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I have a Surface tablet. And I need to get it's USB signal about 10' away.

Here's what I've tried:

  1. An active hub 5' away, and that doesn't work. Apparently the tablet doesn't put enough power on the USB to supply the hub 5' away.
  2. An active hub next to the tablet and another 5' away. Same problem, cause again the laptop is the power source and doesn't provide enough power to supply the hub 5' away.
  3. I've switched both hubs for externally powered hubs, but it turns out that the external power was only for charging things when the hub wasn't plugged into a source.

All I really need here is an externally powered active hub. I want it to use it's own power not the source power to repeat the signal. (And I want to not have to buy 4 more hubs to achieve this.) Does such a thing exist?

EDIT:

It appears that this is also a problem for the Raspberry Pi. Where the power on the USB is insufficient to drive some devices/devices that are far away. It appears a significant enough issue that modifying a hub was considered a good solution: http://hackaday.com/2013/05/25/add-external-power-to-any-usb-hub/

As I understand it there are hubs that supplement the power over the USB correctly. Perhaps all I need here is the right powered hub.

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  • The Pi does indeed suffer from power issues, w.r.t the USB. SE Raspberry Pi has many questions along the lines of "Why does my Wi-Fi USB stick not work", to which the answer is invariably: "Use an externally powered USB hub" (or "use a more beefy power supply"). TBH, not only Wi-Fi sticks, but external HDDs too, even passport sized drives suffer from the same problem.
    – Greenonline
    Mar 16, 2016 at 10:23

2 Answers 2

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The Cable Matters 10 Meter(33ft) USB 3.0 Active Extension Cable is what you're looking for. It doesn't come with a power adapter, but unlike most USB repeaters, it can be used with one. enter image description here

I've read that this repeater works great with this generic 5V adapter, which means you can have a fully powered USB hub at the end of the cable with no problems. These two will set you back about $40

I realize you were looking for a much shorter cable, but they don't really make 10' cables with power adapters.

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I would suggest a $9.95 Dynex DXHUB23 4-Port USB Hub. Failing that, you could employ a USB 2.0 active repeater cable. These abound aplenty, just have a search on google. For example, for $14.95, on Amazon, there is the PTC Premium 33ft / 10 Meter USB 2.0 Active Repeater / Extension Cable:

10 Meter USB 2.0 Active Repeatre

If you really want to extend a long way (20m) then you could employ the USB 2.0 Hi-Speed Active Extension Repeater Cable (A-A M/F), 20M (65-ft.)

USB 2.0 Hi-Speed Active Extension Repeater Cable (A-A M/F), 20M

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