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I have a HP G5 USB-C docking station with a keyboard and a wireless mouse dongle connected to it via USB ports (3.0, in case it matters).

Today I tried to attach a wireless headset USB dongle to one of the two remaining USB ports, but while configuring the device, Windows reports that "Not enough USB controller resources" are available and while the device manager does not indicate any problem, the headset indeed doesn't work.

I have a simple USB 3.0 data hub lying around and interestingly, if I connect the USB dongle to the hub and the hub to the docking station, things work just as expected.

TL;DR:

USB->mouse
USB->keyboard
USB->headset

doesn't work, while

USB->mouse
USB->keyboard
USB->HUB->headset

works. I would like to know why this happens and if there is a way I can get rid of the additional USB hub? Btw, if I connect all three devices to the hub and the hub to the docking station, everything works fine as well.

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4
  • My guess is the hub "lies" to the computer how much power is used by it and the headset, it takes more power than is in the budget, but the power supply is still strong enough to prevent voltage sagging so much you get a complete failure. How much power does the headset take? If it takes more than a half of an amp then that might explain the behavior. Depending on how the dock works you might need drivers to get full power out the USB ports. Have you tried updating the drivers? Do you know how much power each device takes? Could you add the power draw of the devices to your question?
    – MacGuffin
    Commented Jan 27, 2022 at 12:34
  • I wasn't able to get any information about the power consumption. My headset is a Corsair HS80. But since it's only a dongle I don't expect it to consume much power.
    – andreee
    Commented Jan 27, 2022 at 13:08
  • The dock can get only 15 watts from USB-C with USB 3.x, and perhaps far less if there is a driver issue as it may drop into USB 2.0 mode or something, so power could be an issue. I recall a not enough resources error equals power issue. Did you check the drivers? is the dock plugged into a USB-C power supply? I haven't run Windows "on the metal" in a while (I run Windows in a VM) so I don't recall how to resolve this. You aren't running anything that should draw all that much power, but without any info on the power draw of the headset dongle we can't know for sure.
    – MacGuffin
    Commented Jan 27, 2022 at 18:48
  • @MacGuffin thanks for your hints. I would be surprised if power is really an issue, as the docking station itself is plugged using its own adapter and moreover it is even supplying power (up to 100W) via USB-C to charge the laptop. But of course, this is a layman's view on the topic. This is happening on my corporate laptop, I will check if I face the same issue when attaching the dock to my personal desktop PC.
    – andreee
    Commented Jan 28, 2022 at 9:51

1 Answer 1

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Thank you @andree, your post helped me fix my issue. I am also using an HP G5 USB-C dock and was experiencing the same problem. Connecting the devices into a similar USB 3.0 hub allowed for my headset to work as expected. I still don't understand why but it just works.

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    Commented Jun 13, 2022 at 18:37
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    Commented Jun 13, 2022 at 19:03

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