This is the new USB Battery Charging Standard in action with the Kindle Fire and the $19.95 Plugable 4 Port HUB with 2.5A Adapter and BC 1.1 support.

As both support the new standard, you can fast charge — even without a computer attached.

A few notes:

* The Kindle Fire has a standard USB micro-B connector, but the Fire doesn’t come with a USB cable in the box. You’ll need to buy that separately (in the video, we show using a cable borrowed from a Kindle Touch).

* The Kindle Fire will actually charge at up to 850mA. The video shows it pulling 650mA, because the Kindle is almost fully charged.

* The Apple iPad/iPod/iPhone are *not* BC 1.1 compliant, so this support is of no use for charging those devices at a faster rate. And the iPad won’t charge while the screen is on when connected to any standard USB 2.0 hub.

If you’re curious about our measurement rig, it’s a nice simple setup – just a multimeter and some passive components. Give a comment if it would be helpful for us to post the components we used.

We welcome any comments. Thanks!

What is possible, however, is running a single DisplayLink adapter, or several with a Xinerama or multiseat configuration — just as long as you don’t expect to use your main GPU at the same time.

The single-display case is relatively easy to set up, and we’ll cover that here.

First, make sure you’re running kernel version 2.6.35 or later (Ubuntu 10.10 or later). For older kernel versions, you’ll need to update udlfb and run a modified fbdev X server (not covered in this post). On these kernel versions, when you plug in your DisplayLink-based USB graphics device, you should get a green screen. This means that at the driver built into the Linux kernel is happy, healthy, and talking to the device.

Second, if you are running Unity Desktop in Ubuntu 11.04 or later, you’ll need to switch back to Classic Mode so you’re running straight X. Here’s how on Ubuntu:

Click on the power button in the upper right corner (mine looks like a light switch) and choose the last option, System Settings. Search for Login Screen, Double-click to display, Choose Unlock and enter your password, Select Ubuntu Classic as default session.

Third, if you’re running kernel versions between 2.6.35 to 3.1, enable the fb_defio option of udlfb. To do this, create or edit a file like
/etc/modprobe.d/50-displaylink.conf

and add the single line

options udlfb fb_defio=1

And reboot (or run “sudo depmod -a” and unplug/replug your adapter). This will turn on defio (page fault change detection) support. This option is already enabled by default in kernels 3.2+.

Lastly, create an X config file called 60-plugable.conf (or similar) with the following contents and place it in /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d (on recent distros; on older distros, make this your xorg.conf):

 
Section "Device" 
  Identifier "uga" 
  driver "fbdev" 
  Option "fbdev" "/dev/fb0" 
EndSection 
 
Section "Monitor" 
  Identifier "monitor" 
EndSection 
 
Section "Screen" 
  Identifier "screen" 
  Device "uga" 
  Monitor "monitor" 
EndSection 
 
Section "ServerLayout" 
  Identifier "default" 
  Screen 0 "screen" 0 0 
EndSection

Note: if your main GPU creates a /dev/fb0 even when the USB display is not attached, then your USB display is probably getting assigned to /dev/fb1. In that case, change /dev/fb0 in the “Device” section above to /dev/fb1

Now, on reboot, you should (hopefully!) see your login come up on your DisplayLink USB attached display!

This kind of simple setup is useful for:

• Testing or playing with your USB graphics adatper on Linux.
• Embedded systems with USB but no GPU.
• As a backup method when the main GPU or its driver isn’t available or working.
• Systems where a USB graphics adapter enables higher modes (up to 2048×1152) than the main GPU screen.

Please comment if you have any trouble with this single display case. See our past posts for additional information about the DisplayLink Linux kernel driver and some more involved setups.

The instructed here work on all Plugable USB 2.0 graphics adapters and Plugable USB 2.0 docking stations and thin clients (and should also generally work on all DisplayLink based products).

It’s amazing how few people know about the possibilities of turning one computer into many with simple USB terminals. We’re hoping more stories like this will get the word out!

To Whom It May Concern:

I want to take a second and thank you for the support you have given me. It is not often I find such good people that take time out of their busy day to help! Thank you so much!

