are there any plans for more usb ports on mobos?

[DiseasedDonkey]

doesn't it make more sense now to make mobos with more than the measly two usb ports? are there any plans for these kind of things? (and i am not talking about using pci usb cards... they should start integrating extra ports as a standard now)

what happened to fire wire? why hasn't this become standard on the backs ports of computers?

I cant tell you the number of usb cables i now have added to the spaghetti of usual cables around the computer. what a mess.

 

[kuk]

My Asus A7V comes with 2 built-in USB headers, plus 3 additional ports through a small card.


Too bad I don't have any USB devices

 

[Yzzim]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong here, but I believe that the Asus A7V comes with a sort of USB riser. You run a cable from the mobo to the riser and then the riser plugs into an open slot in the back of the computer case. Gives you a total of 7 USB ports.

[edit]OK, so it's a 3 port card, but you can have 7 I believe [/edit]

 

[ctowle]

Yzzim-

Your assumptions are correct.

As for adding more USB ports, you can get a 4 prot USB hub at Sam's for like $20.

 

[kuk]

I misphrased myself there, but what Yzzim said is correct. There are 7 ports, but if I'm not mistaken, 3 of them are shared.

 

[CalebTG]

My Abit KT7-Raid came with the default 2 and another onboard controller with cabling and bracket for another 2 more. Most KT133 and i815 boards support at least this

 

[ktchong]

The other day I was going to buy a four-port USB hub, but then I simpy couldn't think of a reason why I would need more than three USB ports at this moment, so I passed.

 

[DiseasedDonkey]

are the ports off the asus powered?

 

[corkyg]

It is better to use a powered hub than tax your system power supply for external devices.

Some machines do come with Firewire ports. They do not really compete with USB, but with SCSI. I have a Firewire port on my new Gateway Solo 9300 CX, and have a Que!Fire CD-RW unit coming to connect there (12X8X32x.)

If and when USB2 comes out, you will need to make a lot of changes if you want that faster throughput speed. It was announced year before last at Comdex, but is still highly vaporous.

As for Firewire (IEEE 1394, every use of it pays a royalty to Apple . . . Intel and Gates hate that . . . and will hope that some day in the not too distant future they can field USB2. Today it is still a wet dream.

 

[Syborg1211]

The cool thing about usb is how you can hook up several hubs to each other thus making the need for more ports on a mobo a little much. Correct me if I am wrong though please.

 

[Vegito]

Yes you can stack hubs up to 128.. but that be wires running everywhere... I have two viewsonic g773 with built in power usb hubs, 4 each, dual = 8 + 1 on mobo left... but I only used 3... 1 for scanner, 1 for my cf reader and 1 for the handspring visor..

I do believe USB takes power away from CPU, dont know to what degree so if you want 128 devices, it might take some power away if you do use 128 things at once... wonder what a room like that would look like.

It is better not to take power off the mobo for usb devices... who knows what can happen long term..