Hmmm, most of the cables I have seen are not ribbon cable but in a
round sheath, is this what you are talking about?

I will check.....

-Al

On Sun, 15 Jun 2008 00:05:08 -0700 (PDT), BigAl.NZ@gmail.com
wrote:

>On Jun 15, 6:01�pm, Jim McCARDLE <jmcca...@bigpond.net.au> wrote:
>> I think it may be that often the usb wires to the front panel are NOT
>> twisted or proper USB cabling. �I have seen many that are flat multi
>> colored ribbon leads and I suspect they create a transmission line of
>
>Hmmm, most of the cables I have seen are not ribbon cable but in a
>round sheath, is this what you are talking about?
>
>I will check.....
>
>-Al


Even if round, having the extension degrades the signal a
little bit, with some devices more susceptible to this than
others.  It may (or may not) help if you try another
connecting cable from the front USB port to the external
drive/other-device itself.  Some cables are rather low grade
cheap junk, expecially the  very thin ones or those with
LEDs in the ends can also degrade the signal due to the LED
circuit.

<BigAl.NZ@gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:6463ede3-4e44-42b0-bfd5-7dc247bf3567@i18g2000prn.googlegroups.com...
> Hi All,
>
> I have come across this once or twice and its never really bothered
> me, but I am curious as to why:
>
> Occasionally I fond certain devices wont work on front panel usb
> headers, yet when plugged into the rear USB connectors that are "hard
> wired" to the motherboard, they are fine.
>
> At the moment, I have two external HDDs (with there own power supply)
> that wont work on the front but do work on the rear, however various
> other devices such as mouse and USB thumb drives do work on the front.
>
> Why????
>
> Cheers
>
> -Al
> PS: seen it on both XP and Vista.

I'll keep it brief, it is a type of "remembering" so that once a device
is connected, that device hogs that connection. The front panel USB
is a type of hub, so if you are going to connect differing devices at
differing times, then disconnect using the safely remove hardware
wizard that appears in system tray when a device is connected to
front panel or a hub. It doesn't remove drivers or anything else,
it just frees up the socket for next device to be connected. 

On Jun 15, 6:20 am, BigAl...@gmail.com wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> I have come across this once or twice and its never really bothered
> me, but I am curious as to why:
>
> Occasionally I fond certain devices wont work on front panel usb
> headers, yet when plugged into the rear USB connectors that are "hard
> wired" to the motherboard, they are fine.
>
> At the moment, I have two external HDDs (with there own power supply)
> that wont work on the front but do work on the rear, however various
> other devices such as mouse and USB thumb drives do work on the front.
>
> Why????
>
> Cheers
>
> -Al
> PS: seen it on both XP and Vista.

I'm with kony on this. I never use a front end usb access for that
reason. Mostly junk & blow anything shoved in there. :-(

ded <witheld@invalid.witheld>, whose name means pissing back-door
kicker; owes his first born child to Visa; fancies hurtful lewd
infusions from tortuous flamboyant big-girl, harassed:  

"ded" <witheld@invalid.witheld> wrote in message 
news:g32ojv$3sm$1@aioe.org...
>
> <BigAl.NZ@gmail.com> wrote in message 
> news:6463ede3-4e44-42b0-bfd5-7dc247bf3567@i18g2000prn.googlegroups.com...
>> Hi All,
>>
>> I have come across this once or twice and its never really bothered
>> me, but I am curious as to why:
>>
>> Occasionally I fond certain devices wont work on front panel usb
>> headers, yet when plugged into the rear USB connectors that are "hard
>> wired" to the motherboard, they are fine.
>>
>> At the moment, I have two external HDDs (with there own power supply)
>> that wont work on the front but do work on the rear, however various
>> other devices such as mouse and USB thumb drives do work on the front.
>>
>> Why????
>>
>> Cheers
>>
>> -Al
>> PS: seen it on both XP and Vista.
>
> I'll keep it brief,

You may as well, you bullshit-spouting retard.

> it is a type of "remembering" so that once a device
> is connected, that device hogs that connection. The front panel USB
> is a type of hub, so if you are going to connect differing devices at
> differing times, then disconnect using the safely remove hardware
> wizard that appears in system tray when a device is connected to
> front panel or a hub. It doesn't remove drivers or anything else,
> it just frees up the socket for next device to be connected.