I voluntarily single handedly support a small non-profit K-12 school. A little IT history on that school was that as of early 2009, I started getting involved with the IT Infrastructure. In reviewing their systems, I noted that they were running a Microsoft Small Business Server 2000 to which was only used to serve IP address and keep some files in a fileshare. The server had been installed in 2000 to which had not been maintained since then except for the occasional reboot and update.

In 2009, Microsoft announced that they would discontinue the support of Microsoft Server 2000 in July. Knowing this, I began having meetings communicating to the staff of the impacts of running a server without having support for major things like updates. I helped them decide that we should upgrade the infrastructure to Microsoft Small Business Server 2008 as well as source a new server to run the software.

While the server was on order, we began updating the entire wiring infrastructure of the network cabling to consistently possess at least Cat 5 cable.

I installed the new server as well as setup the ability to use Microsoft Exchange Server, Sharepoint Server, and a file Server. Also, I made sure to install a raid system as well as a nightly backup system. For the first time, the staff had email addresses with the school name! The staff we all very excited to use the new system.

Noting that there were many old computers that were at least 7-10 yrs old, we sourced and installed Microsoft Server 2008 in a Hyper-V session in order to use Terminal Server, now called Remote Desktop Services. On that Terminal Server, I installed all of Microsoft Office 2010 as well as other pertinent programs needed for the school. This allowed a repurposing of all the older computers as well as combining the old computers with new flatscreen monitors. The speed of the Terminal Server made the staff feel like they all had brand new computers!

I had been using the Comcast Modem as a firewall and knew that the firewall needed to be upgraded. The school needed a way to track everyone on the internet as well as the capability to filter the internet. I sourced a smaller used HP DL380 server to run an all-encompassing web filter, spam filter, firewall, routing, etc., named Untangle. This also sped up the internet experience as Untangle has the ability to cache websites.

Next on the list was to revive a computer lab that had not been run in over 2 years. There were several questions to be answered in order to ascertain how the lab was going to be built with these criteria in mind:

· Cost Effective

· Ease of maintenance

· As Energy Efficient as Possible(green)

· Reliable

· Ease of use

With that in mind, we came up with a few options. The first option was to utilize the computers from the old lab with a Terminal Server session. Because the base software of the computers was Windows 2000, they would have to at least be upgraded to Windows XP for security and Microsoft support reasons. Because of the expense and support needed, we decided against doing that option. Specifically we did not meet the goals of:

· Ease of maintenance

· Reliable

· Ease of use

The next option was to utilize “nettop” computers, specifically the Foxconn NetBox-nT525 nt525-0H0W-B-A-NA-BOX that we could mount to the back of a monitor. We then sourced 10 refurbished Dell 19″ monitors. I purchase one of the mini computers for test. I installed both Linux Edubuntu as well as Windows 7. The problems with this route are that it did not meet our objectives because:

· Not as cost effective because of the need for 10 computers

· Increased maintenance need

· Having to learn Linux by the staff therefore not easy to use

· No ability to use Remote Desktop into the computers (would have had to install VNC)

The third option was to install a dumb terminal system. Two systems were looked at including Linux Userful and Microsoft Multipoint Server 2011.

I admit that I am not near as intelligent on Linux as I am Microsoft products. For Linux, I know just enough to get me into trouble I think. I can do almost anything I want with any Microsoft OS and almost all software. With Linux, I have to struggle and look up internet blogs to help me with basic functionality. This is the second main reason I chose Microsoft over Linux.

We ultimately chose Microsoft Multipoint Server 2011 and here is why: I guess I could really boil it down to be selfish. Because I need to be able to support the school, I want the capability to remotely connect to any user computer either interfaced with the user or totally without the user in order to solve issues. Also would like to remote to apply updates and normal/general server maintenance.

The server we purchased to run the environment was a Dell R210. It is a 2.93 ghz Xeon Hyperthreaded Quad Core with 16 gb 1333mhz ram. It should be able to do whatever we want in this situation, right? Wrong. I also sourced 5 DC-125 units from Plugable to test the server for the needs of the school.

I then installed Microsoft Multipoint onto the server as well as all the displaylink software required. I tried plugging in a DC-125 to which did not work as expected. I then began troubleshooting.

After 3 weeks of troubleshooting with Dell and Microsoft, I got nowhere near making the system run. I then began consulting with Plugable. They had absolutely phenomenal support. Very quickly we determined the situation was caused by the 1998 technology used by Dell for the video card.

I then sourced an ATI 2270 video card and placed it in the only open slot. It worked! Yeah! If it wasn’t for Plugable’s awesome support, I would have had a very expensive paperweight as well as the need to go out an purchase 10 computers with Operating Systems!

Let’s talk about GREEN! The lab is only running one computer instead of 11. The server is running an LED monitor which is 1/10th the power requirements of LCD. The ATI 2270 video card only uses max 17.5 watts of power. All combined, the lab requires very little power requirements than what would have been.

As for the rest of the criteria, it was all met.

So, this is where we stand in the school, an operating lab based on Microsoft Multipoint OS connected to Active Directory and the internet. Have tested the system with 2 workstations running full screen Hulu and one running full screen YouTube and the frame rates never dropped as well as sound/video never got out of sync. I am extremely happy with this setup!

About me, I am an “old” computer guy I guess. Sometimes I still prefer DOS over windows. My favorite computer language is Assembler. 95% of everything I have learned has been on my own eventhough I do have a degree in CIS. I don’t admit readily to others that I know anything but I normally get tasked to fix everyone’s computer. (I gotta stop doing that or at least charge.) In my home, I am running a full server with exchange, IIS (I can run Apache just fine), and other network technologies which is where I have learned the most and have been doing this for more than 10 yrs. My entire family, internal and extended, all syncs their phones to my exchange server for email, for free.

As you can see, I love computing platforms as well as the social aspect. I also love to be on the bleeding edge. Companies like Plugable really go the extra mile to help everyone, especially to support the needs of a non-profit school. I love Plugable and their DC-125!

You can update the firmware of the Plugable USB3-SATA-U3 SATA dock to gain a number of features and fixes, especially for improving interoperability with the evolving set of USB 3.0 host controllers, cables, hubs, and other USB 3.0 devices on the market.

In particular, if you have a unit that works fine over USB 2.0, but drops from the bus or experiences transfer errors on USB 3.0, newer firmware may help in many situations by improving error tolerance.

Steps to update

You will need a Windows PC on which you have administrator access.

1. Download the version 2580 firmware package for the Plugable U3, and unpack these files to their own directory
2. Open a command prompt as administrator (see below for steps) and go to the directory where you unpacked the files
3. Connect the Plugable USB3-SATA-U3 with a USB 2.0 cable (not a USB 3.0 cable, since if you’re seeing a problem, USB 3.0 may generate errors when talking with the device), a SATA drive must be in the dock, have the dock turned on (green LED lit), and no copy operations in progress.
4. type “update” and hit enter to start the update.bat file to bring up a list of possible devices to update
5. Select the “USB 3.0 LucidPort USB300″ or “USB 3.0 MassStorage” device (which is the Plugable USB3-SATA-U3)
6. The new firmware will download to the device within a few seconds
7. The command prompt will say “success” and go green when complete. Flip power to dock off/on at any time to reboot the dock with the new firmware

Let us know if any USB 3.0 specific problems remain after the firmware update. Visit plugable.com/support anytime.

Background on firmware changes

This firmware is for the Lucidport USB300 chipset, firmware version 2580, customized for the Plugable USB3-SATA-U3

See the LucidPort site for chip details and firmware revision history.

Here’s how to check what version of firmware your dock currently has to see if a later firmware is available.

Running a Command Prompt as an administrator

Click the Start button. In the search box, type command prompt

In the list of results, right-click Command Prompt, and then click Run as administrator. If you’re prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.

We’re recommending that affected users download this latest DisplayLink 5.5 M1 (Dec 3, 2010) release or any later version, available at http://displaylink.com/support/downloads.php

Note a reboot may be required as the installer removes the prior version, and installs the new. Please feel free to comment with any experience reports or problems.

