help with usb2.0 (enhanced)

[Ace Card Jones]

I am having trouble in making my USB connection a USB 2.0 Enhanced. I have tried following the guides on microsoft.com with no luck.

My problem is that I had Windows XP with Service Pack 2 installed on my pc before I was using any of my USB ports. I have bought an external hard drive, a controller and a wireless network card and have found that they run slow in comparison to the rest of the machine. I have since been told that this is because they are not running as USB 2.0 Enhanced devices. I have the drivers to make them USB 2.0 but when I install them nothing happens; I am still left with it un-enhanced.

Can anyone help??

Thanks

[Budfred]

Welcome to http://www.pcguide.com/ubb/pcgubb.gif

Are these USB 2.0 ports?? If not, you cannot make them become USB 2.0 ports with software, they have to be hardware based... You can buy a card and install it to give you USB 2.0 capability... I am not sure why you think SP2 makes a difference, but it shouldn't make any difference in how the USB ports work...

[Ace Card Jones]

I was told by the person who built the pc that if you do not have any USB devices in your computer when service pack 2 is being installed that it may not instal USB2.0 at all thats why i mentioned it and im sure the ports are USB2.0 compatible the computer is brand new and the person who built it told me they are

[Budfred]

I was told by the person who built the pc that if you do not have any USB devices in your computer when service pack 2 is being installed that it may not instal USB2.0 at all thats why i mentioned it and im sure the ports are USB2.0 compatible the computer is brand new and the person who built it told me they are
How much do you trust the person who built it?? Do you know what motherboard it has?? Most new motherboards are going to have USB 2.0 on them and Windows should be able to recognize them immediately... If Windows is not recognizing them, it is unlikely to be a SP2 problem and more likely that something is wrong with the hardware...

[Paul Komski]

I have bought an external hard drive, a controller and a wireless network card and have found that they run slow in comparison to the rest of the machine.
The question is - how slow do they run.

How long does it take to copy say a 1GB file (or any largish file of a definite size) from the USB drive to a drive on the motherboard? This should tell you quite quickly whether or not USB 2.0 is in action or not.

[Ace Card Jones]

Ha Ha my uncle built it lol.I trust him enough to know he wouldnt lie about the pc lol.I couls be trying to use the drivers wrong and i was just wondering does anyone know anything about that

[Paul Komski]

Expand USB in Device Manager. If there is an Enhanced PCI to USB Host Controller the system has USB 2.0 drivers successfully installed.

[Ace Card Jones]

The question is - how slow do they run.

How long does it take to copy say a 1GB file (or any largish file of a definite size) from the USB drive to a drive on the motherboard? This should tell you quite quickly whether or not USB 2.0 is in action or not.


You see its not so much that.But it does take longer im saying that if i load something up like a song or a video or a rom it takes about 5 second longer and when im copying over files it takes even longer

[Ace Card Jones]

Expand USB in Device Manager. If there is an Enhanced PCI to USB Host Controller the system has USB 2.0 drivers successfully installed.


this is what is says there - VIA Rev5 or later USB universal host controler


What does that mean?
The driver that is mentioned on microsoft.com is on my machine but instaling it doesnt seem to do anything

[Paul Komski]

Need exact values to give you an answer. An external will not be as fast as an internal but copying data via USB 1.1 would, I expect, be very slow for you.

[Paul Komski]

The PCI to USB should be Enhanced as in the attached image.

[Ace Card Jones]

Ok, this is exactly what mine says:

Universal Serial Bus Controllers
-Generic USB hub
-USB mass storage device
-USB root hub
-VIA rev 5 or later USB universal host controller

I couldnt upload the image.(LOL)

[Paul Komski]

If the word enhanced doesn't appear then I would say you don't have USB 2 support. USB 2.0 drivers would be automatically included with WinXP SP1 and above. If you had a USB 2 host controller and the drivers had not been installed you would have a yellow excamation point beside the device in Device Manager. Ergo - it doesnt seem to be a Drivers Issue.

I think Budfred is "right on the money" that you dont have integral on-board USB 2 support. You should be able to confirm this from the mobo maker's documentation. The small number of ports also points to an older system even though you say this a modern board.

http://www.usbman.com/Guides/checking_for_usb_2.htm

[Rick]

Ok, this is exactly what mine says:

Universal Serial Bus Controllers
-Generic USB hub
-USB mass storage device
-USB root hub
-VIA rev 5 or later USB universal host controller

I couldnt upload the image.(LOL)
It is also possible that you have more than one USB controller on the M/B

It is also possible that you have not loaded the correct drivers for the on board usb ports

As in this setup ( see attachment) only one of the 3 usb ports is usb2
To get the usb2 activated I had to install the drivers from the M/B original disks

[Paul Komski]

The USB stack has always been a confusing area for me and I have wrestled with understanding it for some time. If I have got it correct it sort of works like this.

