Vodafone dongle and powered USB extension cable to improve...

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mocruising

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From an earlier post wrt increasing the phone signal with my Vodafone dongle. I purchased a powered USB cable expansion lead so that I could sit down below and have the dongle (Which contains the SIM card) up on deck. The light comes on on the dongle the signal strength bars go from 2 to 5 (6 is max) but it does not connect to the network, very strange any suggestions. As soon as I put the dongle back into the side of the lap top or use the 30 cm extension cable supplied by Vodafone it all works. If I carry the laptop up on deck I am back to 5 bars.
 
Have you got a normal USB memory stick? connect that up with the long lead and see if you can access the USB device, might help to eliminate if the lead is broken internally or not.

Pete
 
The dongles I've seen have a built in disk type thing for the drivers, does yours have that and can you see it?

It could be the dongle & cable combination isn't getting power - USB is limited to 500mA @ 5V. So things like mobile broadband dongles are borderline as it is.

Check the power consumption tab in the USB device settings.

Other things to try;
- plug a powered hub in the end of the cable and see if that works.
- plug another USB device in the end of the cable and see if that works, a camera (with its own power) or a flash disk won't draw much.
 
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The dongles I've seen have a built in disk type thing for the drivers, does yours have that and can you see it?

It could be the dongle & cable combination isn't getting power - USB is limited to 500mA @ 5V. So things like mobile broadband dongles are borderline as it is.

Check the power consumption tab in the USB device settings.

Other things to try;
- plug a powered hub in the end of the cable and see if that works.
- plug another USB device in the end of the cable and see if that works, a camera (with its own power) or a flash disk won't draw much.

[/ QUOTE ]

the Vodafone dongle works quite happily on a laptop USB, it's taking about 300mA.

The Huawei dongle has the software on a microSD card inside it.

I suspect the powered USB cable is faulty.
 
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it's taking about 300mA.

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Leaving 200mA or 1watt for the powered hub built in to the cable. It's pretty tight.

I agree it's the cable though, either it's dead or there's insufficient power. Trying a flash drive on the cable would probably tell which since flash drives don't use much power.

If it is power - then a powered hub on the end of the cable will sort it. But then you need power on the end of the cable for the hub of course....
 
Just a thought, the cable does support USB 2.0 doesn't it? Might be a requirement for a broadband dongle...
 
Whilst I cannot help with the technical side, I can confirm that a Vodaphone dongle will (should) work with 4 metres of USB cable. The reason I know is that I have a wifi directional antenna on the side of my house connected to my laptop, this weekend a friend connected his Vodaphone dongle to the outside end of my USB cable and it worked perfik.
 
I have an external antenna that is held to the side of my dongle with a rubber band (works by induction) that I used for ages. Solved my signal problem, but unfortunately not my Three lousy service problem. I now have a Three Huawei dongle and antenna for sale.....
 
When you say ‘powered USB cable’ what do you mean? Do you have a separate power source you plug into the USB cable?

You can get a shielded USB 2 cable (4 M) that is just that and needs no external power.

If your USB cable is taking an external power source it is likely that what you have is some form of USB HUB. This is not unusual and often preferable however your HSDPA modem (Vodaphone dongle) absolutely does not like USB hubs.

It is strongly recommended you do not use the dongle via a hub. (This has to do with latency/speed of light amongst other things but you do not need to know this). Most of these devices are actually not supported via a hub and should be connected directly to the PC. This in itself causes a problem as the most cost effective way to build USB connectivity into a laptop is to provide a single connection and include a USB hub under the covers.

So whilst it is usually OK to get the dongle to connect via the LAPTOP if you then put it through a HUB (or potentially two if that’s the way your laptop works) then you have a issue. Most will work OK on any inbuilt hub as latency is usually low and the quality high.

Can you get (borrow) a normal non-powered USB extension cable to try?
/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 
What I have is what you suggest I thought it was a powered cable but its just an extension cable about 4 m long the dongle goes in one end the other goes into the laptop, but it does not seem to work. The light does come on on the dongle though.
 
Don't know whether it's relevant but one of my dongles came with a two plug USB cable labelled "POWER ASSISTANT" presumably to give it more oomph.

DSCF3930.jpg


I used it with 4m extension USB cable when I was looking for better signal.
 
Sounds to me like you need an active extension cable. Some devices don't like long cables. I have a usb disk that doesn't like an ordinary cable longer than a couple of feet. Check Maplin for active extension cables. I use one for my wifi to get it to 15' and it would not work otherwise.
 
Don't suppose you could try the hub thing as well, I'd not heard about that and it sounds iffy.. Dunno how the device could be considered to conform to USB without accepting a hub.

A long lead might work with an externally powered hub on the end (assuming said dongles work with hubs, which seems to be in doubt.)

I've certainly used a broadband dongle with about 4 short extensions attached together to about 2 metres successfully.
 
your 'Power Assit' cable is to allow the Dongle to function on USB V1 systems. These dongles need more power than is available on a V1 USB port. The power supplied by a USB 2 connection is greater than V1. /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif

For the OP - is your PC USB2 or USB1? /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 
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