Why Do I Keep Blowing Up my USB Network Dongles?

Both a NetGear 6120 and two TPlink A600 (T2U+) have died after I connect them to USB extension cords.

The 6120 died within 6 hours afedtr I used it for a day without the entension cords. It kept disconnecting from W10 and needed adapter resets.

The TPlinks lasted almost a week, then started crapping out the same way.

The extension cords are 6 foot + 12 foot, stapled across windowsills and floorboards with a "U" staple gun and lead out of the man cave into the the loft and provide 2X the speeds of just plugging them into the USB ports on the mini-tower case.

When the adapters start to fail on the extension cords, they now no longer work plugged into the case either. Well, they do, but keep disconnecting just like they do on teh extensions. 3 of them never started disconnecting UNTIL I used them in the extension cords. Then they don't work on either he extension or the case ports.

I've blown up 2 TPLink T2U+ and possibly a Netgear 6120 (but the

6120 has terrible reviews saying the same problem). The only thing that has survived the extension cords are the NetGear 6100's (one I blew up myself <clapping>, the other has persevered). The T2U+ and Netgear 6120 all generated a bunch of heat at the farthest point female connector. It didn't matter which female connector it was - the 6-footer or the 12 footer. But the 6100 generate no heat there and work fine.

I really liked the Netgear 6120 for the 24 hours or so that it worked - I got 240Mbps (190 without the extension cords) which is what I get right next to router. Otherwise I get 110-120 with the Netgear 6100's and T2U+ and extension cords, and 60 while plugged into the case.

Three USB thumb drives work on the extension cords, one of them shows a drive is connected in Windows 10, but when you look at the drive in Explorer, says "No device connected" (but it assigned it a drive letter in W10).

Yeah, the cables are old 2.0 and spent 6-10 years as part of "The Ball" (that big box of cables that when you pick one, you pick 30-40 pounds worth of cables, that all started with 2 8-foot cheap speaker cords 40 years ago). But they both work independently but not connected together in either order. They're sehileded and there no length issue according to specs(?)

So WTF?

-sw

Reply to
Sqwertz
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When I used to do network wiring, I would occasionally destroy cables with my Arrow T2025 staple gun. I have 3 of them. The problem may sound familiar. When I crush the cable slightly, after about a week or two, the insulation would cold flow and the wires would short inside the cable. If I remove the offending staples, the cable would magically return to normal. My solution was to use longer 9/16" staples and install them so the cable is loose, not smashed to the wall. There are various tricks to do this. The easiest is to temporarily put a cardboard spacer on top of the cable to act as a spacer. The result is a small gap between the U staple and the cable.

Also, note that the wiring I did was with #24AWG solid conductor CAT5e cable, which is quite strong. USB cable are made to flex and therefore use #28AWG stranded wires for data. It doesn't take much to break these. Needless to say, the T2025 was not designed to staple such small and fragile cables.

If you must staple USB cables, find an old bicycle inner tube, cut some strips, wrap the USB cable with the strips until the outer diameter is about 1/4", and staple them together.

However, the right way is to use cable clips, which come in

4,5,6,7,8,9,10,12,14mm widths (or just get an assortment):
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They also come with 2 nails, in various colors (usually black or white), with specialized nails, or with peel off glue backing in place of the nail.
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I still use the nail type cable clips for outdoor cable runs, the staple gun for hanging cables under houses, but the indoor stuff is mostly stick-on.

Hint: Use CAT5 cable for extensions and RJ45 jacks, exactly as you would install an ethernet switch. Then, plug in a USB to ethernet adapter:

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Note that only the female USB adapter is available. You don't need a male adapter because you can use a USB A-A male cable to make the conversion.

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

<snip>

I would seriously consider closing most, or possibly all, of the distance with Ethernet rather than USB. If running Ethernet all the way isn't practical, what about running it as far as you can from your router toward your PC, terminating in a POE-powered access point that you place well within range of your PC.

Reply to
Char Jackson

My 2025 has a little nose that comes out that helps you center the staple and keep it from going down too far, so it didn't smoosh any of the wire. - there's still a little gap there. Plus my windowsills and baseboards are pretty hard wood, and the 20205 isn't super strong. If the cable(s) are damaged, then I think it's probably a result of them being assimilated into 40-pound "Ball"(*) for too many years and being ripped and pulled. Or the fact that they run past a couple power strips, outlets, power transformers, under a lamp, and fan (I'm 3 feet short of running it across the ceiling).

Anyway - the TP-Links cost $20/ea and cost $16 in return shipping, so they can GFT. I may try another Netgear 6120 - one that's not refurbed his time.

Anyway, I digress. I'll get proper cable clips and new cable if I continue with the setup on another unsuspecting network dongle.

I just don't have all the crimpers and cable for that. I'm fine if I only run at 80Mbps rather than inventing anymore in this POS project (I know that probably irks you being teh gadget guy... but... ;-)

(*) While my small galaxy of cables has very little speaker wire holding it all together (I've never even had wired speakers) I'm pretty sure cheap 2-lead braided copper wire is the fabric that binds galaxies together (not even lamp cord gauge). Instead of SETI looking for space noise, they should be looking for a dangling copper speaker wire and start yanking on it. Probably just stick an RJ9 on the end and ... "Hello? Anybody out there?"

-sw

Reply to
Sqwertz

That's not really possible due to the design of the house. It would be easier building a shelf 15" high, halfway up the cathedral ceilings, and putting the router up there. But that would look like total shit.

