I purchased one of the ‘Plugable 10 Meter (32 Foot) USB 2.0 Active Extension Cable Type A Male to A Female’ items from amazon to extend my usb DisplayLink monitor. Unfortunately when i plug it in, it will not recognize the device. It works fine without the 10m lead. Is there anything I need to get this working before I return it to amazon?
Hi Sarah,
Thanks for posting! A bus-powered active USB cable like this shares USB bus power between itself and attached devices. So devices that require high power (close to 500mA or over) cannot work with any product of this type.
We find that DisplayLink USB 2.0 graphics adapters generally consume around 350mA or so at max res, and work well with a USB 2.0 10 meter active cable.
On the other end of the spectrum, USB powered monitors where USB is also powering the display itself, already consume more than USB 2.0’s theoretical 500mA max (they already don’t work on some normal USB ports) – and the active cable would definitely push them over the edge.
Could you say what make/model of DisplayLink based device you’re using – we can take a look at what it requires. But from your symptoms it definitely sounds like power – and if so, it means that it won’t be able to work on a 10m cable (at least with a normal USB 2.0 host port – many PC ports allow devices to draw higher power nowadays, and those might be fine, but they’re beyond spec).
Thanks again!
Bernie
Hi Bernie
The DisplayLink device is a MIMO iMo Pivot Touch - 7 Inch USB Touchscreen Monitor.
The monitor is USB powered, but does have an extra USB plug if additional power is required. I have just now attached this extra plug to a 500mA mains charger. It seems that the device is detected, but just keeps disconnecting and reconnecting over and over again.
Any further advice would be great.
Thanks
Sarah
Hi Sarah, Great - that’s a device that will need its own power, so it’s good you have that mains adapter. We should be able to figure this out.
Can you plug in the mains charger for the Mimo, and then connect it direct to PC make sure sure it works?
Then disconnect from PC and connect to 10 meter cable (keeping the Mimo’s mains power in). Does it still have a problem, or is all working?
If not working, could you find another USB device like a mouse or keyboard – and does that work when connected through the 10m cable?
From that, we should be able to figure out next steps. Thanks!
Hi Bernie,
Thanks for your advice. I have tried the 10m cable with my mouse and keyboard and it works perfectly.
I then as you instructed, plugged in the memo directly into the pc, and connected the second usb to the mains adapter, all working fine. Then I connected the 10m lead between the monitor and pc and i was back to the earlier symptoms of just disconnecting and reconnecting over and over again.
I hope you can offer some more advice.
Thanks, Sarah
Hi Sarah,
Thanks for the quick reply! This definitely appears to be a power issue, related to how the MIMO needs more than USB standard bus power (e.g. it has two USB plugs, so it can draw on both to pull enough power).
If there’s a strong need to get this monitor up to 10 meters away from the main PC, we can likely get it to work, but it will need extra power on the far end of the 10 meter cable. What you’ll need to buy is a mains powered USB hub like our 7 port model:
http://plugable.com/products/usb2-hub…
Then you can plug the two USB cables of the MIMO monitor into that, and it will be able to draw power from both USB ports on the hub – and then you’d have the 10 meter cable between the hub and the PC.
I don’t know if that’s workable for your setup, or worth the effort, but otherwise the MIMO isn’t going to be able to get all the power it needs just from the 10m cable and its mains alone. Sorry for the bad news.
But hope that saves some trouble and gives you some ideas to get it working. Please let us know if there are any other questions or anything we can help with!
Thanks again!
Bernie
Hi Bernie,
Thanks for your reply, I have found a 1amp mains charger and plugged that in, and i’m pleased to say it works!!! so, as you said, it did not have enough power with the 0.5amp charger.
Thanks again for all your help,
Sarah
Wonderful! Glad to have you up and running!
I purchased a 10 meter usb cable and when I connect it to a webcam my pc won’t recognize it. The webcam works fine without 10 m usb cable. However the 10m usb cable works fine if I connect to a pen drive, keyboard or a mouse but it fails with a webcam. The 10 m cable is thicker than the webcam cable. The 10 m cable has some words written on it like " USB shielded high speed cable 2.0 revision 28 AWG/1P+24AWG/2C Made in China" where as the words written on the HPwebcam cable is “High Speed USB Revision 2.0 shielded 28AWG/1P+28 AWG/2C E188529 AWM style 2725 80*C 30V VW-1 Vega Tech”
The message that I get when I connect 10 m usb with webcam is " The usb device is malfunctioned, unable to recognize the USB device". Now the shop won’t agree to replace a product with any hardware like a headset or any other thing equivalent of its price. Then what is its purpose when it doesn’t perform a task. Is there any specific 10 m cable compatible for webcam purpose?
Another thing is when I connect 10 m usb cable to the HPwebcam then a constant blue light appears on the webcam device but it is not recognized by pc. On the other hand when I connect HPwebcam without the 10 m usb cable then a blue light appears for few seconds and it is recognized and works fine.
I tried uninstalling and reinstalling with HPwebcam installation CD but it doesn’t seem to work with 10 m USB cable. Is there any 10m compatible cable for webcam?
Hi Nat,
webcams use an underlying USB transfer type called isochronous transfers – it is timing dependent and can’t handle long cable lengths, which is why we have to call out webcams in the product information for the 10 meter cable, as something that often won’t work – we say “Devices with precise timing requirements (usually USB cameras using isoch transfers) not recommended.” in the Amazon listing.
So unfortunately if you’re seeing that kind of problem, you won’t find any cables of the same length which will work with that webcam.
Sorry for the bad news!
What might work is to go with a shorter cable, like 3m http://www.amazon.com/AmazonBasics-A-… or 5m http://plugable.com/products/usb2-5m/
Sorry for the bad news, but hope that helps!
Bernie
Bernie, how come this man’s webcam works with 10 m usb cable.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsplPY…
It’s all timing dependent when it comes to isochronous transfers. Lots of things could be factors, including chipset inside the webcam and other devices on the USB bus.
We also have many positive reports people also using webcams with our 10 meter cable, but we still discourage it – we don’t want to claim anything that won’t work close to 100% of the time, which is why we have the warning on the listing.
If you really need to get this working, I’d recommend experimenting with different webcams and different lengths of cable. Note that if you string several active cables (the 5m or 10m types) together, bring USB bus power up to full 500mA by having a powered hub as the last hop, before you plug in the webcam. That will rule out any power issues.