Long distance USB?

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Apr 9, 2020
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I have my tower in one room and my desk in another. I've finally worked out the video systems so that works perfectly, but I am now having a tough time making USB work reliably. It used to work ok, but lately anything USB 3.0 just doesn't want to go. I can't seem to find a happy medium between those dirt cheap USB over cat5s and very expensive solutions. I had tried a 50' active repeater USB 3.0 cable, but that seems to have died on me.

Does anyone have any suggestions for me?

Thanks.
 

JSchuricht

Active Member
Apr 4, 2011
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I haven't had to extend a USB 3 cable yet but in the past I have used several 16' active USB cables strung together then a powered USB hub at the point of use.
 
Apr 9, 2020
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I'm mostly concerned with reliability even over getting USB 3.0 speeds. I don't really need to keep enough 3.0 devices in the room with me to warrant all the effort. I do have 1 free and clear cat5e run available to devote to the project, I just need to find a better/more reliable extender. The cheapy ones I have... are not that.
 
May 4, 2015
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I'm mostly concerned with reliability even over getting USB 3.0 speeds. I don't really need to keep enough 3.0 devices in the room with me to warrant all the effort. I do have 1 free and clear cat5e run available to devote to the project, I just need to find a better/more reliable extender. The cheapy ones I have... are not that.
if you just want to throw USB a good distance we use these as well for 50 foot-ish runs when we can run a direct HDMI signal to a TV USB 2.0 over Cat5 Cat6 Extender Transmitter Receiver High Speed USB 330 ft 100M 1 Port (B203-101) | Tripp Lite
 
Apr 9, 2020
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I'd look at this solution: Home | VirtualHere. You can install the client on another computer or a simple single board computer like a raspberry pi, and have a cable free solution.
?!?!?!

Someone finally made that a thing?!?!

Well, there goes my weekend lol!!!

I had commented like 3 years ago on another forum how I wished there was a way to do that with a couple RPis. In fact I even have a pi bolted under my desk already as the one computer actually in the room with me that will be ideal for such a function.