"USB power surge" error message

thewhiteboy

Member
Jun 12, 2006
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I'm trying to set up a crappy Dell for one of our customers who's gonna buy a setup. Everything is good, all the software I have to install works with no hitches. But sometimes, and it seems to happen completely randomly, Windows will give me the bubble pop-up "a USB device has exceeded its power limit for its hub" or some crap like that... has anybody ever seen this before?

The strangest thing is, THERE ARE NO USB HUBS ATTACHED TO THIS MACHINE! The only USB devices attached to the Dell is the printer (Epson C88), and we use a keyboard/mouse combo w/the little touchpad on it. I'm thinking one of two things:

1.) Something is jacked up with the motherboard itself; or,
2.) It's a keyboard/mouse combo, yet there's only 1 USB plug coming out of it. I haven't taken it apart yet to look, but I'm thinking maybe there's some sort of mini-USB hub inside the thing, and THAT'S the hub windows is crying about.

Anybody have any ideas on this??? :confused:
 

CrashX

Golden Member
Oct 31, 1999
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The hub that the error is referring to doesn't have to be an external device. The onboard usb ports go through a hub as well, just internally on the motherboard.
What this means is that one of USB devices is drawing too much power. Since the printer isn't USB powered it pretty much has to be the keyboard/mouse combo.
You could buy an external powered hub and have the keyboard plug into it so if it draws too much power, it draws it from an external hub and not the PC. Or just try a different keyboard and mouse.
 

Lord Evermore

Diamond Member
Oct 10, 1999
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The keyboard may be drawing too much power for a single port, since it's a combo device. There may indeed be some USB hub type design internal to the keyboard, which the keyboard and mouse components connect to it, so that'd be 3 difference "devices" drawing power. The mainboard port should be putting out 500mA, but then the internal ports on the keyboard would only have 100mA available for each device since it'd be a bus-powered hub. That ought to be plenty, but maybe there are power issues with the mainboard port too.

Windows isn't crying specifically about a hub causing a problem, just a USB device. It could be the root hub as CrashX suggested. I'm not sure as I've never seen the message myself, but I'd expect you could open the bubble message for more information, or possibly look at the system Event Viewer to see what device actually caused the problem.
 

thewhiteboy

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Jun 12, 2006
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Originally posted by: CrashX
Or just try a different keyboard and mouse.

That's what I wound up doing. I tried testing the kyb/mouse on every port, as long as it was plugged in that message would keep coming back. And I know it doesn't draw that much power, we've used the same setup countless times with no problems. As soon as I grabbed a new one off the shelf and tried it, problem solved.