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Technical Help & Discussion => Self Building, Upgrading & General Hardware Help => Topic started by: daveeb on March 07, 2005, 20:13

Title: USB woes part 2
Post by: daveeb on March 07, 2005, 20:13

Finally decided i really cant do without USB 2 so i got a cheap pci card and installed it tonight.  the card seems to have installed ok, the controller shows up as functioning and enhanced as would be expected for usb2.  the problem is that the device i'm trying to run (an i-buddie usb-pci hard drive caddy) isnt recognised and doesnt show in explorer.  its fine on usb1 just horrendously slow.  the usb2 card is an ali (acer i think) 4 port usb2 card.  i found a site with an updated xp driver for this card but the link was dead.  If i cant sort this out the kids will starve as i'll have to buy a new pc.   :doh:

Title: USB woes part 2
Post by: Sandra on March 07, 2005, 20:53

A shot in the dark Dave, but try disabling the onboard USB ports in the bios and see if it works then  :?

Title: USB woes part 2
Post by: daveeb on March 07, 2005, 21:04

I'll try that Sandra, although my usb mouse and printer seem to work ok, although i cant tell if they're working as genuine usb2 or not.    would a usb1 hub work if attached to one of the usb2 ports (i'll need to do this if i disable the onboard usb1 as i have 5 usb devices and only 4 usb2 ports)  :wink:

Title: USB woes part 2
Post by: Sandra on March 07, 2005, 23:19

Should still be ok Dave I would think  :)

Title: USB woes part 2
Post by: Simon on March 07, 2005, 23:41

Did you use the drivers provided on the CD with the card, Dave, or did Windows install it's own drivers?  Might be worth trying both, to see which works best.

Title: USB woes part 2
Post by: chorleydave on March 08, 2005, 00:04

Hi Dave.

Following on from Simon's suggestion.  When I installed my USB 2 PCI card, I had a few teething problems.  Eventually, I discovered that Windows was asking for the wrong drivers - it wanted to install NEC drivers, when the card actually had an Ali chip.  Once I had installed the correct drivers from the supplied CD, everthing worked fine.

Incidentally, I still have the onboard USB 1 enabled (two ports) and I have a hub attached.  I have just put it in a USB 2 port, and it works OK, but seemingly only at USB1 speed, but I expected that.

Title: USB woes part 2
Post by: daveeb on March 08, 2005, 10:39

Thanks for the suggestions.  i've already tried it with the drivers on the supplied cd and also with windows own drivers.  The only difference is that nothing shows up at all when using the cd drivers, whereas with the windows drivers i get a "unknown device" response when attaching the external h-d. Tried my usb mouse and it worked ok on one of the ports, but the adjacent port didnt work....so possibly its a dodgy card and/or s-ware problem or hardware conflict.......i can feel that new pc getting nearer  :roll:

Title: USB woes part 2
Post by: Simon on March 08, 2005, 17:02

Just one other suggestion, Dave, have you looked on the card manufacturers website, to see if there are any updated drivers for SP2?

Title: USB woes part 2
Post by: daveeb on March 08, 2005, 19:07

i did find an updated driver simon....the pc then threw a wobbler and killed all the usb1 devices as well......i know when i'm beaten.  :roll:

Title: USB woes part 2
Post by: daveeb on March 09, 2005, 10:42

EPILOGUE

I've now got things back in "normal"  working order.  My onboard usb1 is working and the usb2 card is continuing to function as a usb1 port with mouse/printer/dongle etc and is still ignoring the usb2 caddy drive entirely.  There's probably a simple solution....but on the other hand  :cry: