13 ms·
USB 3.0* Radio Frequency Interference on 2.4 GHz Devices (2012)
- therealmarv 9y ago5Ghz wifi for all the things!
- tiles 9y agoI want this, but 5GHz doesn't permeate the walls in my bedroom as well. :( I figured we'd be living in a dual-band world for quite some time.
- voxadam 9y agoI had the exact same propagation issue as you. Fortunately, I found a solution that's both inexpensive and incredibly effective. http://amzn.to/2AgqfsI http://amzn.to/2AgqfsI
- cjsuk 9y agoWe just leave all our doors open!
- blattimwind 9y agoA drill bit for wood... for drilling through walls? Wat?
- jumpkickhit 9y agoWeren't mesh wireless networks made to help this issue? Also 802.11aX is out soon, it will use 2.4/5ghz just with a bit more bandwidth on both, so you may want to just wait for that instead. (edit: looks to be maybe +25% or so more)
- gcb0 9y agomakes me wonder if the problem was accidental.
- azernik 9y agoSadly there are other things (proprietary or Bluetooth wireless accessories, for example) that only operate on 2.4GHz.
- tonylemesmer 9y agoIf I have my USB external drive plugged into the port next to the little USB dongle for my wireless logitech mouse, the mouse doesn't work properly. I have to shift one of the USB connectors to the other side of the laptop.
- ssijak 9y agoOmg, I had the same problem few years back and was blaming Logitech for poor wifi connection. Now I know..
- tonylemesmer 9y agoNice to see it actually described in this document. I replaced a few sets of batteries before I realised the coincidence.
- kuschku 9y agoMy wireless mouse literally just stopped working when I plugged my phone into the USB 3 port next to it to load an APK onto it... This explains so much. FFS.
- mszcz 9y agoSame here. I had an issue with Logitech wireless keyboard and mouse. Whenever a pendrive was plugged in to an USB hub both the mouse and keyboard had their ranges reduced to about 20cm. I'm glad I can finally have some closure :P
- sixdimensional 9y agoI have the same problem with a Plugable dock and Logitech keyboard, and actually it was on their website which I first found out about this issue and link to Intel's site. Plugable says that getting any small amount of distance between the USB3.0 chip and the 2.4ghz transmitter/receiver helps, and recommended using a USB2.0 extension dongle to get the needed separation.
- kakarot 9y agoI always got much better signal by plugging my mouse into a usb 2.0 hub attached to my 3.1 hub as opposed to directly attaching it to the 3.1 hub, and I just chalked it up to distance and cheap components. Mystery solved!
- baybal2 9y agoMain points: 1. Do not place USB ports near antennas, or RF parts 2. USB allows for rather large deviation from base frequency, use a drifting frequency source to spread the emission spectrum 3. Use shielding where possible
- wzy 9y agoI wonder if this why my new Logitec mouse works poorly in the default wireless mode but is OK in the Bluetooth mode.
- jasonellis 9y agoYes. I've fought this battle with Logitech wireless devices for years since I upgraded to a 15" MacBook Pro with retina (USB 3 only, no USB 2) and added a USB 3.0 hub. It's impossible to put the dongle in a USB port that doesn't incur massive interference. I've even tried using USB extension cables. It's terrible. EDIT: I came across this whitepaper when looking into the problem a few years ago and just accepted that performance of wireless mice and keyboards is going to be bad. I haven't yet seen any good bluetooth replacements. Most of the bluetooth keyboards I see are smaller without 10-key. I think I had a bluetooth mouse at one point and the lag was unbearable (given, this was years ago, so maybe they're better now).
- sliverstorm 9y agoThat would make sense, as flaky as Bluetooth can be one of its more futuristic features is supposed to be aggressive frequency hopping to avoid interference.
- digi_owl 9y agoYeah i think the biggest source of flakiness with Bluetooth is when people pretend it is wifi and stick devices behind various objects but expect the connection to remain flawless. Only usb-to-bluetooth dongles are likely to have the signal strength to penetrate walls. Mobile devices, and in particular earpieces and similar small devices, are likely to use weaker signals that rely heavily on being reflected off surfaces to get around obstacles. And one such obstacle is the human body. Thus putting you phone on one side, and the ear piece on the other side may results in poor reception. But standing near a surface, be it a wall, a car, or something else, in front or behind may allow better reception as the signal can bounce off said surface.
