USB Sucks Badly?

I bought new hub to use on my desk: 7 port USB 3.0 one with switchable ports. Connected to USB 3.0 port and problems started…

Base of my desktop is P67X-UD3-B3 mainboard from Gigabyte which I have chosen due to amount of USB ports on back (alternative was one of Z68 based mainboard which would give me HDMI/VGA/DVI ports for integrated graphics). But now it looks like it was not good choice.

I have those devices connected:

But when I plug any of those USB 1.1 devices all I have is “Not enough bandwidth for new device state.” message from kernel. Faster devices are fine so I can connect pen drives, hard drives, phones or tablets. But forget about USB-Serial dongles or Yubikeys or BlueTooth…

Why’s that? Take a look at “lsusb -t” output:

/:  Bus 06.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=xhci_hcd/2p, 5000M
/:  Bus 05.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=xhci_hcd/2p, 480M
/:  Bus 04.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=xhci_hcd/2p, 5000M
    |__ Port 1: Dev 6, If 0, Class=Hub, Driver=hub/4p, 5000M
        |__ Port 1: Dev 7, If 0, Class=Hub, Driver=hub/4p, 5000M
/:  Bus 03.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=xhci_hcd/2p, 480M
    |__ Port 1: Dev 28, If 0, Class=Hub, Driver=hub/4p, 480M
        |__ Port 1: Dev 29, If 0, Class=Hub, Driver=hub/4p, 480M
            |__ Port 3: Dev 62, If 0, Class=Mass Storage, Driver=usb-storage, 480M
    |__ Port 2: Dev 54, If 0, Class=Printer, Driver=usblp, 480M
/:  Bus 02.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=ehci-pci/2p, 480M
    |__ Port 1: Dev 2, If 0, Class=Hub, Driver=hub/8p, 480M
/:  Bus 01.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=ehci-pci/2p, 480M
    |__ Port 1: Dev 2, If 0, Class=Hub, Driver=hub/6p, 480M
        |__ Port 3: Dev 10, If 0, Class=Hub, Driver=hub/4p, 480M
            |__ Port 2: Dev 11, If 0, Class=Video, Driver=uvcvideo, 480M
            |__ Port 2: Dev 11, If 1, Class=Video, Driver=uvcvideo, 480M
            |__ Port 2: Dev 11, If 2, Class=Audio, Driver=snd-usb-audio, 480M
            |__ Port 2: Dev 11, If 3, Class=Audio, Driver=snd-usb-audio, 480M
            |__ Port 3: Dev 12, If 0, Class=Vendor Specific Class, Driver=ftdi_sio, 12M
        |__ Port 5: Dev 5, If 0, Class=Human Interface Device, Driver=usbhid, 1.5M
        |__ Port 5: Dev 5, If 1, Class=Human Interface Device, Driver=usbhid, 1.5M
        |__ Port 6: Dev 6, If 0, Class=Human Interface Device, Driver=usbhid, 1.5M

How many EHCI buses do you see? You may say two (as there are two ehci-pci entries) or you may say four (as there are four 480M buses). I would say that “not enough” is best answer.

I played with cables to move devices from 2nd bus to 1st one, moved printer from 3rd bus to 5th (which is two USB 3.0 connectors on top of computer’s case) and still not enough bandwidth for Yubikey or other USB 1.1 device. Note that all devices plugged into on-desk USB 3.0 hub lands on 3rd (1.1/2.0) or 4th (3.0) bus.

During next few days I will plug extra USB 2.0 controller to check will it improve situation after keyboard, mouse, monitor, webcam, ftdi move there.

UPDATE: turns out that USB 3.0 hub does not fully conform to specification. In the end I have added USB 2.0 hub (connected to 2.0 port) just for my USB 1.1 devices.

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