Teardown: A Generic 7-Port USB 3.0 Hub That Wasn’t

The recent end-of-financial-year sales were rather interesting – I found myself spending a lot more time browsing AliExpress than I did Amazon or eBay this year which is something I wouldn’t have envisioned in the past. I suppose the deals offered by the others just weren’t that good. While AliExpress was dangling cashbacks and coupons, I decided to make the most of it and buy some things that I needed. I felt like a USB 3.0 hub with a nice number of ports would be a good thing to aim for. After all, who doesn’t need more USB 3.0 ports nowadays? But alas, while I thought the world of hubs have long advanced far enough to mean that even your average product would be decent – I didn’t expect to receive what I received … Unbagging As with generic, low-cost items, this one arrived in a bag rather than a box. There isn’t much to identify who made the product, with the only name seemingly being a difficult-to-track-down Shenzhen Lishi (or is that Lishl) Technology Co. Ltd. The hub has a…