[Eltocliousus]

So, ive got around 10 USB ports.

2 on keyboard
2 on monitor
6 on tower.

Now here is what baffles me.
I have most of my tower ones full and currently needing to use
the keyboard ones but when i plug something in it says this USB doesn't have enough power or something.

What is the point in having so many if you can't use them?

[Dave Hybrid]

Because different devices draw different amounts of power.

[pete21]

higher watt's psu fix that problem?

[serverguy]

Originally Posted by pete21 higher watt's psu fix that problem?

Doubt it. The USB bus would be supplying the juice and is probably being overloaded.

The solution is to buy a powered USB hub, like the Belkin ones, and plug all your permanent peripherals into it and shove it down behind you desk

You need to make sure it is one that plugs into the mains for power. Plug the uplink port on it into one port on your computer.

This way, the hub can provide much more power than the onboard motherboard supply probably can.

You can then still use the other ports on the monitor / keyboard for things that you plug in and then take away again.

[Eltocliousus]

Ok great, already ordered one with 4 USB hub's in. Perfect. Thanks Serverguy.

But why they put them on so many peripherals still riddles me.

[serverguy]

Originally Posted by eltoc Ok great, already ordered one with 4 USB hub's in. Perfect. Thanks Serverguy. But why they put them on so many peripherals still riddles me.

No problems.

I think they do it because they don't expect you to use them all at the same time. And they don't know that you already have a keyboard with ports and a PC with gazillions of ports etc. It is no problem unless all the ports are plugged in with power hungry devices.

It can also get worse if you have an unpowered hub (like your keyboard) plugged into a port in your computer and then have lots of devices plugged in to the keyboard. That means all power had to originally be drawn from just one USB socket that the keyboard plugs in to.

The worst power hungry devices are things like external DVD Drives, External Hard Drives, web cams etc with no power brick on them. This means they have to draw all their power through the USB socket on the PC. Useful for when you're traveling without power but no so great when you want them all on at the same time.

You'd also be surprised how much current they draw when there not even turned on (so to speak). The USB ports on PC often remained powered on even when the PC is off to make the problem worse.