Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2005/05/10/cp-tech-usb-hub.html

I needed to pick a small, inexpensive, 2.0-compliant USB hub for myself,
and one for any of the users at my job who asked for one. I found
one, the “CP Technologies Hi-Speed USB 2.0 Hub”, which is part
number CP-UH-135. This worked great with GNU/Linux without any
trouble (using Linux 2.6.10 as distributed by Ubuntu), at least at first.

I used this hub without too much trouble for a number of months. Then,
one day, I plugged in a very standard PS-2 to USB converter (a
cable that takes a standard PS-2 mouse and PS-2 keyboard and makes
them show up as USB devices). The hub began to heat up and the
smell of burning electronics came from it. After a few weeks, the
hub began to generate serious USB errors from the kernel named
Linux, and I finally gave up on it. I don’t recommend this hub!

Finally, it has one additional annoying drawback for me: the blue LED
power light on the side of thing is incredibly distracting. I put a
small piece of black tape over it to block it, but it only helped a
little. Such a powerful power light on a small device like that is
highly annoying. I know geeks are really into these sorts of crazy
blue LEDs, but for my part, I always feel like I am about to be assimilated by a funky post-modern
Borg.

I am curious if there are any USB hubs out there that are more reliable
and don’t have annoying lights. I haven’t used USB hubs in the past
so I don’t know if a power LED is common. If you find one, I’d
encourage you to buy that one instead of this one. Almost anywhere
you put the thing on a desk, the LED catches your eye.