Do USB cables limit speed?

[RhysMusique]

If I were to plug in an old USB 2.0 A Male to A Female extension lead into a USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10Gbps) port on my motherboard, does the cable have the ability to downgrade the data transfer rate or shouldn't it matter?

i.e. Do i need to buy a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Extension?

 

Cheers,

Rhys

[SupaKomputa]

Yes they do and it's backward compatible.

So anything that has the same usb port can use it.

[ausham]

A longer cable can also slow down a USB drive if its so long its out a spec.

[Tanaz]

1 hour ago, Grumpy Old Man said:

The length of the cable does not affect the speed as much as the power delivery. Data travels at the same speed even if the cable wraps around the house a couple of times or just around the table, but a longer cable “wastes” power and the hard drive doesn’t necessarily work without extra power. You will notice a slowdown in data or on really long distances, e.g. around the globe in couple times or earth to sun.

Not really. 5 meters is the recommended maximum length of a USB 2.0 cable. If you're running a 10-15m cable you're not going to have nearly enough power without connecting powered hubs between 2 cables.

edit: Oh wait I read that wrong. Nevermind

[geo3]

USB 1.0 - 2.0 use a 4 pin cable, 3.0 - 3.2 use a 9 pin. If you plug a 4 pin cable into a 3.0 -3.2 port it will run at 2.0 speeds.