A while back, I wrote about how I have a lot of USB devices hanging off my computer.
Well, these days… I have even more.
My current computer has 4 USB ports on the back and 2 on the front, which is pretty typical. (The ports on the front though aren’t very useful for stuff I keep attached permanently; I like to keep my wires in the back & out of sight.)
I also recently added a USB 3.0 card, giving me another 2 ports on the back, and I have an old 4-port (powered) USB hub plus a 2-port (unpowered) port in my keyboard. This gives me a total of 14 USB ports (some of which are taken up connecting the hubs of course, so really there’s just 12 available).
And it’s still not enough.
I had recently picked up a new 7-port powered USB hub, but it turned out to be rather cheap and died on me (freezing and taking down the entire USB subsystem with it!). So I had to go back to my old 4-port hub… which leaves me a bit pressed for ports to plug in the simply obnoxious amount of USB devices I have connected to my computer.
And if that wasn’t enough, one of the ports on my old 4-port hub recently died after a power fluctuation, so now it’s a 3-port hub.
So, I’m on the lookout now for a new hub – a good one this time – that has at least 5 ports (preferably more) and is externally powered (a necessity for using USB to charge devices).
In the meantime though, I figured I’d update my list of USB devices, just for fun.
- Dell Multimedia Keyboard (my favorite keyboard, both for its volume knob instead of just buttons, and for the fact that it has a 2 port hub built-in – very handy for where to plug in mice)
- Microsoft Comfort Mouse 3000
- Logitech Trackman Marble (for when carpal tunnel pain forces me to switch mouse hands)
- Printer
- Microsoft LifeCam VX-1000 webcam (for the bunnycam)
- Microsoft LifeCam Studio (for Skype)
- Logitech headset (for Skype, audio recording, & other VoIP stuff)
- UPS (battery backup)
- 1 TB external hard drive (for local backup, in addition to my cloud-based backup)
- Microsoft eHome infrared receiver (for using my Windows Media Center remote)
- 8 GB USB flash drive for Windows ReadyBoost
I think it’s fair to say… I have an obnoxious number of USB devices! And this doesn’t even count the USB gamepad (only sometimes connected) or the USB bluetooth receiver (also only sometimes connected).
