Logitech Lightspeed Peripherals - Would connecting the receivers with long USB ext. cables cause noticeable/significant latency issues?

[Euphoria]

I use some Logitech Lightspeed peripherals, keyboard and mouse, and I need to know if my new setup is going to cause an issue, please.

 

My PC is going to be wall mounted with all cables hidden and routed through conduit in the wall. This means I need long cables for everything to reach my desk.
The USB cables for the Lightspeed mouse and keyboard receivers will be 5 meters (15ft) or possibly a little longer.

 

If my understanding is correct, even at 5 or 6m I only need USB 2.0, right? It's not high bandwidth so I believe USB 3.* would be overkill, but please correct me if I'm wrong.

 

My main concern is would a 5 or 6m long Passive USB cable cause any significant latency or signal issues?
I'm not doing any competitive CS:GO/Warzone gaming so a slight increase in latency wouldn't be an issue, my main use for the system is work, and also gaming but the gaming is more slow-paced RPG style. I'm just worried about it causing high latency or constant dropouts like when you move the receiver too far away and suddenly your cursor starts jumping all over the screen.

 

Has anybody got experience with this, anyone tried using long extension cables with these peripherals?

[mariushm]

Maximum USB 2.0 cable length is 5 meters.

As it's a digital signal and your computer is polling once every 1ms in best case scenario, the length of the cable doesn't really matter that much, but nevertheless more than 5 meters can cause issues with how the data packets are sent over the usb cable.

 

[Euphoria]

12 minutes ago, mariushm said:

Maximum USB 2.0 cable length is 5 meters.

As it's a digital signal and your computer is polling once every 1ms in best case scenario, the length of the cable doesn't really matter that much, but nevertheless more than 5 meters can cause issues with how the data packets are sent over the usb cable.

 

Oh, yes I completely missed that, so thank you for that info. In that case I might have to go for active cables.

 

But for the main point of it causing significant extra latency because it's 5 or 6 m long, you don't think it would be much of a factor?

[HanZie82]

Also at those lengths the Voltage that comes out the PC wont be the same either. (I have regular sized cable 5m long, and 5,0V goes in and 4,3V comes out the other side. Due to cable resistance. Better cables have less resistance)

I'd highly suggest minimizing the amount of USB cable and use a HUB on the peripheral side.
If you also want comfortable speeds using USB sticks/HDDs use a high speed one.
Just make sure its powered!

And no, as long as it gets enough power, and not to many USB-hubs in between, the latency will hardly change.

[Euphoria]

13 hours ago, HanZie82 said:

Also at those lengths the Voltage that comes out the PC wont be the same either. (I have regular sized cable 5m long, and 5,0V goes in and 4,3V comes out the other side. Due to cable resistance. Better cables have less resistance)

I'd highly suggest minimizing the amount of USB cable and use a HUB on the peripheral side.
If you also want comfortable speeds using USB sticks/HDDs use a high speed one.
Just make sure its powered!

And no, as long as it gets enough power, and not to many USB-hubs in between, the latency will hardly change.

Thanks for the advice and that is good to know about the slight voltage drop.

 

Forgive my ignorance, I have two questions.

1. wouldn't a USB hub have the same issue as it's going to be connected via a 5m long extension cable? I understand if it's powered then I wouldn't have issues with any voltage drop but communication back-and-forth is still going to be through a 5 m long cable.
    
2. Would a hub cause potential issues with two almost identical dongle is that close to each other, a lightspeed receiver for a mouse and another for a keyboard just a few fingers width apart? I feel like that might actually cause more issues than the long cable but my knowledge of the USB standard is poor

As for sticks/SSDs, I'm not too bothered about the speed as anything speed sensitive I'll stand up and plug it directly into the rear I/O on the board.

[HanZie82]

49 minutes ago, Euphoria said:

Thanks for the advice and that is good to know about the slight voltage drop.

 

Forgive my ignorance, I have two questions.

1. wouldn't a USB hub have the same issue as it's going to be connected via a 5m long extension cable? I understand if it's powered then I wouldn't have issues with any voltage drop but communication back-and-forth is still going to be through a 5 m long cable.
    
2. Would a hub cause potential issues with two almost identical dongle is that close to each other, a lightspeed receiver for a mouse and another for a keyboard just a few fingers width apart? I feel like that might actually cause more issues than the long cable but my knowledge of the USB standard is poor

As for sticks/SSDs, I'm not too bothered about the speed as anything speed sensitive I'll stand up and plug it directly into the rear I/O on the board.

1. Nah, the transmission speed of power is about light-speed so no a little 5m cable wont change communication much.
Just the voltage drop, as that also happens on the signal lines, if the hardware is good enough its not a problem.
But ive had things not work with a 5m cable if the host is a low power device. (like portable devices).
For PC should be fine. As long as you use quality USB-hub.

2. I don't know persé about 2 Lightspeed dongles. (Cant you connect both mouse and keyb to 1 dongle?) But I have 1 Lightspeed, 1 Bluetooth and a unifying receiver in close proximity, and the peripherals are about 1-2m away. Barely have issues.
(Only with Bluetooth and controller sometimes, but that also happens if no other wireless dongles are present.

 

13 minutes ago, NastyFlytrap said:

The length of the cable, no, but the quality of the extender coulde easily affect it

And this, get a good cable.