Cavemanhead Posted October 28, 2022 Posted October 28, 2022 This may be a bonehead thing, but I've always been under the assumption that each USB connection from my warthog throttle, Joystick, and MFC Crosswind pedals needed their own USB port into the MoBo. But... I noticed on a recent video by Noobifier that he uses a powered USB extension junction box and plug them all into the junction box with one input back into his PC. This way he can make longer runs and hook his peripherals into one place and preserve some USB ports. My assumption is that 10 years ago, with early (slow) USB protocols, this may have been an issues but these days I'd assume there's no issue using something like USB 3.0... Perhaps 100 joysticks and throttles could be plugged into a single port???? Can anyone corroborate or deny this should work just fine and if so, which powered USB box do you use successfully?
Ala12Rv-Tundra Posted October 28, 2022 Posted October 28, 2022 I have one which feeds my stick, 3mfds, ufc and Jetseat. During some flights my stick disconnected/reconnected, or sometimes the Jetseat stopped working. Then I bought another one for rudder pedals and external soundcard, and got one mfd down there. No issues from there. Both USB hubs are powered. Don't buy one which is not, it's mandatory for our high demanding devices. i5 8400 | 32 Gb RAM | RTX 2080Ti | Virpil Mongoose T-50 base w/ Warthog & Hornet sticks | Warthog throttle | Cougar throttle USB | Orion 2 throttle base w/ Viper & Hornet grips| VKB T-Rudder Mk IV | Oculus Rift S | Buddy-Fox A-10 UFC | 2x TM MFDs & 1x WW DDI | 2x Bass shakers | SIMple SIMpit chair | WW TakeOff panel | Andre JetSeat | WW Hornet UFC | WW Viper ICP FC3 - Warthog - F-5E - Harrier - NTTR - Hornet - Tomcat - Huey - Viper - C-101 - PG - Hip - SuperCarrier - Syria - Warthog II - Hind - South Atlantic - Sinai - Strike Eagle - Phantom - Mirage F1 - Afghanistan - Irak
Hempstead Posted October 28, 2022 Posted October 28, 2022 (edited) USB is designed to allow multi-tiered "hubs." If you plug into the USB ports on the mother board, those are usually the "root" hubs (not always, as some motherboard cheap out). Theoretically, you can plug in 128 devices into a single root hub (with many powered hubs), but not really recommended. Now, there is absolutely no requirement that your USB devices must be plugged into the root hub. Theoretically, a USB device can be plugged into any hub on any tier. BUT... TM Warhogs are known to be buggy when it comes to firmware update. If you don't plug it into the root hub, the firmware update may or may not work. Also, it will not work if you try to update the firmware when the Windows is a VM. I suppose, the fault really lies NOT with TM, but with the MCU manufacturer, ST-micro. With my USB firmware, Hempstick, I don't even know HOW to do what Warthog is doing... just can't do it, no matter what. Of course, I used Atmel chips, not ST. Also, I have found TM Warthogs bitchy when plugged into USB3 ports, particularly if your USB chipset is early Renesas USB3 chip set. I had to avoid that by buying an el'cheapo USB2 PCI-e card and a hub. Theoretically, USB3 is backward compatible with USB2 devices, but ST-micro's chips TM uses in Warthog predates USB3 protocol, so there wasn't anyway for them to test against the future. It's not like your Warthog can take advantage of higher speed of USB3 anyway. And each USB2 port can only supply, legally 500mA max. So, no, without powered hubs, you can't plug in more than a few devices into the same unpowered hub. So, to plug in more than just once device, I'd recommend powered hub, because one device along could theoretically request the entire 500mA. What I would really recommend you do regarding setup in a flight sim is to buy a powered USB2 hub, either plug that into a USB root hub (a waste), or plug it into an upstream USB3 hub. The best is to plug it into a USB2 PCIe card. I would not recommend too many tiers. Because the USB traffics is after all handed down one tier at a time. Not too much time is wasted, but it's some time. Luckily, we usually don't have more than 2 tiers, max. 3. Completely negligible. null Here in the following two screenshots, you can see that both TM Warthog stick and throttle requires some moderate 100mA, not exactly some high powered devices. But, the thing is unless you inspect each USB devices, each could theoretically request up to 500mA. So, it's easiest to just always buy powered hubs. The only reason I buy unpowered hub is for laptop portability. But if you have to plug in more than 1 device thus requiring a hub, it ain't that portable anymore, right? So, yes, there are cases for unpowered hubs, but not for flight sims. Edited October 29, 2022 by Hempstead 2
Cavemanhead Posted October 30, 2022 Author Posted October 30, 2022 (edited) Thanks so much for the posts guys - this is really good stuff and very much appreciated. Not that it matters per se, but on the new rig I'll be plugging in a CM3 Throttle, Warbird Virpil stick and some MFG Crosswind rudder pedals. Edited October 30, 2022 by Cavemanhead
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