.....and it's not a "new" device, either. It's 802.11 B/G/N; some years old, and in fact if you visit Sabrent's website I see it's now listed as a 'legacy' device, meaning it's no longer supported by them.....but there
has been plenty of time for the guys at kernel.org to "work their magic" and reverse-engineer its chipset driver & firmware. So my guess would be that it's been in the kernel for at least a few years by now.
Sabrent appear to be concentrating exclusively on storage, memory and peripherals/accessories/cables these days. No sign of
any networking gear on their website now.
And it means that m'colleague is probably on the right track. 'Dodgy' USB ports, while not exactly common are also not that rare either. I had one on an ancient 2002 Dell Inspiron, one of the first lappies on the market to feature the then brand-new USB 2.0 ports. Took an age to figure out why, but I checked it when a couple of years later I eventually needed to replace the CMOS battery; sure enough, at least one solder joint had "dried-out", had a hairline crack at the base, and was only making intermittent contact during the regular thermal cycling ALL electronics go through.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It's "Sod's law", basically. It's just one of those things that occasionally happens, is nobody's 'fault' as such.....and there's very little you can do about it (unless you're handy with a soldering iron....itself a definite 'skill'). I don't know of any firm, anywhere in the world, that can make an iron-clad 'guarantee' that everything they release onto the market will always be 100% perfect ALL THE TIME. This is something that only manifests itself over time, as the effects of wear'n'tear accumulate.
At least you're in good company, 'cos the same thing has doubtless happened to thousands of other people over the years..! Yes, it's unfortunate, and yes, it's annoying & frustrating.......but you're not the first, and I
can guarantee you won't be the last person it ever happens to.
(
shrug...)
Mike.
