James Silverton wrote:
Hello All!

I am having to plan a shift to a new desk top machine. At the moment, it
seems I would need 6 external USB ports and it looks like another 2
might be useful as spares. I want to do as little plugging and
unplugging as possible.

1 Printer
2 Scanner
3 Digital camera connection
4 UPS
5 External Hard Disc
6 Memory Stick

Are there machines with 8 ports that people would recommend? I am
assuming that the machine would support a cordless keyboard and mouse
without dedicated external ports.

Thanks for any assistance.

When you shop for a motherboard, they come with USB ports in two
places.

On the back of the computer, in the I/O plate area, you could find
stacks of USB ports.

Inside the computer, on the surface of the motherboard, there
are additional 2x5 pin headers. It takes four pins, to support
a single USB port. A 2x5 header, supports two USB ports (plus
a ground signal for the shield).

By using a "slot cover adapter", you can plug a cable assembly to the
2x5 header, and that gives two additional ports on the back. If you
use enough of those adapters, you could have as many as twelve USB
ports on the back, six in the I/O area, six as three adapter plates
or eight in the I/O, four on adapter plates.

This one has 8 USB on the back, even without adapters. The two red
ones at the top of the red stack are USB. Two stacks of two are USB.
And the one with the LAN connector, has two USB.

http://images17.newegg.com/is/image/newegg/13-131-402-S08?$S640W$

And this is an example of a "quad USB adapter bracket". This
has two, 2x5 cables on the end. The adapter fits where a
PCI card slot cover would go. As long as the motherboard has the USB
headers, then the ports will work.

http://web.archive.org/web/200610310...=951&catid=226

On this motherboard, the two, dark blue connectors on the right
edge of the board, are the 2x5 connectors. By using the quad
adapter plate, that brings the total usable USB ports to 12.

http://images17.newegg.com/is/image/newegg/13-131-402-S09?$S640W$

The 12 ports are supported by the Southbridge chip. If you
need additional ports, you can install four port PCI cards
to add to the total.

(PCI version)
http://images17.newegg.com/is/image/newegg/15-124-007-S01?$S640W$

(PCI Express x1 version - bridged chip design)
http://images17.newegg.com/is/image/newegg/12-186-010-S03?$S640W$

Paul