Here’s a rundown of important problems that are intended to be fixed from 5.5 (Sept 29, 2010) to 5.5 M1 (Dec 3, 2010) from the DisplayLink 5.5 M1 release notes. We have some notes from us [in brackets] based on what we’ve seen from Plugable customers.

These issues have complete or partial fixes in 5.5. M1:

• Video playback issues on Microsoft Windows 7 with the latest NVIDIA Drivers. [This is the big incompatibility where nVidia drivers after 258.96 broke DirectX functionality on systems with DisplayLink drivers installed]
• DisplayLink Software upgraded through Windows Update will not work correctly after rebooting the system (issue affecting releases R5.3 to R5.4 on Windows update). [This problem has kept the DisplayLink version on Microsoft's Windows Update system to the older version 5.2, meaning that users who simply plug in their device without a manual driver download have been missing fixes for a number of serious known issues. Now DisplayLink should be able to resume delivering the very latest drivers via Windows Update]
• DisplayLink USB monitor could occasionally remain blank after a PC reboot. [we've seen this problem intermittently from several customers. We suspect multiple causes, but hope this resolves most]
• Sometimes the DisplayLink icon is missing in the system tray. [this had previously been a sign of larger problems]

And other important problems DisplayLink reports fixed, that we haven’t specifically run across:

• Blue screen on Windows 7 on some platforms when rebooting after having applied layout changes.
• The DisplayLink GUI stops functioning correctly after switching GPU on some ATI/Intel hybrid systems.
• Sometimes there are two DisplayLink icons present in the system tray.
• Video in Basic Mode not working with the latest Windows updates on both Windows Vista and Windows 7.

5.5 M1 is compatible with all Plugable USB graphics devices. Generally DisplayLink does a good regression testing so we’ve generally had a good experience being aggressive about upgrading to get the latest fixes (when things break, they break more often between DisplayLink releases because of external OS or other main GPU driver changes). So we’re recommending this release to all Plugable users who are experiencing any of the problems above.

Things that worked with iOS 3.2 may fail with the message “Cannot Use Device – The connected USB device requires too much power” on 4.2. The root cause appears to be that Apple lowered the allowed power draw of a USB device attached to the iPad’s connector from 100 mA to 20 mA (USB 2.0 spec is 500mA, so the previous limit already cut off many devices). Here is a little more background from a different affected device.

While some functionality of the our Connection Kit was unaffected (it will still work with compatible USB devices, if connected through a powered USB hub), even the SD interface is now over the new 20 mA limit.

We don’t know when/if Apple will fix this problem, and we never want to leave customers customers waiting for fixes like this. So we’ve halted all sales of this product. And fortunately we’ve got a direct channel to each of our customers through Amazon, so we’ve contacted each of them to offer refunds. Any customer we missed can always contact us by emailing their Amazon order # to support@plugable.com. Our apologies to affected customers – we will move quickly to get you fixed up.

nVidia’s latest Win7/Vista drivers (October 18, 2010 and later) conflict with existing DisplayLink drivers (version 5.5 Sept 29th and earlier), causing video playback and some 3D applications to not function. These problems apply to all DisplayLink-based USB graphics products, including ours.

DisplayLink is working to fix the conflicts. They’re trying to roll out updated drivers as quickly as possible, but have some work to do yet.

On Nov 15 they made available a maintenance release of the older DisplayLink driver version 5.4, called “5.4 M1″, which resolves some of the conflict, but not enough to make the solution workable.

Our recommended solution for now is to use the latest DisplayLink drivers, and stay on or move back to nVidia drivers version 258 or earlier. For Windows 7 and Vista 32-bit, you can find the nVidia drivers here. For 64-bit, find them here. These drivers do not have any of these these 3D & video playback conflicts.

Our apologies to users affected by these conflicting drivers. We hope this information helps. Feel free to email support@plugable.com or visit http://plugable.com/support/ and post a question if you have any remaining problems. Again, thank you!

[updated 11/23]

The UD-160-A and other powered CM-6300 devices can be configured in hardware to deliver high power audio output, so it’s great even with unpowered speakers. But for headsets and self-powered speakers, the defaults may be too loud.

For those cases and others, here are some details and tips for adjusting the volume in Windows 7 with USB audio.