<Shakes head>

-- 
Lunch was nice;
Half-cooked used cat litter chips con burned zebu tumor and vampire bat
wart extract with half-cooked entrails aside distasteful seagull vein
and heartworm infection compote, served in a cooling skillet stuffed
with small assortment of poison-dart frog and morsels of brussel sprout
in melted cheese, a side of chocolate and a tumbler of cockroach syrup.

The wimp known as gazwad, being KM's arse licker contributed
"Gazwad" <nospam.spam.nospam@gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:wewjgz$pxo$t@servile-happiness-
>>
>> I'll keep it brief,
>
> You may as well, you bullshit-spouting retard.
>
>> it is a type of "remembering" so that once a device
>> is connected, that device hogs that connection. The front panel USB
>> is a type of hub, so if you are going to connect differing devices at
>> differing times, then disconnect using the safely remove hardware
>> wizard that appears in system tray when a device is connected to
>> front panel or a hub. It doesn't remove drivers or anything else,
>> it just frees up the socket for next device to be connected.
>
> <Shakes head>
>

Is it too puzzling for you, you don't understand the difference between
the rear panel USB being a PCI card and the front panel being a basic
powered on board hub, you didn't know that?
This afternoon I'll be on Londons Shad Thames, and St Katharines dock,
post back quick and I'll tell you where to find me and you and I can meet
for a chat you wanker. 

ded, thou objectionable idle old man, caesar's ambition - which swelled
so much that it did almost stretch the sides of the world, ye
extravagated in news:g32ojv$3sm$1@aioe.org:

> wat does masturbate mean?

On Sun, 15 Jun 2008 10:49:51 +0100, ded wrote:

> I'll keep it brief, it is a type of "remembering" so that once a device
> is connected, that device hogs that connection. The front panel USB
> is a type of hub, so if you are going to connect differing devices at
> differing times, then disconnect using the safely remove hardware
> wizard that appears in system tray when a device is connected to
> front panel or a hub. It doesn't remove drivers or anything else,
> it just frees up the socket for next device to be connected.

An entire paragraph of absolute horseshit.

To the OP, ignore this moron, he doesn't know what he's talking about.


-- 
"Ubuntu" -- an African word, meaning "Slackware is too hard for me".
Now filtering out all posts originating from Google Groups.
The Usenet Improvement Project: http://improve-usenet.org

On 2008-06-15, BigAl.NZ@gmail.com <BigAl.NZ@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> I have come across this once or twice and its never really bothered
> me, but I am curious as to why:
>
> Occasionally I fond certain devices wont work on front panel usb
> headers, yet when plugged into the rear USB connectors that are "hard
> wired" to the motherboard, they are fine.
>
> At the moment, I have two external HDDs (with there own power supply)
> that wont work on the front but do work on the rear, however various
> other devices such as mouse and USB thumb drives do work on the front.

This sounds suspicously like an unpowered hub on the front panel.
How many sockets do you have there?  If more than two you will have
a hub there of some sort - if only two they may well be directly
connected to the motherboard with no hub involved.

To explain it briefly USB is able to supply a limited amount of
power to devices so that low current devices do not need an external
power supply of their own.  Up to 500mA current may be drawn from
a single USB socket, provided the device has advance clearance
(negotiated by the USB protocol) to draw that much.  Power is
divvyed up in units of 100mA.

However, an unpowered hub is itself a USB device and is powered by
the USB connection, and all power for any devices plugged into it
comes ultimately from that connection.  The hub itself needs some
power, so you can have four devices plugged in each drawing 100mA
+ the power taken by the hub, and that is all that can be taken
without going over the 500mA.  Even if devices are not plugged in
to each socket power still needs to be reserved for them because
they have the first 100mA as of right the instant they are plugged
in - they don't have to negotiate for that.

To relate this to your observations, things like mice and flash
drives are by their very nature low current devices, and can work
with that initial 100mA with room to spare.  Hard drives OTOH need
a lot of current to work.  When plugged in they will request the
right to draw the additional power and will be politely told where
to go.  The result is they won't spin up and will appear not to
work.  In reality they have be told not to work simply because the
power isn't there to drive them.

