Hello forum readers,
I have an XPS 15 9530 from March and I have a strange problem with USB devices. I've got two POWERED USB 3.0 hubs plugged into the two slots on the left side. One has 10 ports, the other has 7. It seems to only be able to handle around 10-12 USB devices (depending on the setup), and then any other ones that I plug in will not work...they show up in the Device Manager as unknown, or Code 10 (cannot start device), or Code 29 (device firmware can't get resources). It doesn't matter which device, the order in which I pug them in determines which ones work and which don't.
Right now I've got the one 10-port USB hub plugged in, and a total of 13 devices plugged into that (because I've got the mouse wireless dongle plugged into the keyboard and my headset dongle plugged into the monitors 2-port hub)...so that's 13 devices including the Hub itself. If I plug in the other hub to the other laptop port, it registers fine, but anything I plug into it won't work. And if I move stuff from one to the other that's fine...everything works. But that second hub is one more thing, so one less extra device will work.
So, I use my computer for art and music and science, so I've got a lot of devices. Windows and Intel support up to 500 devices, with 127 being a frequently reported practical max. 13 is ridiculous. Outrageous even (and I am outraged)! This is not a power issue because the hubs and most of the devices have their own power. It's seems to be a PCI bus bandwidth problem...but I don't really know.
I've installed the newest drivers for everything and all Windows updates and nothing changed anything. Of course Dell support knows nothing and actually refuses to engage the problem...because that's how Dell support always is. So maybe somebody out there can tell me
(1) Have you gotten it to work with more devices than 13?
(2) If so, what configuration did you use?
(3) Is there something clearly wrong with my setup?
(4) Alternatively, can anybody confirm that the max number of USB devices is something like 13?
Thanks in advance for your help.