There are three types of miniports in the USB stack. UHCI, EHCI and OHCI (for Universal, Enhanced and Open) USB controllers. They are indicated by the usbuhci.sys, usbehci.sys and usbohci.sys driver files respectively.

Windows XP natively supports the Usbuhci.sys and Usbohci.sys miniports. The enhanced miniport Usbehci.sys is required to allow for and control USB Enhanced Host Controllers. This is added after WinXP SP1 (and Win2K SP4) and allows for native USB 2.0 support. In fact under WinXP all driver support (except for Device Driver support for attached devices) is native.

When WinXP once has EHCI functionality a host controller-specific co-installer (Hccoin.dll) is also provided for USB 2.0 support to synchronize interaction between the Enhanced Host Controller and companion host controllers (if present). Thus only one host controller shows as Enhanced under the Device Manager's USB Controllers section. If PnP has detected an an on-board USB 2.0 controller prior to USB2 support is enabled it will show in device manager with a yellow exclamation mark - either under USB Controllers or as Other Device.

Assuming USB has not been disabled in the BIOS then the absence of a yellow exclamation mark plus the absense of a single host controller showing as Enhanced should mean that there is no OnBoard USB 2.0 functionallity.

For completeness and excepting for legacy systems there are two commonon drivers used in the stack; usbhub.sys (for the bus) and usbport.sys.

Usbport.sys is the main port driver for USB host controllers. It manages all the host controllers on a system, whereas miniports control each individual USB controller.

Rick; you have used the term port as in "only one of the 3 usb ports is usb2" whereas in fact only one of the 3 controllers is shown as enhanced; which I believe to be normal. If one is enhanced - all are enhanced. I also wonder if this is WinXP since USB 2.0 Driver Support from Mobo Installers was never made available (for copyright reasons I think) for WinXP, whereas it was for the earler OSes.

PS
As a long-shot all the USB devices could be removed in Safe Mode and the System rebooted or one could try updating the current drivers for each controller - since all the updated drives must be there if SP2 has been installed.

[Rick]

Rick; you have used the term port as in "only one of the 3 usb ports is usb2" whereas in fact only one of the 3 controllers is shown as enhanced; which I believe to be normal. If one is enhanced - all are enhanced. I also wonder if this is WinXP since USB 2.0 Driver Support from Mobo Installers was never made available (for copyright reasons I think) for WinXP, whereas it was for the earler OSes.

PS
As a long-shot all the USB devices could be removed in Safe Mode and the System rebooted or one could try updating the current drivers for each controller - since all the updated drives must be there if SP2 has been installed.

I have never been a fan of USB anything so I never installed any of the drivers under win xp pro until I added the new card with 4 ports. ( the M/B usb support has always been buggy on this system)

The above system has 3 usb controllers for a total of 8 ports
Two front, two rear and the add in card has 4
All use the Nec manufactured chipset ( Note the B1) in the enhanced

it's a lot of extra BS for 1 usb port (plug) in use :(

[Paul Komski]

until I added the new card with 4 portsOut of interest why did you do this if you only use one port? - and had two front and rear to begin with?

Adding a USB2 card is, I suspect, the only way the poster's problem will be resolvable.

[Rick]

As I said in the other post.
The onboard usb has been buggy on this M/B from day one.

Asus even quit using/adding them on revision 3 and above of this board.
They included a PCI usb2 add in card on the later models

[Ace Card Jones]

Im A Dumb*** Its Ok i got it now thanks all

[Budfred]

What was the problem??

[Ace Card Jones]

I have two sets of USB ports aswel as a USB hub and me the stupid person that i am had them inserted into the only ports on the pc that where not USB 2.0 and The USB 2 card wasnt in the pc right either i didnt put it in tight enough

[saphalline]

Ahh, yes, that would be the problem. :p Glad you figured it out, though.

USB can be problematic sometimes, but it's better than anything else. I really haven't had any major USB problems for several years since I started being picky about my chipsets and mobo's. I don't buy/use any chipset or mobo that doesn't have good USB support, among other things.

But you guys already know that about me. I'd hand-pick my mobo capacitors if they gave me that option. ;)

[Ace Card Jones]

LOL it was bugging the hell out of me going that slow
I cant believe that was the problem though!! :D

Just one more question though if i were to now instal a game as big as say 2.8gb to my external drive now in the usb2.0 slot!!LOL
would it run as smooth and quick during play as it does just being on the computers Hard Drive?