2 on one USB
Blitz3D Forums/Blitz3D Beginners Area/2 on one USB
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| I know this question may be kind of off topic, but I must ask it anyway. My computer has 2 USB's. One of my USB has external CD burner connected to it. My other USB has a printer connected to it. I recently bought a scanner, which could only be hooked up by a USB. My question is could 2 hardwares (CD BURNER) and (SCANNER) use the same USB. I mean, can at times, I hook the scanner up, and the computer will recognize it, then at other times, I take it out of the USB and hook my printer up to the same USB? |
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| No problem there, just get a USB hub. They cost about £40 UK and typically let you plug 4 devices into 1 port. If not then, sure you can hot-swap USB devices but remember to dismount your CD burner before pulling it out. Haave fun. |
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| Some motherboards also have an internal USB connector so that you can add an additional 2 USB ports. That would mean removing the PC's cover and diving inside! The cable set works out cheaper than a HUB. It's just a matter of whether you invalidate any warranty or take out the street lights in the neighbourhood! Have a look in the motherboard manual if you have it. |
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| the usb extension inside the comp is the cheapest and easiest method but your motherboard usually has to support it. All it involves is pluging a cable into a socket on your board which has 2 or more usb sockets on it. |
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| Othewise, go ahead and get a USB hub. |
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| you could get a pci usb card, they are usb2 now so much faster. |
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| You can do exactly what you described. I do that all the time. |
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| USBs are indeed designed to be hotplugged (ie, keep swapping what's plugged into 'em while the machine is on) and generally speaking Windows will do a decent job of recognising what you've done. |
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| You may be able to daisy-chain your devices. If your printer (for example) has a USB input you can plug your scanner into that, thus connecting your scanner via your printer. Or is that only Firewire? I get USB and Firewire confused sometimes. |
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| Just a warning I have a 4-way USB Hub for my Laptop. Even though the Hub has its own power supply, If I plug my CD Burner (or Printer via USB) in, whilst it also has an optical mouse, webcam and joystick... It cuts out intermittently, and the CD Burner refuses to acknowledge writeable CD's. The webcam etc use very little power and function perfectly okay. Problems only seem to arise with larger-drain peripherals. However this is quite easily solved by just unplugging stuff in favour of what I need. I rarely use my Printer, and certainly not at the same time as my CD/RW |
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