IMHO whoever designed this hub wants stringing up.  Unpowered hubs
do have their place - they are good for laptop users who may need
a hub and don't want to carry around an additional power supply.
However, this is not the case inside a desktop PC where there is
power already available.  A self powered hub that has its own
power supply and can deliver the full 500mA to each socket is a
much better proposition here.  But to save a few pennies someone
has gone the unpowered route and you are basically out of luck
short of replacing the hub with a more capable unit.

-- 
Andrew Smallshaw
andrews@sdf.lonestar.org

somebody wrote this:

>> wat does masturbate mean?

you mean masturbator, it's a person who is a professional baiter.

-- 

Beware of the...
http://www.jonco48.com/blog/beware_20of_20the.jpg

On Sun, 15 Jun 2008 11:44:15 +0100, "ded"
<witheld@invalid.witheld> wrote:

>The wimp known as gazwad, being KM's arse licker contributed
>"Gazwad" <nospam.spam.nospam@gmail.com> wrote in message 
>news:wewjgz$pxo$t@servile-happiness-
>>>
>>> I'll keep it brief,
>>
>> You may as well, you bullshit-spouting retard.
>>
>>> it is a type of "remembering" so that once a device
>>> is connected, that device hogs that connection. The front panel USB
>>> is a type of hub, so if you are going to connect differing devices at
>>> differing times, then disconnect using the safely remove hardware
>>> wizard that appears in system tray when a device is connected to
>>> front panel or a hub. It doesn't remove drivers or anything else,
>>> it just frees up the socket for next device to be connected.
>>
>> <Shakes head>
>>
>
>Is it too puzzling for you, you don't understand the difference between
>the rear panel USB being a PCI card and the front panel being a basic
>powered on board hub, you didn't know that?


It's no excuse for "Gazwad's" reply, but most front panel
USB is not a powered on board hub.  Most is just an
extension cable from the motherboard pin headers.  An
exception would be when that does to a multi-in-one modular
device like a card reader that has more than one integral
USB socket or more than one other device integrated that
uses USB besides the card reader slots.

On Sun, 15 Jun 2008 02:53:18 -0700 (PDT), sandy58
<aleckie68@googlemail.com> wrote:

>On Jun 15, 6:20 am, BigAl...@gmail.com wrote:
>> Hi All,
>>
>> I have come across this once or twice and its never really bothered
>> me, but I am curious as to why:
>>
>> Occasionally I fond certain devices wont work on front panel usb
>> headers, yet when plugged into the rear USB connectors that are "hard
>> wired" to the motherboard, they are fine.
>>
>> At the moment, I have two external HDDs (with there own power supply)
>> that wont work on the front but do work on the rear, however various
>> other devices such as mouse and USB thumb drives do work on the front.
>>
>> Why????
>>
>> Cheers
>>
>> -Al
>> PS: seen it on both XP and Vista.
>
>I'm with kony on this. I never use a front end usb access for that
>reason. Mostly junk & blow anything shoved in there. :-(


I do use them, with mixed results.  One time I had to finish
up a case and had no USB2 spec round cable at the time (was
an old case I moderized by cutting a square hole to mount a
USB port), and used a ribbon cable.  At the time, USB2
didn't exist yet (except maybe on paper) so the cable was
sufficient for USB1, but later the case innards were
moderized with a board having USB2.  

I never got around to swapping out the ribbon cable with a
rounded one because it's not a primary use system and the
system would need more modifications if it were every
upgraded again due to insufficient airflow and no easy way
to add that (old Gateway case that was double-walled with a
curved plastic exterior, it's just not worth the extra
work).  That front port works fine with USB2 thumbdrives,
but the signal is degraded a lot apparently as performance
is only 60% or so of what the same thumbdrives get
otherwise, and these are not particularly fast drives, the
performance would probably go down more if they were.

