Sysadmins hate USB dongles causing IT support calls
10 posts across 4 communities in the last 60 days; 70% from r/sysadmin.
“Recently i want to buy a generic office keyboard; i have a mechanical 60% keyboard and for sysadmin is horrible, the firmware works different if is windows or linux or bsd, the function keys only works in the mac mode, the pins of the switches get corrosion in long term use, i…”
“Having this exact same issue on Dell laptops as well as desktops running Intel bluetooth.”
“Yes. The issue is taking your laptop with you by undocking it with the wireless headset plugged into the dock. The alternative would be to plug a wired headset directly to the laptop usb and then just undock and walk, or have the headset connected via Bluetooth to the laptop etc.”
Several sysadmins express frustration with users losing or misconfiguring USB peripherals like keyboards and headsets, leading to repeated support requests. They prefer wired solutions to avoid these issues, even though it means dealing with user error.
SOURCES (28)
“Generally speaking USB cradles are very poor quality and won't work well for 24/7 use. The chip inside gets hot, drops connections and can introduce errors. They tend to be ok for connecting a drive temporarily for backups but I wouldn't trust them further. Ideally…”
“Hey, low voltage guys, question for you. What solutions have you come across to get USB signals LONG distances. Like over 30ft. I'm specifically looking to stay within about 70ft, but the range is 30-70. I see a couple solutions with repeaters in the middle but they don't really go much longer than about 36ish feet. Bonus points if it doesn't use 110VAC or higher. It's for a machine builder so 24VDC is great, but the only other voltage present is 480/277. submitted by”
“Recently i want to buy a generic office keyboard; i have a mechanical 60% keyboard and for sysadmin is horrible, the firmware works different if is windows or linux or bsd, the function keys only works in the mac mode, the pins of the switches get corrosion in long term use, i hate the sound after 8 hours of work; in my opinion for work a keyboard oriented for work”
“Simple. We only purchase $25ish Logitech Wired USB Headsets that get tossed when they leave. 99% of our workstations don't have Bluetooth/WiFi. If someone wants wireless, it's on them to buy a Bluetooth Dongle & Wireless Headset.”
“What? When I was involved with equipment even back 10-15 years ago. Items such as these earpiece or keyboards, mice and pads were considered eeww, cheap and disposable.”
“Have you ever seen that Doritos commercial with the automatic finger cleaner. We use a similar method.”
“You never reuse keyboards, mice or headsets. That is unhygienic. Please do not do this.”
“We don’t, headset are considered as personal equipment and are bought for the employee and if that employee leaves he / she can keep it. This is calculated in the budget. We buy poly wireless headsets about 90$ per unit.”
“They are issued per employee. Disposed of when separated. Cheap enough to roll into onboarding costs”
“peripherals such as headsets are treated like stationary. We treat keyboards and mice the same”
“If they're using cheap headsets then just replace them. Literally losing money in labor time and cleaning materials to rephrase cheap headphones.”
“It's a 'fancy usb hub' with memory and an arm chip and speaks directly to your devices and maintains connectivity even if your tablet does not. This way the whole 'i have to disconnect and reconnect all my peripherals because my ipad did a thing' happens far, far less.”
“True...a rj45 backwards too. To this day, I have not figured out how they accomplished that. I had to take the device apart and use my own force multiplier (pliers) to get the cable out. Still scratching my head on that one because I mean, it only goes one way.”
“Yeah but it is happening with wired keyboards and mice as well. That's what so confusing”
“I don't know about officially documented but: Recent Bluetooth Connectivity Issues : r/sysadmin”
“Having this exact same issue on Dell laptops as well as desktops running Intel bluetooth.”
“Seeing if any other people are seeing issues with bluetooth devices continually connecting/reconnecting on Windows devices recently? We started getting issues reported Monday (8/24) and it seems to be affecting about ~10% of our fleet. The only other report I can see of this I found here: https://windowsforum.com/windows-help-and-support.302/bluetooth-glitches-and-not-working-properly.443497/ We have already tried rolling back the recent the latest windows KB and reinstalling BT Drives, trying u”
“Honestly, for small office setups where you're dealing with worn ports, I've had the best luck with simple cable strain relief rather than trying to lock the connector itself. Velcro cable ties anchored to the desk (not the laptop) work well. Route the cable so there's a service loop with slack before it reaches the port. That way any tugging pulls against the desk anchor, not the connector. For laptops that move around, a small binder clip on the cable about 6 inches from the plug,”
“Yes. The issue is taking your laptop with you by undocking it with the wireless headset plugged into the dock. The alternative would be to plug a wired headset directly to the laptop usb and then just undock and walk, or have the headset connected via Bluetooth to the laptop etc.”
“i had this issue in my last company, people kept forgetting dongles and taking them and leaving them anywhere. we stop purchasing them and started to hand out wired ones instead. peoole complained but it was easy to say they got the wired mouse or no mouse at all. turn over dropped like a rock and then we basically implemented the rule across the board to all sites. the savings was not insignificant so it was an easy justification.”
“Gotcha. Yeah, 2.4GHz saturating makes sense given the peripherals. Can't do much about dongles since they're open broadcasts, effectively. At least Bluetooth can be turned off if it's not in use and many headsets can go wired by just plugging in the 3.5mm cable. Desaturating is best effort in an environment like that no matter what you do.”
“This 100%. If someone calls about KBM and its not wired they can figure it out themselves or we will ship them a new wired KBM. We have users that put the batteries in the wrong orientation and then call support. Aint fucking doing that x1000 devices. Software licensing dongles suck too but we control all those with digi usb devices so they are all in our possession and dont get removed by someone messing with their stupid temu keyboard”
“Honestly I rather use bluetooth devices as every modern laptops got one. Even my desktop PC got it built-in the motherboard. I too hate dongles but I never lose them. Just it's a mess in IT when users loses them.”
“We're having a go with bad headsets and disconnects. The solution of providing a cheap $20ish wired headset falls on deaf ears so we keep shipping out $80-200 headsets trying to fix peoples issues. The most common issue we see people pair the headset with the laptop via BT and use the dongle. Some even pair the headset to their phone as well. If they were wired, our most common problems would go away.”
“I noticed in the last 20 years or so that there's 2 types of IT hardware support workers: The precision "as-is" hardware ninjas and The "who cares" dongle goblins My earliest 3 IT jobs were just swapping out old computers for new ones on a contracted team. It was 90% of our job. I would replace the users' reference sticky notes and desk decor so perfectly that we got at least a dozen complaints that we forgot to replace their PC and monitors. About half of the rest of”