i found out the hard way, about using out of spec USB extensions and/or adapters my pc only has 4 USB ports and all of which were being used by k/board, mouse and 2 HDD's, and I bought a nice extension that turns 1 port into 4 ports and it even had lights on it an all, the fact being is that when i bought the extension it never did ne thing except crash my pc and when i opened it, it had a feed back loop on the -5 Volts line, D'oh stupid me for buying a cheap piece of hardware, i learnt my lesson before i became a PC systems analyst. lolz imagine doing that on the job. anywaythe morale of the story is always check item specs to make sure it wont crash or break ur pc and always check that USB peripherals are marked with highspeed USB or USB 2.0