- krrrh 9y ago
- jdalgetty 9y agoThis explains why my short stint with an XPS 13 and it's dock was nothing but headaches.
- compuguy 9y agoThe solution to fixing the dock issues (partially) is to swap out the wifi card. The Broadcom card puts out lots of interference (no issues with a Intel AC wireless card).
- jdalgetty 9y agoI returned it and bought a macbook pro.
- nikanj 9y agoThis is a great example of an Apple-style solution vs a Dell style solution. Just bought a laptop, and now you need to start hacking it up and changing the wifi-card so it doesn't cause interference to itself? What next, break out the soldering iron and go over all the cold joints?
- bangonkeyboard 9y agoNote that this also pertains to USB-C. This has been a personal nightmare on the new MacBook Pros.
- ajross 9y agoThat's because USB Type C is just a connector standard for a cable containing (among other things) a standard set of USB 2 and 3 signals.
- digi_owl 9y agoIndeed. What most people refer to as USB-C is a combo of three, highly optional(!), specs. The first is the C plug spec. The second is the USB 3.1 protocol and cable spec. The third is the USB power delivery spec. All of these can be mixed and matched as the OEM sees fit.
- drzaiusapelord 9y agoThis is from 2012 and old news in the Vive community where we try to use USB2.0 to avoid these and other issues. There's a few 3.0 chipsets/configs/layouts/whatever that cause serious 2.4ghz interference and that can affect motion controller latency, wifi internet connections, etc. Of all the frequencies to interfere with...
- midnitewarrior 9y agoI ran into this a few weeks ago with a USB 3.0 thumb drive interrupting my Wi-Fi network communication on my PC. I fixed this by putting the USB 3.0 thumb drive through the washing machine in my pants pocket. After being washed, the thumb drive no longer works, but my wi-fi is working great now, thanks to the washing machine. Problem gone.
- cgb223 9y agoI found a similar fix, but instead put my laptop in the wash USB now works great!
- diegoperini 9y agoI'd better put my wifi router in my washing machine to fix both.
- davidkuhta 9y agoIs your USB hitting 24fps?
- fphhotchips 9y agoNo, but for a few minutes it hit 1000rpm
- alsetmusic 9y agoThis is extremely wasteful. Given current data in the area of climate change (I say this as a California resident who has seen firsthand the effects of long term drought in the area), we need to consciously conserve water. Reservoirs are drying up, fires are out of control, etc. Please don’t contribute to the problem. Use a hammer.
- godelmachine 9y agoI was of the opinions puns are not tolerated in HackerNews
- 9y ago
- SippinLean 9y agoThis was a big issue for me on my Intel NUC, the wireless keyboard's receiver dongle was plugged into a USB3 port and received lots of interference. Installing it into a 1-ft USB extension cable solved the problem completely.
- _jal 9y agoI have two of those, and they don't even work well as doorstops. Intel crippled them in multiple ways, apparently varying by model, to the point where I'm not even sure it was intentional. But both of mine are useless to me because the BIOS refuses to boot without a monitor attached[1]. Apparently that was fixed in some models, but updates made no difference. [1] One I can sometimes trick with a "headless" DP cable, but even that isn't reliable enough to stick in a closet and forget about.
- zwerdlds 9y agoJust to offer a contrary pov, I have a gigabyte brix that I use as a headless VM cluster workhorse - worked fine with the headless HDMI dongle.
- _jal 9y agoBoth of mine are Intel-branded, I forget which models. (They're in a box of things I've been too lazy to try to sell.) I really love the form factor - about four of these would replace close to a kW-worth of hardware I currently run, and could hide in a closet. Maybe I should try again with known-good versions.
- psadauskas 9y agoTotally off topic in this thread, but I also have two of them I use for dev machines (one at home and one at the office), and I love them. Both run linux perfectly, all hardware supported, they're fast, powerful, quiet and low-power.
- herpdorplarp 9y agoI "have" about 150 pcs of NUC model DC3217IYE. Three years later about 10% are dead.
- grandalf 9y agoIt's great to see RFI problem that impact the profits of big firms. Most RFI is generated because firms cut corners and lazy/crony regulators fail to enforce FCC part 15 rules.
- zwieback 9y agoDo you have any proof for this? I think it's much more likely that low cost components from off-brand vendors cause issues.
