Hardware Ugreen Ethernet Adaptor: Misbehaving or just Broken?

[NekoMichi]

I received a Ugreen Ethernet to USB 3.0 adaptor for my Switch, and so far it's been nothing but a headache. Right now my Switch is docked with an official Nintendo Wii LAN to USB 2.0 adaptor connected to my router via Ethernet. This setup gives me a very stable connection, although the download speeds are a little slow because of the nature of USB 2.0. I figured that I could get faster speeds by upgrading to a USB 3.0 adaptor and heard good things about the Ugreen model, so I bought it. Problem is, it doesn't work at all.

Firstly, it disconnects every 30 seconds or so. Both the yellow and green lights on the adaptor go off completely and then recover after a brief pause, meaning I can't do anything on the Internet that lasts longer than 30 seconds.

Secondly, I can never complete a single Internet connection test session. Every time the test will finish the first few steps just fine but as soon as it reaches the upload speed test, the connection is immediately severed and both lights go off on the adaptor. I can reproduce this every time a connection test is run and it always happens during the upload test stage, and often the lights come back on only to go off once or twice more without me touching the Switch. Here's a video of it happening:

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The only thing that's changed is the Ethernet to USB adaptor. If I change back to the old Wii USB 2.0 adaptor, this never happens and I get a stable connection. The router, Switch, dock, and Ethernet cable is unchanged between the tests. Out of curiosity, I individually switched out the Ethernet cable, router, dock, or even Switch console just to eliminate them being the points of failure and sure enough, I would always get the same connection failure with the Ugreen adaptor.

Has anyone else encountered this before? If so, is there a fix? Or is my adaptor destined for the trash?

 

[xYuunax]

FYI, while the dock has a usb 3.0 port, the OS doesn't support it yet...

 

[NekoMichi]

FYI, while the dock has a usb 3.0 port, the OS doesn't support it yet...

I was wondering about that, so I repeated the test by connecting the adaptor to the Switch directly using a USB-C to USB-A 3.0 adaptor. It had the same result.

 

[TerraPhantm]

Sounds like your adapter could be broken. Does it work properly on a laptop/PC?

 

[NekoMichi]

Sounds like your adapter could be broken. Does it work properly on a laptop/PC?

No, I tested it with a Windows PC and it frequently disconnects with the lights going off, just like with the Switch. I've seen some reports where people who connected it to Windows frequently hear the USB disconnection tone right before losing their network connection, sounds like the USB port might be defective? I have system sounds disabled on my PC and didn't get round to testing that part.

 

[NekoMichi]

Update:
Ugreen advised me that my unit may be faulty, and sent me a replacement. Exact same issue.
What's weird is that this only happens with Ugreen-branded Ethernet adaptors, any other Ethernet-to-USB adaptor just works perfectly.

I ran a few tests and it seems that this piece of trash is only good for local device-to-device connections. As soon as I try to send or receive any packets through the Internet it immediately stops working and shuts off.
Since the whole point of getting an Ethernet adaptor was to connect to the Internet instead of setting up local connections, this design flaw defeats the purpose of its existence.

 

[NekoMichi]

Final update:
I managed to fix it, but the exact cause is still unclear. Instead of connecting the Ugreen adaptor directly to my router's Ethernet, I connected the router to a powerline extender and then connected the Ugreen to the same extender but in its second Ethernet port. This seemed to resolve the issue entirely, but I'm not sure why it would. Still, at least now I have a faster wired connection for my Switch...

 

[Jiehfeng]

How odd. As for Ugreen, I always thought their products were top quality, for a Chinese manufacturer that is.