First off, it helps to bring up some music in Windows Media player so you can hear the affect of your settings changes. Most Windows 7 installs will have some sample music to play in Libraries->Music->Sample Music

Then, go to where the settings are collected — in the “Sound” settings from the Windows 7 Control Panel.

This will bring up the list of available audio devices, one of which should be your USB audio device. By default, Windows 7 makes a new USB audio device the default — even if it doesn’t have any speakers attached! So this is also the place where, if you’re not actually using your USB or docking station audio, you can select a different audio output (e.g. your laptop’s built-in audio) and click “Set Default” to make it the default for new default sound output and/or for communications (messenger/skype/voip). Windows will persist this setting.

For adjusting the USB audio level, right click on the USB audio device to bring up the context menu and select “Properties”.

The main volume for the device is in the “Levels” tab. When this audio device is the default device, this level is the same as the Windows master audio volume controls (the one you adjust from the sound icon in the Windows system tray) — adjusting one will adjust the other. The default in Windows is a max volume of “100″.

For the high-power audio of the Plugable dock, combined with powered speakers, “100″ is often too loud, and you may find that even setting the level to “1″ is still too loud.

The solution is the “Custom” tab which has an optional “Loudness” checkbox (provided by the Microsoft USB audio class drivers). Windows 7 sets this on by default, but in most cases it should be unchecked. Then, go back to your levels tab and re-adjust the volume to the right and comfortable level.

For most speaker combinations, you should no longer be having to peg the volume down at “1″.

And once you have master volume at a comfortable level – you also have another means of control. Each application has its own volume, which acts in combination with the Windows master settings. So if system sounds or media playback are still to loud or not the right relative volume, look within the particular application for its own sound slider (and most applications will persist this setting).

We hope this helps for anyone experiencing audio which is too loud or too quiet with any Plugable or other USB audio devices on Win 7. Please feel free to comment with any questions or other suggestions.

[Update March 2, 2011]

If you’re on Windows, and the above steps don’t help enough, there is a Windows driver solution to bump the volume down further.

This driver replaces Windows’ default USB audio driver, it’s compatible with the CM6300 in the Plugable Universal Dock. Most functionality doesn’t apply to the CM6300, but the fine grained control over volume is better and helpful.

Here’s where you can download the lower-volume CM6300 driver. Please let us know in the comments if you have any problems or feedback. Thanks!

Support for these devices has been in the Linux kernel since kernel 2.6.21 (file /drivers/usb/net/asix.c). However, this driver fails to find an IP address, and comes up “disconnected”

To get the adapter working, we need to download, compile, and install the latest driver available from ASIX for the AX88X family. This driver is compatible with kernels 2.6.14+

Steps

Assumes you have another net connection on this machine. Download the driver on another machine and copy over if not.

mkdir asix
cd asix
wget http://www.asix.com.tw/FrootAttach/driver/AX88772B_772A_760_772_178_LINUX2.6.35_Driver_v3.5.0_Source.tar.bz2
tar xvjf *
sudo apt-get install module-assistant
sudo module-assistant prepare
sudo modprobe -r asix
make
sudo make install
sudo modprobe asix

Your USB network interface should now come up automatically.

These instructions have been written for our Plugable USB2-E1000 USB Gigabit Ethernet adapter, but should apply to any ASIX adapter with an ASIX AX88178 USB Ethernet controller and Realtek RTL8211CL PHY, which reports ASIX’s USB IDs VID_0B95 & PID_1780.

The steps should work identically on older Ubuntu kernel versions. It was also tested on Ubuntu 9.04, kernel 2.6.28.10. Comment here if you have any trouble, and we’ll try to figure it out.

Common errors

Before this update of the driver, the common errors you’ll see typically show up as a timeout trying to get an IP address from DHCP. You’ll see messages like

“no ipv6 routers present” in dmesg and /var/log/kern.log

And in /var/log/syslog:
“DHCP transaction took too long (>45s), stopping it”
“Marking connection ‘Auto eth1′ invalid”

Again, this update of the ‘asix’ kernel module should resolve these errors. For the future, hopefully the in-kernel ASIX driver will get patches to catch it up with the driver source available directly from ASIX.