- nickysielicki 9y agohttp://www.arrl.org/news/switching-power-supplies-a-more-common-noise-source-than-power-lines-arrl-lab-manager-says http://www.arrl.org/news/switching-power-supplies-a-more-com... The issue isn't that the components in these supplies are cheap, it's that necessary filtering components are not in there at all. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_factor#Switched-mode_power_supplies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_factor#Switched-mode_pow...
- grandalf 9y agoExactly. In many devices, including switching supplies, a bit of attention (and a few very low-cost parts) will bring the devices into compliance. RFI suppression steps are in the data sheet / example circuit for nearly all components used in switching supplies, FWIW. But just as firms want to be able to import steaks that have been made from cattle raised near polluted foreign rivers, firms import power supplies made with RFI-suppression parts omitted because someone along the way wants that $0.15 as profit and US regulators don't care. Incidentally, a law was passed fairly recently that allows agricultural firms to remove information about where food items were produced, so quite possibly the steaks we eat will soon be made from cows who drink the water runoff from the polluting factories that make the low quality switching supplies. Our "first world" environmental regulations (food quality, air and water quality, RF noise floor) are only as good as our regulation of imported products that commit fraud by selling products that do not comply. By failing to enforce these laws, US regulators have helped foreign firms cheat their way into the US market, putting US firms out of business and harming consumers indirectly by polluting their environment. I'm not arguing that all of those regulations make sense, just that it is silly to have laws that we don't enforce when the health consequences and RFI consequences harm everyone.
- mt42or 9y agosame weird issue with logitech mouth and usb C port
- azernik 9y agoI was having issues with my wireless mouse getting flaky when my phone is on my desk; I thought it might be WiFi or Bluetooth signals from the phone, but this makes me wonder if it's because I plug in to charge over USB.
- SloopJon 9y agoWhat is the meaning of the asterisk in "3.0*"?
- pedrosanta 9y agoHad this with a 3.0 USB-C to USB-A hub I bought a while ago for the Macbook Pro. It was really a lil' portable Wi-Fi jamming device. Advice: buy USB 3.0 accessories with good shielded cables.
- Mister_Snuggles 9y agoI once had a similar problem with a Mini-DP to DVI adapter. I bought a cheap 3rd party one, when I used it I could not use WiFi. When I replaced the cheap one with an Apple one everything worked perfectly.
- kylehotchkiss 9y agoI just saw somebody mention (on an amazon review for an Aukey charger) that their USB-C car charger was interfering with TPMS system on their car. That's a little scary. Hopefully they'll get it ironed out soon. I realize TPMS is not 2.4gz but thought that was relevant to interference concerns
- vvanders 9y agoThere's actually a ton of RF interference out there, just that it doesn't impact enough people on a regular basis for anyone to do anything about it. The 2 meter radio I have in my car goes crazy with RF(up to S9) when I drive through the local Starbucks. That said bringing it up with anyone will probably get you a couple funny looks and not much else. (things are even worse on HF and the like)
- semi-extrinsic 9y agoMaybe stop driving your car through coffee shops? Sounds expensive and cumbersome even without the RF interference.
- blattimwind 9y agoA number of ham radio bands became unusuable due to interference over the years.
- LeoPanthera 9y agoNotably, powerline ethernet destroys nearly the entire HF range, from 3 to 30MHz. This isn't just bad for radio hams, it ruins shortwave and some AM radio too.
- vvanders 9y agoThe hell? (just checked youtube and you're right.) How did that ever make it past FCC certification? I understand unintentional QRM from cheap things but that is something that's spec'd out.
- puzzlingcaptcha 9y agoLogitech Unifying products (which also work at ~2.4GHz) have been affected by this for a long time too. http://support.logitech.com/en_my/article/38032?product=a0qi00000069vCQAAY http://support.logitech.com/en_my/article/38032?product=a0qi...
- orbitur 9y agoYep, my "docking station" at work consists of a USB3 hub that I plug in to my laptop. Took me a week before I learned that I need to plug in the Logitech wireless USB thinger directly in to my laptop. Plugging it into the hub made the mouse partially unresponsive.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- gooseus 9y agoSo does this mean that USB 3.0 will be banned from use on airplanes as well?
- Breakthrough 9y agoNo, only when they come out with fly-by-wireless planes. (also, when I first wrote this, I was half-kidding until I read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fly-by-wire#Fly-by-wireless https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fly-by-wire#Fly-by-wireless)
- gooseus 9y agoWell, I ask because I thought the reason you needed an airplane mode on your phones was because of radio interference with some kind of equipment... but of course they do have wifi during the flight so I think it might be related to take-off and landing procedure were interference is a problem? Or else just total BS?
