Are Your Computer USB Devices Underpowered?

If you are a PC user that uses multiple USB devices, you need to manually check those USB devices and make sure that they are getting enough power to run property. A single USB root hub, supports a total of two USB ports on today’s typical PC motherboard, and will supply a minimum of 500 milliamps of power to the attached devices. If the power of those USB devices exceeds those power limits, the devices may not function properly, and it can cause that USB bus to shutdown.

- – Checking the power needs of your USB devices in Windows Vista, is quite an easy task and can be done in the device manager. – -

In a Windows Vista System, starting from the control panel, right-click the device manager and open it. Now, double-click on Universal Serial Bus Controllers, right-click the USB Hub you wish to review, and select properties, and then open the power tab. The power tab will show a detailed listing of how much power is in use for that USB port and/or the attached devices are using.

If you need more detailed information about any of those USB devices, I suggest that you download NirSoft’s USBDeview, which is a free software utility that will track your USB devices you have connected to your PC and provide you the device names, serial numbers and other helpful information to manage all your USB devices.

Hope this blog post was helpful to you, “Are Your Computer USB Devices Underpowered?”

Spunky Jones.