I just bought a new PC, based on Lenovo Legion gaming desktop. It comes with 2 USB port in the front, 4 regular USB port in the back + 1 USB-C port. That’s a total of 7 USB slots.
It’s been like 2 decades that every possible hardware device comes with an USB interface. Keyboard, mouse, joystick, hard-drive, memory stick, headset, webcam, spot/photo camera, and many others.
Of course it’s my fault, I should have thought about USB connectors when shopping for a new PC and check before buying. but seriously, 7 USB slots is so few compared to all the device I have using USB
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Answer: the vast majority of people don’t use 7 USB devices at a time. You are an outlier and should have purchased accordingly
Also, it’s generally cheap and easy to install a PC IE board for the back of your pc, if you really need it, and you’ll have another 6 or 7.
Thank you. I was getting very confused.
7 ports seems like heaps. How could anyone use that many at once.
Keyboard, mouse, usb extension to have a port on my desk, wireless charger, dac, xbox wireless controller dongle and a usb microphone. That’s 7 and I’d use an 8th port to charge my vr headset. So yeah, it’s not that hard to use 7 ports at once.
Now imagine charging your phone or watch, or using a thumb drive
Does your PC do full power to those chargers? Eg. full wattage from USB-C is 240W. Times 8 that would be 2000W.
Huh? Why would it? This is about having enough ports for your stuff. How much power they consume is completely irrelevant.
It’s not irrelevant. Why would you connect more things than your PSU can support?
Why would you charge things from your PC?
Yes, it is. Are you familiar with any usb spec? The ports in your pc simply cannot even deliver 240W. Also, rying to use pretty much any cable to deliver that kind of power would melt it.
To add to that, there’s a data throughput limit (important for a VR headset, external drives, etc) . There’s also the latency aspect. I would not like to connect my controller dongle, dac, mouse or kb to a hub for example because that adds unnecesary latency. There are several reasons for using a dedicated port for each device and power has nothing to do with it.
Why would you charge things from your PC?
Are you really this dense? Why would I not? It’s not only convenient but it’s also because I don’t have that many outlets available after plugging in 2 studio monitors, 2 displays, a laptop for work and my personal PC.
Really, it’s pretty unvelivable that you’d defend putting in the minimum amount of ports possible considering current chipset capabilities and the sheer size of the required ATX rear panel size. In case you’re unfamiliar, here’s the ATX spec. Not to mention that motherboards are getting more and more expensive and there’s no excuse for increasing cost and reducing functionality.
Lemmy is pretty caustic platform if someone doesn’t agree with you.
My VR headset needs two more ports for the cameras as well.
I ended up with a 4 port switch on my desk and a PCI-E card for more ports.
You could save some ports by using Bluetooth keyboard, mouse and controller, maybe even a wireless microphone. Cables are whil
That way instead of having cables for data and power you can have cables for just power and pay more for the device.
I don’t understand the appeal of Bluetooth mice and keyboards while at a desk.
Some people like them for the aesthetics. In my case, I have a custom made desk with a tray for the keyboard and mice so the cables are not even visible. Longevity wise they’re obviously inferior and have an expiration date basically. The performance is also worse unless you’re using a wireless dongle instead of bluetooth.
My keyboard has a 2.4ghz dongle, bluetooth and wired connectivity. I choose to use it wired because it has lower latency and I don’t have to worry about the battery dying. The mouse is wired and I chose the wired version because it costs half as much (razer deathadder v3) and I don’t really have any benefits if’d bought the wireless version (which also uses a dongle). A bluetooth mouse would have much higher latency and a lower polling rate. Same thing with the controller. Bluetooth is slower and not as reliable. Regarding the mic, yeah, no. It’s the mic I use for my camera as well and I’m not buying a dedicated wireless mic that would be more expensive and have a lower audio quality. Also, and this goes for everything, batteries can flat out die and they’re usually not user replaceable. Not to mention that you have to charge all of these battery powered things and that’s a pain in the butt.
Bluetooth for comms not controls
Even that sucks. Random interference, low battery, etc.
Bluetooth audio is great when you’re driving in the car, or like at the gym.
