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I have a MSI Summit E15 laptop that comes with 4 USB ports: two USB 3.0 ports and two USB-C ports (one of these is normally used for charging). I took a look to the connections with USB Device Tree Viewer. Here they are:

USB Device Tree Viewer

It seems that any device I plug in, it goes to the first "USB Root Hub" (the first one of the list):

  • port1 has the power supply connected to one of the USB-C port on the left of the PC
  • the "Generic USB 2.0 Hub" on port2 is currently connected to one of the two USB ports on the right
  • the "GeneralPlus USB Audio Device" on port3 is a little audio interface connected to the other port on the right
  • "SAMSUNG Mobile USB Composite Device" (port5) is my mobile phone, connected to one of the USB-C ports on the left

The same Root Hub seems to be used also for the integrated peripherals: bluetooth, webcam, fingerprint reader.

The other USB Root Hub is unused and apparently unusable. What is the sense in it? I can't understand.

flip79
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1 Answers1

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It's entirely possible that your PCH (Platform Controller Hub) as supplied to your laptop manufacturer has two USB 3 hubs built into it and one of them is simply not wired up to the outside world.

It's not uncommon for chip vendors to supply a standard blob of silicon that can do many things and for some of those things to go completely unused in an end application.

The question of "why" is down to your computer manufacturer. Perhaps they assumed that 1 hub was enough. Maybe the guy doing the PCB layout didn't want to deal with the hassle of wiring up the second set of ports.

Mokubai
  • 95,412