Any suggestions for USB hubs or PCIe cards for Corsair devices?

[Parmenedes]

For TLDR version, you can skip down to the actual question itself (which I colored green), but I'd kindly request that you do not offer troubleshooting advice (apart from answering the specific question I have regarding usb hubs/pcie cards) without first reading the opening paragraphs.

 

I have LOTS of Corsair devices, including internal stuff such as RAM, AIO coolers, fans, commander cores, a power supply, a lighting node pro, and RGB strips; and I also have a lot of Corsair RGB peripherals , including keyboards, mice, mousepads, RGB towers, along with an elgato wave three mic and stream deck (not sure if those count as Corsair devices in this context), all of which I have spent dozens and dozens of hours troubleshooting various problems with (which I suspect have more to do with iCue than anything else, but I can't be sure).

 

I've tried these devices in more than one pc (so the problems I'm having are pretty unlikely to be tied to pc hardware/software/drivers itself). I've tried numerous troubleshooting steps recommended here on the forums as well as from more than a dozen support tickets with Corsair (including numerous RMA's and more than one clean install of iCue). I mention this only because my purpose in making this post is not to look for troubleshooting steps. While I would welcome any help people can provide, I would be REALLY surprised if anyone offers a troubleshooting suggestion there that I haven't already tried at this point (and probably more than once at that).

 

What I am wondering is if the sheer number of USB devices (as opposed to my current primary suspect: iCue) might be the problem. I've tried a couple of different powered usb hubs (only one at a time, and both made my anker, as well as a PCIe usb expansion card (made by Tiergrade) - and yes I have tried plugging these various devices into hubs, into other Corsair devices, as well as directly into various USB ports in the motherboard itself. And I have tried just leaving the hubs unplugged completely from computer as well as with and without the PCIe card installed. Additionally, I've tried pairing the number devices down to the bare minimum (such as keyboard and mouse and maybe my mic), adding others in one at a time to see if there were problems with individual devices causing trouble with other usb stuff, which incidentally did turn out to be the case - the mm800 rgb mousepad and the ST100 headset stand produced problems with all kinds of other devices simply by having them plugged in). But this was the source of only one of the many problems I've had.

 

While I've made at least some degree of progress with some of this over the last several months (such as what I mentioned in the previous sentence), I am still having problems with with devices spontaneously disconnecting/reconnecting from the pc itself, losing connection with iCue (red triangle) without losing connection to the pc itself, lights on devices freezing up, etc. With the stream deck, I will often hit a button on it, and it either delays by maybe five seconds or completely disconnects and reconnects (on its own), at which point I can press buttons that work properly to my heart's content, until the next time it messes up. These are just a few of the many examples of issues I've run into.

 

 

 

Ok, with all of that out of the way, my question is this:

 

Are there external USB hubs (almost certainly powered ones) or PCIe expansion cards that you guys would recommend using (or would recommend NOT using for that fact), in case the problem does indeed have to do with the number of usb devices I have connected.

[Corsair Notepad]

We do not recommend or support utilizing any external USB hub or switch to connect and power our peripherals. An internal PCIe USB add-in card should work provided it utilizes a quality USB controller and its drivers are properly installed but there still may be issues depending on the add-in card themselves.

[Parmenedes]

We do not recommend or support utilizing any external USB hub or switch to connect and power our peripherals. An internal PCIe USB add-in card should work provided it utilizes a quality USB controller and its drivers are properly installed but there still may be issues depending on the add-in card themselves.

 

Thanks for the response. This does kind of limit the number of Corsair devices I can use though. Mouse, keyboard, stream deck, mouse pad, elgato wave three, and the LT100's I've been trying out recently account for six USB slots by themselves, and that's not including non-corsair peripherals I need to use as well.

 

In order to use the USB passthrough on a k95 platinum XT, as I understand it I have to plug an extra cable from my keyboard into my pc, which (while convenient in the sense of cable length and whatnot) doesn't end up providing an extra usb port. There are two ports on the mm700 mouse pad, and it does not appear to need an extra usb connection to my pc in order to use those, but the manual says that one of them is very limited and should only be used for things like thumb drives or maybe a slipstream connector. Do you guys consider that a "hub". Windows device manager appears to. If it's a hub, does that mean you would not recommend connecting corsair devices to it?

 

As an aside, I can't get the mm700 to work properly anyway (even without using those usb ports at all). I put in a ticket and was told it was defective and that I'd need to RMA it, but it's been almost a week since they told me that, and despite my responding to the ticket so as to request moving the RMA forward, I haven't heard anything in almost a week. I'm starting to suspect that maybe they don't have extra stock to provide RMA's or something.

 

Perhaps a Corsair-made usb hub would be a nice product to offer. Or maybe I just use too many corsair devices...

 

I'll probably try a PCIe USB expansion card and see if I get better results. While Corsair itself understandably can't officially recommend what kind of PCIe card to use (or if there are hubs out there that work well), I'd still be curious as to other users' recommendations.

Edited February 16, 2021 by Parmenedes

[Parmenedes]

Ordered one of these and hoping it will help (PCIe USB expansion card):

 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00HJZEA2S/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

It has a separate usb controller for each port, rather than using a single controller for a bunch of ports which a lot of cards do and doesn't work as well as having a controller for each port... and which also makes it significantly more expensive than those other cards, unfortunately.

Edited February 18, 2021 by Parmenedes

[Shoyobro]

Ordered one of these and hoping it will help (PCIe USB expansion card):

 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00HJZEA2S/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

It has a separate usb controller for each port, rather than using a single controller for a bunch of ports which a lot of cards do and doesn't work as well as having a controller for each port... and which also makes it significantly more expensive than those other cards, unfortunately.

 

 

Did this end up working for you? I'm having a similar issue. Too many Corsair/Elgato peripherals. If I plug them all in, my keyboard will not work. I can unplug everything except the mouse and keyboard, restart my system, and then everything works. After the restart I can plug in my additional peripherals (headphone stand, stream deck, wave 3, webcam) and they work until I have to restart my system. The workaround of course is to unplug everything and then plug it back in after the restart but that is a hassle to say the least. A Corsair usb hub that was able to solve this issue would be convenient for sure.