Gaming A working 4-slot usb multihub for PC?

[Bloodrns]

Me and my mates really want to plug in our usb joysticks. The problem is that there are only 3 Usb ports on our PC. Our solution to that was to purchase a multihub. Problem with that was that the signals started to get mixed and buggy, so my question is that is there such a thing as a good multihub out there? Did we buy a crappy one? Were the usb controllers not good enough to make it work? =I

 

[FAST6191]

Most of the cheap and cheerful Chinese hubs (which is most of them) are not worth the effort if you plan to do something like this, I am not entirely sure where you would find a proper one these days either; cheap and cheerful works for almost everything (you can stick a mouse, a basic printer and a USB drive and it will all just about function) so not a lot takes the time to do it right.

PCMCIA and PCI cards are still pretty good though and price wise are not that much (most motherboards* ship what many ports now).

*do make sure it is not the case here- I have several motherboards around here that technically support up to around 12 ports but only 6 are on the board itself and the others have to be farmed off (so 2 for the ones on the case and I still have 4 there to go), here it might not be terribly graceful but anything that plugs into it will hopefully get it done.

 

[Originality]

The problem with 4 slot hubs is power supply. A standard USB port only provides 500mah. Mice and joypads tend to use around 200mah each. Once you go over 500mah, it starts to get iffy.

 

[Rydian]

I've never had any issue with powered hubs.

 

[Originality]

I've never managed to get one working with 3 pen drives at once.

 

[Rydian]

Never tried multiple storage devices on one hub.