Bluetooth latency makes that extremely unattractive
My bedroom media pc (old-ass enterprise tower) has 8 on the back and 5 on the front. So 13 usb ports. It doesn’t have any wireless anything, physical ports only, and there’s no room to add internal cards for it, but plenty of usb ports for dongles!
I use 3 of those ports at most (I use Ethernet, since it’s my acquisition machine, or it’d be 4), and 2 are for keyboards and mice (one handheld with touchpad, the other a normal set).
I’m struggling to even come up with 7 things that would all need to be plugged in together… I guess webcam, mouse and keyboard if they can’t run off a single port, and headset maybe if you got one that bypasses the audio jacks for whatever reason… but that’s still only 4.
There’s plenty of legitimate reasons to need a ton of USB ports but it’s not on the PC manufacturer to appease the edge cases like OP.
It’s like getting confused why your house doesn’t have a 20amp outlet to the dining room for your 48U server rack.
Chipsets have tons of connectivity available, there’s more than enough physical space in the back panel and it’s not expensive to add. So yeah, your analogy doesn’t make much sense.
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I mostly use 3, sometimes 4 or 5 at most.
I have 4 things plugged in permanently (mouse, keyboard, audio interface, wireless headset receiver). It used to be 5 but I haven’t used my wireless controller since I built this PC.
I have a midi keyboard I plug into the front when I’m going to use it. And a USB cable in the drawer if I ever need to plug my phone in (which otherwise sits on a wireless charger plugged into AC)
Because the USB standard allows the number of USB ports to be significantly expanded through the use of hubs.
Try finding a simple 8 port USB hub with USB-C. It’s a shitshow too!
I’d love to find additional hubs that have more than two type C. The largest number I am aware of is 4 from a company called Satechi, but the form factor is a little weird and I wouldn’t mind more options.
I found some on aliexpress “USB C 3.2 hub”. They also have a powered USB-C input but I’m not sure if that is just charging the upstream port (laptop) or also powered the 4 extra ports.
I’d love to find a vertical USB hub with like a 4x5 array of ports
I’d be happy with a simple and cheap PCB with 6-8 USB-C ports that I can integrate into my desk similar to wall sockets. And that can do both high speed and power delivery.
USB-C is a shitshow, period. Whoever invented that garbage needs to be fired. Out of a cannon. Into the sun.
Depending on just the cable I plug in (all else exactly the same, same PC, same port, same electrical plug, etc), I get fast speed (from PC) and charging (from a power outlet) on device 1 and slow speed and charging on device 2, and another cable gets me exactly the opposite. And others, slow speed and fast charging or vice versa.
What the fuck.
This is not the behavior of a fucking “standard”. Meanwhile, microUSB just fucking worked regardless of which of the tons of cables I used, all exactly the same.
USB-C needs to fucking die. Oh, but boohoo, people had to figure out which direction to plug in a microUSB cable. Cry me a fucking river, nobody cares, that’s not a real problem.
I like USB-C. The connector is significantly better than micro USB. It forms a tighter connection and can be plugged in in either direction. It allows for significantly faster charging and significantly higher data rates than micro USB. But it is a jack of all trades with a fairly loose standard, so manufacturers can implement what attributes they see fit. Overall, I think it’s a big improvement.
Lol I get your frustration. But yeah USB-C cables can be “high speed” for data transfer or “high current” for charging. And the marketing when you look for cables in shops is confusing. But it comes from the requirements of wire gauge and shielding. I mean you now have one cable standard that can do everything, deliver enough data for 4k or more or deliver 48V and 5A - which is 240 watt and enough to power a small chainsaw. A USB-C powered chainsaw, think of the possibilities! :D
I had that issue as well with a USB hub that has charging. Turns out it was the hub that was the issue because it would throttle or even shut off the charging to other usb ports when there’s too high of a demand to prevent it from overheating. Swapped to a better usb hub and had no issues since.
I’ve actually found that I cannot add too many more ports without it being a powered USB hub. Expanding 3-4 is fine, but if you’re trying to add on like 10-15, it won’t work unless the hub is powered.
