Huawei E220 longer USB cable solution.

redarrow

redarrow

Expert Member
Joined
Dec 30, 2005
Messages
2,411
Reaction score
57
Location
Port Elizabeth, South Africa
As discovered by Tazz_Tux, the longer cable supplied with the E220 just doesn't work under Linux.. for whatever reason. :confused:

Anyway I really needed a slightly longer cable as with the short one the dongle sort of hung out the side of my PC in a rather hidden away spot..

I discovered that using the USB extension cable which came with my "USB flash drive" to extend the short little cable works 100% !

Strange thing is this extension cable is even longer than the supplied long cable.. it's 1M in length..

I really don't understand why using this extension cable works where the supplied one doesn't .. the only unusual thing about the supplied long cable is that it has three plugs... (anyone know why that is btw? :confused: )

The nice thing about having a longer cable is being able to put my E220 in a better position.. The signal strength has increased significantly ... using "AT+CSQ" I used to get: 14,99 at the most.. I now get at least 15,99 but I've also seen it go to 18,99 !


Anyway I just thought this info might be useful to someone who needs to use the longer cable.. :)
 
redarrow said:
Hmm... wonder why it would need more power?
Click to expand...
I think some computers (especially laptops) don't supply enough current from a single port. One plug has signal and power connections, the other only carries power. I have seen similar arrangements on USB powered external drives.
When using the long cable be sure to use both plugs, or if you only have space for the one, use the one that has both signal and power. I recall they were marked differently.
 
ginggs said:
I think some computers (especially laptops) don't supply enough current from a single port. One plug has signal and power connections, the other only carries power. I have seen similar arrangements on USB powered external drives.
When using the long cable be sure to use both plugs, or if you only have space for the one, use the one that has both signal and power. I recall they were marked differently.
Click to expand...
Ah I see, that makes sense.. I'm running it on my desktop - maybe that's why I can use an extension with just one plug...
 
redarrow said:
As discovered by Tazz_Tux, the longer cable supplied with the E220 just doesn't work under Linux.. for whatever reason. :confused:

Anyway I really needed a slightly longer cable as with the short one the dongle sort of hung out the side of my PC in a rather hidden away spot..

I discovered that using the USB extension cable which came with my "USB flash drive" to extend the short little cable works 100% !

Strange thing is this extension cable is even longer than the supplied long cable.. it's 1M in length..

I really don't understand why using this extension cable works where the supplied one doesn't .. the only unusual thing about the supplied long cable is that it has three plugs... (anyone know why that is btw? :confused: )

The nice thing about having a longer cable is being able to put my E220 in a better position.. The signal strength has increased significantly ... using "AT+CSQ" I used to get: 14,99 at the most.. I now get at least 15,99 but I've also seen it go to 18,99 !


Anyway I just thought this info might be useful to someone who needs to use the longer cable.. :)
Click to expand...

I'm using the long cable with both ends plugged into my pc right now and it works fine:) The only noticeable difference on the log messages is that with the long cable it only picks up ttyUSB0 and ttyUSB1, while with short cable it picks up ttyUSB0, ttyUSB1 and ttyUSB2.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X