- Breakthrough 9y agoThat's an interesting point, although you have to remember airplane mode turns off all radios on the device, not only the Wi-Fi. They probably use it as a "fool-proof" method to prevent any unintentional interference with both current and future wireless devices. That being said, unofficially I agree, given Wi-Fi is provided on flights now, I'm sure that means you're alright to leave your Wi-Fi radio on. The answer to why shut off all GSM/CDMA, Bluetooth, and GPS radios as well, however, probably predates the high prevalence of all these wireless technologies in a unified device.
- stephen_g 9y agoIt’s a legacy restriction - it was just that they banned any radio transmitters, probably originally because older analogue radio transmitters could interfere with the aircraft’s radios and things. I don’t think there would have ever been any legitimate concern of low-power digital devices like mobile phones causing any problems like coupling into control systems or anything... Digital radios are typically much better filtered and far lower power than analogue radios. The company I work for makes satellite antennas for ships and large road vehicles, and the only time we’ve had a problem like that was when somebody mounted a 20kW S-band weather radar three metres from our antenna. It just requires a little extra shielding in one module though.
- codewithcheese 9y agoI bought a USB 3.0 Ethernet to USB adapter and it seems since then my Logitech wireless mouse has troubling hold a mouse down. I've been trying to nail down the issue. Maybe the interference is the cause. What do you think?
- jimsmart 9y agoYes, probably. I have a Logitech wireless mouse, and it's terrible when anywhere even remotely near to a USB3 hub. [Edit: plenty of other comments about Logitech issues too]
- orbitur 9y agoI commented above about this: remove the Logitech dongle from your USB3 hub and plug it directly into your machine. That was the only way I could "fix" it.
- kondor6c 9y agoI had concerns about RFI when purchasing my LimeSDR[1] USB version. Perhaps adding more shielding on the back side of the ports and around the unit itself is in order? I imagine that aluminum could help and it is fairly easy to put in place. [1] https://myriadrf.org/projects/limesdr/ https://myriadrf.org/projects/limesdr/
- tastythrowaway 9y agoare you saying you were concerned about RFI before you purchased the LimeSDR or that you've noticed RFI when attempting to use the LimeSDR? is this the one with the usb-a connector or the usb 3 micro b? Thanks.
- kondor6c 9y agoSorry for the delay in responding, I didn't notice the reply. I was concerned with it before purchasing because I had heard there was a good amount of RFI produced by USB in general. I have the USB 3 micro B, I feel that a good enclosure could mitigate a lot my concerns (and the article seems to back it up). If you would like any pictures please let me know, I can try to provide them.
- fitzroy 9y agoThis is definitely a known issue on 2012/14 the Mac Minis (USB 3.0). https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203729 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203729 https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/usb-3-causing-interference-with-bluetooth.1696604/ https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/usb-3-causing-interfere... Apple's article mentions USB 3 devices, but the issue is very much with Mac Mini's ports. Moving the devices further away doesn't help much. I have a pair of cheap Bluetooth earbuds. They have a range of about 30 feet with when paired with an iPhone and about 4 feet when paired with the Mini. Apple's Magic Mouse needs to be within about 4 feet to work as well.
- craftyguy 9y agoThe article here is from 2012, so not surprising that devices made as early as 2012 would be affected.
- 333c 9y agoThanks for posting this! Whenever I plug my backup hard drive into my laptop (it connects over USB 3), my wifi connection drops. I guess I'll have to try switching to 5GHz during backups…
- smegel 9y agoYep, this bit me hard with my NVidia Shield TV. Plug in the portable USB HDD and the remote stopped worked. Thankfully Kodi streams from SMB shares extremely well.
- feifan 9y agoI started getting interference on my wireless keyboard + USB hard drive when using my USB-C hub … I'd been blaming it on the hub for this whole time. Thanks for sharing!
- constantlm 9y agoHad an issue with my previous Macbook Air and a USB3 external drive where the wifi would completely stop working when I plugged the drive in. Sounds like it might be related to this.
- userbinator 9y agoIt's been 5 years and no one has managed to turn a USB controller into a WiFi adapter (nor a WiFi adapter into a USB sniffer), so I'm guessing the signals are only near enough to intefere and not anything beyond that. ...That would actually be rather fun to see, like http://www.erikyyy.de/tempest/ http://www.erikyyy.de/tempest/