Was wondering if you could help, I need to disable a USB hub in a Dell USB keyboard (sk-8125), i've had it open and had a good look at the PCB and was hoping there is a way to deactivate the hub but keep the keyboard working as normal. I've got a few keyboards i can try this out on.
There's maybe 2-3 "good" reasons why you'd want to disable the hub - for everything else, it's a feature. Also, if you could post a picture of the keyboard guts, the answer could be pretty obvious.
use one of the USB to PS2 converter deals (the little green thing, came with the keyboard) ... presto, no USB... the onboard hub will have no connection to the host using the legacy ps2 serial port.
other than that, there's probably no way to disable the hub, the keyboard logic and hub chip are probably one in the same.
There isn't much you can do hardware wise, without killing the actual keyboard. As justDIY said, the logic is one in the same. Why does it need to be done through hardware?