I have a “Friendlynet-Home USB Hub-7” unit made by Asante. When I plug a few accessories into it, a red light above each used port lights indicating “overcurrent”. What does this mean, and is it a concern? Will I fry my accessories? The hub? Both? Last, what is causing this, and what might correct it? - Jinx
Too many gadgets sucking up too much juice. This is not good. The danger is to your hub - either a fuse (or cicuit breaker in the hub) will let go, or else the regulator will burn up to protect the fuse:D
A circuit breaker (actually a polyswitch) is most likely what is in the hub, and it will reset itself after it cools. The current detect probably has a safety factor, so you are probably not in immediate danger of toasting things. It is just not a good idea to run things that way all the time.
Too many things pulling bus power? If the hub came with a wall wort (power adapter) try plugging that in and see if it helps.
Yes, the hub came with an A/C adapter. Besides, if it has 7 ports, then it SHOULD be designed to handle 7 accessories, correct? Heck, at best only one accessory was trying to run at that time! If the hub can’t handle that, then what good is it!!?!?
Any more thoughts? -Jinx
Jinx, in case you hadn’t noticed, consumer electronics are being made very cheaply now, with (some) computer components being the leading edge of the decline in quality.
Note also, there could be problems with the accessories themselves that are causing too big of a draw of a current. Something to check into.
Definitely use the supplemental power supply until you can get a better quality hub.
What do you have plugged in to the ports? The user manual for your hub says that each port can provide a maximum of 500 milliamps output. It also says that if the overcurrent light is on that the port is disabled until the device is unplugged.
USB provides power to a device (if it’s not self-powered) constantly, whether it’s in use or not. You can find out how much power a device is using by going in to Device Manager, expand Universal Serial Bus controllers, find your hub and double-click on it, select the Power tab and click the Power Properties button (this may vary by OS).