Teardown: A Generic 7-Port USB 3.0 Hub That Wasn’t

The recent end-of-financial-year sales were rather interesting – I found myself spending a lot more time browsing AliExpress than I did Amazon or eBay this year which is something I wouldn’t have envisioned in the past. I suppose the deals offered by the others just weren’t that good. While AliExpress was dangling cashbacks and coupons, I decided to make the most of it and buy some things that I needed.I felt like a USB 3.0 hub with a nice number of ports would be a good thing to aim for. After all, who doesn’t need more USB 3.0 ports nowadays? But alas, while I thought the world of hubs have long advanced far enough to mean that even your average product would be decent – I didn’t expect to receive what I received …UnbaggingAs with generic, low-cost items, this one arrived in a bag rather than a box.There isn’t much to identify who made the product, with the only name seemingly being a difficult-to-track-down Shenzhen Lishi (or is that Lishl) Technology Co. Ltd.The hub has a captive USB-A cable, seven ports with individual indicators and switches. There are no other inclusions.The body of the unit is entirely plastic, so definitely not like the mostly-metal of my Simplecom CHU810 which I had used in my optical drive tower-of-power. Visually similar products but definitely quite different in reality.There is a small barrel jack for external power input, but there is no labelling regarding the input requirements. No power supply comes with this particular unit, but I suspect other (more expensive) listings may come with one. This one was listed at just shy of US$5.It’s very anonymous, without even any branding or specifications on the rear. The USB-A connector has a blue tongue and USB 3.0 contacts, but the plastic seems to have some mould flash.TeardownI had a feeling this wasn’t a quality product, so I decided to embark on a teardown right-away. This hub has a screwless design, so prying around the edge allows the posts to slide out of their friction-fit receptacles.We’re now in and things don’t look right!Count the pins! Six ports with only four pins, meaning USB 2.0 at the best.

Only the top port has the right number of pins for USB 3.0 – it would seem this is a choice to keep costs down and “pretend” to be a USB 3.0 hub. It’s basically a USB 3.0 extension cable (or splitter, like the one I built) with a hub attached on the USB 2.0 lines. The port buttons appear to be hardware disconnect for VBUS, but that won’t stop self-powered devices from connecting.They seemed to economise on solder so much that the USB 2.0 ports had absolutely no soldering on the shell, required to mechanically support the port and prevent it from flexing. The USB 3.0 port had just enough on the edge, but didn’t fill the full plated-through-hole and thus, is not as strong as it could be. All bad news.From the top, we are reminded just how all ports are blue, “pretend” USB 3.0. The hub is made from two HS8836A chips which are four-port USB 2.0 hubs. These are bare-basic devices that are common amongst hobbyists because they require no additional external crystal, but they also don’t do anything with power monitoring or port control indications. Instead, the indicator LED is just connected in series with a resistor across the VBUS of the port. One of the big downsides of the hub is that it’s a single-transaction-translator (STT) type hub which means that all of the ports on the four port hub “share” the same USB 1.1 bandwidth, rather than each port having a full USB 1.1 bandwidth “upconverted” to USB 2.0 back to the host. This can be particularly useful for heavy bandwidth applications with many hobbyist microcontrollers that might only be USB 1.1.The captive cable has no connector and is soldered directly down to holes on the board. I wonder what that would do for the signal integrity, especially for USB 3.0. The power connection, however, appears to be just commoned with the external port without use of the jack’s internal switch.

This means a connected external power supply will backfeed the computer and that could be a recipe for damage to the port or the computer and is something we had known about causing issues over 20 years ago, yet we’ve still got designs with this issue today. Spaces for capacitors for a bit of local bypassing? Bypassed to save money.Three contacts on the jack, two of them commoned to a ground plane, the middle into a trace on the top-layer – a confirmation that the internal switch inside the jack is not being used.Connected to a PCWhile the product isn’t well built, at least it was detected by a computer when connected. Alas, it is detected as two USB 2.0 four-port hubs “stacked” on the first port – the “modern” way to build a 7-port hub. But they are USB 2.0 hubs … with the USB 3.0 lines wired through to the first port.ConclusionI usually do a decent job vetting the online shopping listings before purchasing. As a savvy consumer, I think I can “work out the lies” in the listing and pick the good ones. But alas, it seems the deception has grown so deep that it’s difficult to know and I suspect many purchasers that left good reviews didn’t even realise that they had been duped.I should’ve known better than to trust a listing that was very clearly selling this product as a 7-port USB 3.0 hub. I should’ve known better than to trust the blue-coloured ports and the 4.7/5 ratings out of over 600 reviews. In the end, I basically got myself a device that extends one USB 3.0 port and hubs together six additional USB 2.0 devices. That was definitely not what I had intended. Add to this the mild danger of back-feeding your computer if an external power source is plugged in and absolutely zero power protections on any port, making this a mildly dangerous device (in terms of causing damage to other devices). The build quality is flimsy with solder economised to the point of not even bothering with the mechanical shell of the connector leading to ports “flexing” on every insertion-removal cycle.