Yeah, the spec is only 1A or something, if you try to share that with 5 devices that all need 250mA it just isn’t going to work.
Do you know how motherboards split up this 1amp spec? Does each USB port on a motherboard have 1amp, or do they often end up sharing?
To be compliant with standards, USB ports directly on the motherboard must supply at least 500mA each for USB 2 or 900mA each for USB 3.
They can supply more, but that’s the minimum that should be expected.
Awesome thanks!
Those modern high speed USB controllers are not free. They used up available PCIe lanes. The more you add the less PCIe lanes available in the motherboard.
If you have a lot of low speed USB peripherals, just buy some large USB 2.0 hubs so you can reserve the high speed ports for high speed applications such as external disks.
7 USB ports seems like a decent amount, to me.
Buy a USB hub buddy
Exactly. USB is designed so that you can have multiple devices attached to one port. 7 slots on the PC is plenty.
And in fact, they probably already have a hub. I can’t remember the last monitor that I bought that didn’t have a couple USB ports on it. Put that thing to use. Webcam, USB headset/mic, keyboard and mouse can all run perfectly well off a monitor hub as can most other accessories. Save the direct ports on the mobo for things that need the bandwidth like storage devices.
7 seems like a pretty good amount but if you need more, you can always add them if you have a free slot (if not, there’s always hubs). Alternately, you could build your own next time you need to upgrade.
There are USB headers on EVERY motherboard most have 2 usb 2.0 that can be expanded into 4 usb each
My x570 motherboard has like 10 usb ports lol. And then my case has 2 more on the front. I think Lenovo just sucks lol. They are the OEM for their desktop motherboards right? Like Dell?
that depends on what you bought, my motherboard has 10 in the back, and my case has 5 most are usb 3
granted my case and mobo are both 250 usd individually
It all depends on the case and mother board you buy.
Your mistake was buying a prefab.
Yeah, the pattern with a lot of prebuilt PC makers is they’ll build the PC to be marketable with a few buzzwords that get the most attention and then go as cheap as possible for everything else.
Though even those big main ones can be gamed, like only reporting the CPU is an i7 or r7 when that covers new CPUs as well as ones from a decade ago. Or only giving RAM size because most people don’t even think about the speed (and maybe aren’t even aware that it’s possible for a machine with 16GB of RAM to run circles around one with 128GB of RAM).
Some companies even use proprietary connections to make upgrading more expensive (in that you need a new motherboard to go along with your new PSU).
Install a PCIe USB expansion card. Will give you an extra 4-8 slots.
I don’t know if this is a gaming PC or high end etc, but for me 7 USB slots is a lot. I usually need 2, in most extreme situations I would need 4 I think. So maybe the PC is just designed for an average person who is not too tech savvy? I have to think really hard about what I would do with 7 slots.
I have to think really hard about what I would do with 7 slots.
This is roughly what is plugged to my PC
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Keyboard,
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Mouse
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Headset
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Joystick
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Rudder pedals for flight sim (OK that one is a bit specific)
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Audio interface (OK another one a bit specific)
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Webcam (which isn’t even always on)
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USB 2 wire to load/connect some devices
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USB C loose wire to load/connect some device
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USB stick/hard drive on a case by case basis
Why would you need usb headset when you have audio interface?
Audio interface is great to plug the guitar to the PC, and is used when I put sound the speaker. Headset (which is actually a wireless USB, It would make sense to update to Bluetooth) is used when doing voice call/chat(A decade back, I was living abroad, and playing TTRPG through voice chat, got the habit to use a wireless USB headset at this time, but indeed, it’s something I could rationalize considering that I don’t use it much anymore)
I find wireless USB to be superior to Bluetooth, probably just because windows and Linux don’t handle Bluetooth audio right
Why use an audio interface when he can just use USB? Some people don’t give a fuck. Stop being such a snob ffs
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Nice counting. Now let’s do SATA ports and fan power connections. only 3 or 4 for 20 years. What’s up with that?!?
I think that depends on the power supply?
My desktop has 12 USB ports with the option of installing quite a few more by using the internal headers.
if you connect a few USB hubs and like 20 devices at the same time, you will find out why
