More Than Five USB Hubs in a Chain Are Not Supported

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This article was previously published under Q226308

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SUMMARY

If you have a properly enumerated Universal Serial Bus (USB) hub connected to your Windows 2000-based computer and you add five more hubs connected in a chain, the last hub may not work properly. Windows 2000 does not support USB hubs more than five deep.

Five hubs deep is the limitation in the USB specification. It is not a limitation in Windows 2000.

MORE INFORMATION

You can see the non-functional hub in Device Manager. Click Start, point to Settings, click Control Panel, double-click Add/Remove Hardware, click Next, click Add/Troubleshoot a device, and then click Next.

Right-click the hub with an exclamation point in a yellow circle. You may see either of the following statuses for the hub:

Code 14: This device cannot work properly until you restart your computer
Windows cannot support more than five hubs deep on a USB chain.