Usb Hub Problem -

[doctormann]

OK, I'm having a small problem with a USB hub. The story goes like this ...

I'm running XP and it's completely up to date.

I bought an Oker 052 webcam - seems reasonable quality and functioned with no problems when plugged into one of my front panel USB ports. The driver for this device was installed AFTER plugging in the cam, as stated in the setup instructions.

So far so good but I don't want to use a front panel USB port for the camera as it will be permanently connected. The two USB ports on the back of the box are already in use so the obvious answer was to buy a USB hub. I purchased a cheap and cheerful, bus-powered, 4-port hub. I cannot get the camera working in XP using this hub. If I try to switch on the camera, XP immediately reboots.

I suspect a driver problem as it seems that inserting the hub cases XP to overwrite the driver for some reason. It gets worse though - if I plug the webcam directly into a front panel port and plug the hub, with no connections, into the other front panel port, as soon as I try to activate the camera XP reboots!! Checking the driver info. confirms that the Oker driver has been replaced with a generic Microsoft driver.

I would have suspected a faulty hub but the thing is that everything works OK under Linux!

It's a bit of a mystery, to me at any rate, so any advice would be welcome.

Would a powered USB hub make any difference?

Should I install the Oker driver with the camera connected, via the hub, to the port on which I intend to use it? In this case, what might happen to my scanner driver as the scanner will also be connected to the hub? Will I end up having to re-install this as well?

I thought that USB was supposed to be plug and play. My head hurts!

DM

[RKASA]

You may need a self powered USB hub. Use the camera in the usb port of the PC in the back and plug the lower level use stuff into the hub. Keyboard and the like HID's don't pull much power. I have not had good luck with HUB's that use the PC or Laptop power. One with a AC adaptor that gets its own power will not load down as easy, but some cheaper cams will still pull them down as the Iv is limited in a HUB. So you may need to run the camera in the PC no matter. If you change the local a device is plugged into they sometimes re install. My wireless mouse will want to do that all the time.

I think some of the windows drivers may have a lower limit set on the device which is why it may sometime or always work in Linux. It is a sign that the cam pulls some power.