Even on a fairly new Coolermaster case with what looks like
a decent quality round cable, benchmarks show about 10%
performance reduction using the front panel ports instead of
rear with a newer USB flash thumbdrive, but this is a small
enough difference that I don't mind so much, as flash drive
performance has practically doubled over the last 2-3 years
and it's not even worth the bother to reach over further to
plug it into a motherboard rear port connected USB hub
unless I've a lot of files to move.

I find scanners and printers to be the more problematic USB
connected devices when it comes to failure to detect and
use, whether it be when the drivers for the device are
initially installed or later when one tries to use the
device and the system can't find it.  This is assuming the
motherboard uses 5V instead of 5VSB for USB port power, if
it doesn't the first thing I try is 5V instead, and
connecting to a hub or other system which often reveals a
poor cable that came with the device can be swapped to make
it work, on most if not all systems and ports but the front
panel case ports still seem to cause problems more often
than the rear ones.  It'll be interesting to see if the
problem gets better (even resolved), worse, or stays similar
when USB3 and supporting products are released.

kony wrote:
> On Sun, 15 Jun 2008 11:44:15 +0100, "ded"
> <witheld@invalid.witheld> wrote:
> 
>> The wimp known as gazwad, being KM's arse licker contributed
>> "Gazwad" <nospam.spam.nospam@gmail.com> wrote in message 
>> news:wewjgz$pxo$t@servile-happiness-
>>>> I'll keep it brief,
>>> You may as well, you bullshit-spouting retard.
>>>
>>>> it is a type of "remembering" so that once a device
>>>> is connected, that device hogs that connection. The front panel USB
>>>> is a type of hub, so if you are going to connect differing devices at
>>>> differing times, then disconnect using the safely remove hardware
>>>> wizard that appears in system tray when a device is connected to
>>>> front panel or a hub. It doesn't remove drivers or anything else,
>>>> it just frees up the socket for next device to be connected.
>>> <Shakes head>
>>>
>> Is it too puzzling for you, you don't understand the difference between
>> the rear panel USB being a PCI card and the front panel being a basic
>> powered on board hub, you didn't know that?
> 
> 
> It's no excuse for "Gazwad's" reply, but most front panel
> USB is not a powered on board hub.  Most is just an
> extension cable from the motherboard pin headers.  An
> exception would be when that does to a multi-in-one modular
> device like a card reader that has more than one integral
> USB socket or more than one other device integrated that
> uses USB besides the card reader slots.

The ports come from the Southbridge, because the Southbridge
has a ton of them available, and no motherboard makers wastes
money adding chips which are not needed. The Southbridge handles
ports on the I/O area on the back of the computer, and sends signals
to the spare 2x5 headers on the motherboard surface (intended for
extension cables and PCI slot covers and for front panel USB ports).
In some cases, Southbridge USB ports are used to control onboard
Wifi devices or sound devices. There is generally no need for
a hub on the motherboard. The Southbridge does it all.

The best quality signals electrically, will be the signals
that travel through the motherboard PCB, and go to the
USB stacks on the back of the computer. If an external USB
device is having problems, use the connectors on the back
for best results.

To give an example of how the quality of the computer case,
fits into all of this, consider what Antec was doing with
their computer cases years ago. They shipped a front panel
assembly, which was only compatible with USB 1.1. The company
knew exactly what they were doing, which was screwing their
users. You could connect a USB2 capable motherboard to the
Antec case, and the ports would only work in USB 1.1 mode. If
you complained to Antec, they would send out a new USB2
compatible module, to fit into the front panel. That is
an example, of how the properties of the cable and
front panel module, can affect how a front connected USB
device works (or doesn't work).

USB2 is a high speed interconnect, with requirements on
cable impedance and shielding. This is an example of a tool
that engineers use, to verify proper USB2 operation. A home
builder cannot afford to do this kind of testing, so there
is no way to know how well a front mounted USB port is working.
In the figure here, the blue lines are an "eye diagram", and the
red portions are the "template". To pass, the blue part, cannot
touch the red part. The red part is the "specification" and
the blue part is collected from thousands of measurements of
logic 1's and 0's on the USB connector (the device making the
measurement and display, is a digital storage oscilloscope).
A similar technique is used to verify that DVI works on your
video card.

http://www.testequity.com/productprint/1181/

    Paul