-sw

Reply to
Sqwertz

Not it you hid it in a cucko-clock. :-)

Reply to
Allodoxaphobia

Scratch that. I just blew up the last Netgear 6100.

I'm now using a WRT54G in bridge mode until I get a new .... something.

-sw

Reply to
Sqwertz

  1. Do you have a DVM (digital volt meter)? Put it on an AC voltage scale and check if there's any AC power line voltage across any of the USB cable connections. There should be none. Also, unplug the USB extension cable and measure between the cable shield and the case of the computer and/or USB hub.
  2. Test the power outlets involved with one of these:
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    My guess(tm) is you might have either a miswired outlet, leaky power line bypass capacitor to ground, disconnected protective ground (green) wire, or something similar. Be sure to also test power strips and extension cables for wiring errors. I went through my house last year and found 2 miswired outlets and 2 defective power strips.
  3. You might also want to use a GFCI tester to check for line current balance problems:
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    If the GFCI trips when some device is plugged in, you have a problem.

Good luck and try not to electrocute yourself.

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

You would think so, but it's been on my bucket list for, oh, 30 years. And Harbor Freight discontinued all their seemingly perpetual "Free VM with ANY PURCHASE" (only half of them worked more than 3 times - according to the reviews). I did get a few decent LED flashlights, though.

I have a whole dead circuit in the house and I can't even find the breaker that controls it - everything in the breaker box turns off something. My "voltage meter/tester" is literally an electric hand blender (Braun). I'm not a rich as I used to be <ahem>.

But everything else attached to this outlet has worked fine for decades - including the computer. And the power to USB is brokered through the computer. And the USB ports work just fine without the extension cables. Oh, and I blew up my first power supply inside a PC a few months ago - lighting strike in back hit the SAME TREE FO THE THIRD TIME (there's 30+ trees to choose from back there(*)). but even before the lights came back on 5 seconds later, I smelt it. Surge protector, telephone/answering machine and monitor survived just fine).

So I've had 2 different power supplies in the PC during these seemingly physical damages to the networking dongles. I'm certainly no expert (or even familiar) with USB electrical specs and TX/RX But I was the serial/RS-232 guy for 20 years and I know I did some seriously shit-ass cabling and all those home-grown adapters I made, I never physically blew up any equipment (Arnet boards excluded - Bill and I were good friends long before we both ended up at SCO)

The first thing I'm gonna do if they ever brig back those Free Harbor Freight Vm's is test the 240 rails in my breaker box. I got all the way to, "Here, hold my beer before I chickened-out testing them with my tongue (my tongue wasn't wide/long enough). There are no brakers that tie 2 120's together to power the jacuzzi tub and the dryer - they seem to be missing the box and nothgin there shuts them off. Only thing on the outside of the house as a HVAC breaker (which I had to [pay somebody to] put in for Code).

This morning I just bought another TP-Link A600 - this one is the "mini" rather than the folding antenna, but I'm going to double-stick this to wall behind the computer just like I had it for

4-5 years prior. [looking up] I've gor all sorts of velcro and doucble-stick tape up there, abd 8 holes in the plaster showing sheetrock where I've done seasonal placement testing. I'm a PRO at this ;-)

-sw

Reply to
Sqwertz

On Tue, 08 Dec 2020 07:35:50 -0800, Jeff Liebermann asked:

Sqwertz snipped-for-privacy@gmail.invalid replied:

I've been happy with the Innova 3320 Wal-Mart had in-store years ago for ~$20. It wasn't on the rack with the other DVMs in the store -- it was over in the Automotive section, I figure because the packaging said "Auto-Ranging". :-/

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Advance Auto Parts appears to sell a non-auto-ranging Innova DVM for $19.99.

If you do get one of these, beware that they, like many other VMs, have a fuse to protect them against high currents, and it's not that hard to blow out the fuse accidentally. You'll probably want to buy extra fuses. The easiest way to tell that the fuse has blown is that the battery test lights no longer work. -WBE

Reply to
Winston
[Top-posting since I'm a newbie]

A followup to this one: I have since blown another... Oh I posted that November? Make that 2 more USB adaptors, A TP-Link mini (not micro), and another Netgear AC600.

I can't say FOR SURE the AC600 was actually defunct. It was in use on another computer for over a year and had just been recently promoted to my computer when it started to hicup and burp, so I went to check its vital signs and it literally THREW itself onto a rubber mallet and spontaneously exploded into smithereens. A mouse did that recently, too. That's some weird shit, eh?

On the brighter side, I got a EDUP-LOVE AC1900 with the flappy dohicky beam-forming thing, just like the Netgear 6120 that I blew up within 4 hours at more than twice the price. And the EDUP LOVE has worked for almost 8 weeks now without a fart. It gets 50% better throughput than anything less I've mentioned other than the 24-hour and Kaput Netgear 6120 (120mb up/down). I do not have a beam-forming router or mesh, just the shitty original Google Fiber router.

And I'm not at all convinced any of the USB extension cables I used had anything to do with my blowing up USB adaptors. I blew them all up indiscriminately of any USB2/USB3 port or extension cable. I'm VERY thorough.

So... Three thumbs up for this (knocking on wood):

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Yes, I'm a shill.

-sw

2020 07:47:24 -0600, Sqwertz wrote:

Reply to
Sqwertz

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