Peripherals USB expansion card

I have the Asus Z170M-Plus mobo and I really need more usb ports and not sure if a hub is the way to go or a PCIE expansion card. I know nothing of the latter but does seem a neater option. If going this route then I assume I would use either of the small PCIEX1 slots on mobo?

Any guidance and links to suitable items welcome.

 

Good lord, talk about being tight with ports!!

You can of course use a PCI-E based card, but an x1 link will limit you to sub-USB 3.0 speeds. You'd need to occupy your other x16 lane (x4 used) with a faster card if you wanted that extra speed.

 

Tell me about it, mental note to add check number of USB ports on future mobo purchases.

As to your second point I had, I think, come to the same conclusion looking at what is available.

Thanks.

 

Got your super useful vga and DVI ports tho!

What about regular USB headers, fast enough for the bog standard stuff.

 

Where would I be without them.

Not sure what you mean?

 

Something like that would do, cheers.

 

Bit throw back but there are two headers on your board for them.

Maybe you can get black ones rather than 1999 beige!

 

Problem is I have only one header free. May need to rethink the whole thing.

 

Sorry if I'm being stupid but how come 12 USB ports aren't enough?

 

12?
On this mobo there are 2 x USB 3 and 2 x USB 2

 

On the rear IO yes but there are a further 4 of each from the onboard headers, unfortunately Asus don't provide the modules so they need to be bought separately, mrbungle posted a picture of the sort of thing you're looking for, although the exact type depends if you want USB 3 or 2 in the rear of front of the case.

Something like this would be a cheap way of adding four USB 2 ports to the rear.
Or this for a couple of USB 3 ports on the rear.

Or you can get similar things that take up a drive bay so you can access them from the front of the case.

 

I have two headers on the mobo yes, but as already stated one is in use and as far as I can see something like this requires both headers.

 

You can get ones that use single headers, like this.

 

Sorry if I am missing something here but my front or case uses that header on the motherboard.

 

You should have two USB 3 headers on your motherboard and two USB 2 headers, I'm taking a guess you're wanting to use USB 3? If so there should be one header along the bottom of the board to the left of the SATA ports 5&6 and another USB 3 header along the right side just above SATA ports 1&2.

Or at least that's what the manual told me.

 

Bloody hell so I have

Just took a magnifying glass to the manual and have spotted it. That makes things much easier.

Thank you for your patience.

 

Personally I would not touch anything inside the case. USB3 cables and those PCI headers look like crap and will destroy the look. You can't buy nice braided ones, so I would personally get a *good* external hub with a power supply (not one of those trash hubs with no power that keep vanishing).

 

This is the USB3 version of the item MrBungle posted:-

 

Thanks all, I have resolved this very simply by remembering, eventually, that my Dell monitor has 5 USB ports and I also discovered in my cable box an unopened on of these
http://cpc.farnell.com/pro-signal/p...SHOPPING-PRO_SIGNAL-Computer_Products-CS14533