The world of USB-compatible devices is quite wild and while it might “sort-of” work, it also adds insult to injury by using cheaper single-transaction-translator (STT) hub chips.As far as I can tell, a USB 3.0 hub shouldn’t be an expensive device given just how long they’ve been on the market for … so why are the good locally sold products so expensive? I wonder if any of them are truly as compliant as some of my older hubs were – I suspect many decent-branded hubs might not have per-port power monitoring nowadays.But I guess this piece of equipment will have to stay with me. It’s going to take too much effort to send it back even if postage is free, with the risk of invalidating cashbacks that might end up costing me more. To say I am a bit miffed would be an understatement.Appendix: USBTreeView DumpThe following is the data given by USBTreeView on the hub device. =========================== USB Port3 ===========================

Connection Status : 0x01 (Device is connected) Port Chain : 1-3 Properties : 0x01 IsUserConnectable : yes PortIsDebugCapable : no PortHasMultiCompanions : no PortConnectorIsTypeC : no ConnectionIndex : 0x03 (Port 3) CompanionIndex : 0 CompanionHubSymLnk : USB#ROOT_HUB30#4&eced7c4&0&0#{f18a0e88-c30c-11d0-8815-00a0c906bed8} CompanionPortNumber : 0x0D (Port 13) -> CompanionPortChain : 1-13

========================== Summary ========================= Vendor ID : 0x214B (AMECO TECHNOLOGIES (SHENZHEN) CO.,

LTD.) Product ID : 0x7260 Manufacturer String : --- Product String : "USB2.0 HUB" Serial : --- USB Version : 2.0 (480 Mbit/s) Port maximum Speed : High-Speed (Companion Port 1-13 is doing the SuperSpeed) Device maximum Speed : High-Speed Device Connection Speed : High-Speed Self powered : yes Demanded Current : 100 mA Used Endpoints : 2

========================== USB Hub =========================

Hub Symbolic Link : USB#VID_214B&PID_7260#5&d714b9&0&3#{f18a0e88-c30c-11d0-8815-00a0c906bed8}

+++++++++++++++++ Device Information ++++++++++++++++++ Device Description : Generic USB Hub BusReported Device Desc : USB2.0 HUB Device Path : \\?\USB#VID_214B&PID_7260#5&d714b9&0&3#{f18a0e88-c30c-11d0-8815-00a0c906bed8} (GUID_DEVINTERFACE_USB_HUB) Kernel Name : \Device\USBPDO-5 Device ID : USB\VID_214B&PID_7260\5&D714B9&0&3 Hardware IDs : USB\VID_214B&PID_7260&REV_0100 USB\VID_214B&PID_7260 Driver KeyName : {36fc9e60-c465-11cf-8056-444553540000}\0029

(GUID_DEVCLASS_USB) Driver : \SystemRoot\System32\drivers\UsbHub3.sys (Version: 10.0.26100.8521 Date: 2026-06-10 Company: Microsoft Corporation) Driver Inf : C:\WINDOWS\inf\usbhub3.inf Legacy BusType : PNPBus Class : USB Class GUID : {36fc9e60-c465-11cf-8056-444553540000} (GUID_DEVCLASS_USB) Service : USBHUB3 Enumerator : USB Location Info : Port_#0003.Hub_#0002 Address : 3 Location IDs : PCIROOT(0)#PCI(1400)#USBROOT(0)#USB(3), ACPI(_SB_)#ACPI(PC00)#ACPI(XHCI)#ACPI(RHUB)#ACPI(HS03) Container ID : {c2780d0e-7689-11f1-921d-40d133f4e3da} Manufacturer Info : (Standard USB HUBs) Capabilities : 0x84 (Removable, SurpriseRemovalOK) Status : 0x0180600A (DN_DRIVER_LOADED, DN_STARTED, DN_DISABLEABLE, DN_REMOVABLE, DN_NT_ENUMERATOR, DN_NT_DRIVER) First Install Date : 2026-07-03 13:00:40 Last Arrival Date : 2026-07-03 13:00:39 EnhancedPowerMgmtEnabled : 0 IdleInWorkingState : 1 Power State : D0 (supported: D0,

D1, D2, D3, wake from D0, wake from D1, wake from D2)

+++++++++++++++++ Registry USB Flags +++++++++++++++++ HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\usbflags\214B72600100 osvc : REG_BINARY 00 00

------------------- USB Hub Descriptor ----------------- bDescriptorLength : 0x09 (9 bytes) bDescriptorType : 0x29 (Hub Descriptor) bNumberOfPorts : 0x04 (4 Ports) wHubCharacteristics : 0x00E0 Power switching : Ganged Compound device : No Over-current protection : Global TT Think Time : At most 32 FS bit times Port Indicators : Supported bPowerOnToPowerGood : 0x32 (100 ms) bHubControlCurrent : 0x64 (100 mA) DeviceRemovable : 0x00 Bit 0 : 0 (reserved, any value) Bit 1 : 0 (Device at Port 1 is removable) Bit 2 : 0 (Device at Port 2 is removable) Bit 3 : 0 (Device at Port 3 is removable) Bit 4 : 0 (Device at Port 4 is removable) Bit 5 : 0 (unused, must be 0) Bit 6 : 0 (unused, must be 0) Bit 7 : 0 (unused, must be 0) PowerControlMask : 0xFF HubIsBusPowered : 0x00 (Self Powered)

---------------- Extended USB Hub Descriptor --------------- HubType : 0x02 (Usb20Hub - hub descriptor is defined in USB 2.0 and 1.1 specifications) HighestPortNumber : 0x04 (Port 4 is the highest)