MiSTer FPGA Forum

I have a mister hub 2.1 with 4a Mean Well power supply and have an issue were the USB bus seems to crash until a reboot. The only things I plug in are are various keyboards and RTL8821CU wifi+bt adapter. The issue seems to happen faster if I use a USB keyboard with LEDs on. These are all common logitec keyboards. If I turn the LEDs off on the keyboard quickly after boot the issue definitely takes longer to manifest. I know the USB hub is crashing because I can see the blue LED on the wifi adapter turns off and the keyboard stops responding. If I didn't know better it would seem like my USB hub 2.1 isn't injecting power. It is connected to the 4A power supply with a splitter. I know the power supply works because the DE-10 nano works. Should I replace the USB hub 2.1? I was thinking about plugging an additional external powered USB hub into the USB hub 2.1 and running the devices off that to test. Asking because maybe others have seen this issue.

Is this the standard MiSTer USB board, or a different USB hub ?

USB (prior to the 3.0 standard) was current-limited, both at the individual port and the overall hub level, to a much lower current rating. It is possible that your set of devices (especially the keyboard with LEDs) is exceeding that limit. USB 3.x introduced higher current ratings at the port and hub level, so if you are planning to replace the hub, keep this in mind.
MiSTer doesn’t require (or support) USB 3.0 data transfer speeds, but it looks like your devices may need the additional power.

But before replacing it, I suggest that you try different combinations of peripherals (starting with only one device) to find out if it’s really a device issue.

I agree it looks like not enough power and the hub is shutting down. I had the same problem. I added a new power supply to the usb hub and my problems disappeared.

if your splitter has a switch inline try removing it. Poor quality ones cause voltage drop

dshadoff wrote: ↑Mon Nov 27, 2023 4:45 pm

Is this the standard MiSTer USB board, or a different USB hub ?

USB (prior to the 3.0 standard) was current-limited, both at the individual port and the overall hub level, to a much lower current rating. It is possible that your set of devices (especially the keyboard with LEDs) is exceeding that limit. USB 3.x introduced higher current ratings at the port and hub level, so if you are planning to replace the hub, keep this in mind.
MiSTer doesn’t require (or support) USB 3.0 data transfer speeds, but it looks like your devices may need the additional power.

But before replacing it, I suggest that you try different combinations of peripherals (starting with only one device) to find out if it’s really a device issue.

It's the one from Mister Addons that that came with the splitter with built in switch.

This is the USB hub https://misteraddons.com/products/usb-hub-v2-1
This is the power supply https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01D0Z8PLW/

The keyboards I tried are a logitech g910 & g510. I have to think both of these keyboards are USB 2.0 but the g510 is older.

Is there any reason I can't try powering the DE-10 nano with the OEM power supply and powering the USB hub with the Mean Well to see if the splitter is the issue? This would also add extra power however there is no way I am using anywhere near 4A.

aapuzzo wrote: ↑Mon Dec 04, 2023 1:44 am

dshadoff wrote: ↑Mon Nov 27, 2023 4:45 pm

Is this the standard MiSTer USB board, or a different USB hub ?

USB (prior to the 3.0 standard) was current-limited, both at the individual port and the overall hub level, to a much lower current rating. It is possible that your set of devices (especially the keyboard with LEDs) is exceeding that limit. USB 3.x introduced higher current ratings at the port and hub level, so if you are planning to replace the hub, keep this in mind.
MiSTer doesn’t require (or support) USB 3.0 data transfer speeds, but it looks like your devices may need the additional power.

But before replacing it, I suggest that you try different combinations of peripherals (starting with only one device) to find out if it’s really a device issue.

It's the one from Mister Addons that that came with the splitter with built in switch.

This is the USB hub https://misteraddons.com/products/usb-hub-v2-1
This is the power supply https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01D0Z8PLW/

The keyboards I tried are a logitech g910 & g510. I have to think both of these keyboards are USB 2.0 but the g510 is older.

Is there any reason I can't try powering the DE-10 nano with the OEM power supply and powering the USB hub with the Mean Well to see if the splitter is the issue? This would also add extra power however there is no way I am using anywhere near 4A.

There shouldn’t be any issues if you run individual power supplies to the DE-10 and the USB hub. That would be a good test to see if the switch is to blame. I used to include those inline switches with splitters with my custom cases, but the newer batches had very thin wires that wouldn’t pass enough juice through. I definitely saw issues with the devices connected to the hub as a result and so now I just use beefy splitters instead. A power strip can be used to turn everything off and on.

After a year of this issue driving me crazy this was the cause of the problem. I never suspected the switch because I didn't lose power to the DE10-Nano. I happened to discover this was the cause while trying to get my Retrotink 5x working with Direct Video and banging my head on the wall. I noticed moving the unit while everything was connected caused anomalies but didn't make the Mister crash. Removed the switched and no more problem. Plugged a ton of stuff in and it still works. I wonder if this is why I was having weak signals on my SNAC port too. On some NES controllers I had to replace the cables. I was buying NES extension cables cutting the controller side end off and using it to replace the OEM cables. I kept the OEM NES advantage cable because that's a 2p cable. Maybe I'll try putting it back on. The controllers were working fine in an actual NES before I modded them.