I've got an ASUS A7A266 motherboard, and it only has USB 1.1, so I bought a USB 2.0 PCI card for it and installed it. I'm on Windows XP and when I connect USB 2.0 devices to the card, I get the message "This device can perform faster. It can perform faster if you connect it to a USB 2.0 Hi-Speed Device". It says to click for a list of such ports and when I do, I get a list that says "the hubs shown in bold type have free ports that can support the HI-SPEED USB device. In the tree-list, it shows VIA Enhanced Host Controller, then down a level in bold: USB Root Hub (4 ports), then down a level it shows 4 items called 'Unused Port'. See screenshot: I don't know what I need to update, drivers for the usb card, the motherboard? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.
Actually, if you have Windows XP with Service Pack 1 or 2, it supports USB 2.0 automatically. Technically, you don't need to update anything, provided the previous condition has been met. The exception would be if you're seeing a Yellow Exclaimation for the Root Hub or the USB ports associated with it. At that point, you'd want to go ahead and have Windows update the driver, allowing it to find the driver itself (which it will). You'll probably have to reboot afterwards. However, I don't think it's a problem, so much as Windows being overly zealous in alerting you to the USB 2.0 technology's higher transfer speeds. Plugging in a USB 2.0 device should shut it up, but you can also configure Windows to not pop stuff like that up if it annoys you (I know it annoys me).
I've got XP with SP2 and it's still not working at HI-SPEED, so something needs to be updated. No exclamation mark next to it in device manager either. Could the card be bad? I just looked on the card and it's got a VIA VT6202 chipset on it. I can't seem to figure this out.
I don't think it's got anything to do with the card as much as XP just notifying you of the possibilities of a higher transfer speed. I've used some VT6202 USB chips before on different motherboards, and they've never acted up. I turn off a lot of the pop-ups Windows gives to notify users of this and that. As far as I can tell, there's no problems. Do you have anything that's USB 2.0 besides the card? USB 1.1 devices cannot run at USB 2.0 speeds, but the USB card will work with them just fine. But, the card will know if it's not a USB 2.0 device.
OK this isn't helping. I'll try to explain this again. My original motherboard (noted above) did not have usb 2.0, so I wanted to upgrade with a PCI card. I bought a usb 2.0 pci card with a via vt6202 chipset on it and installed it on the motherboard. I have several usb 2.0 devices (an ipod and an sd card reader) that i have connected to the usb ports on the new pci card. When I connect the usb 2.0 devices to the usb 2.0 pci card, i get the message from XP that the device can perform faster and that it's not plugged into a usb 2.0 port, evne though it is. The transfer speeds with the devices perform at usb 1.1 levels. That's the problem -- that the transfer speed is not what it should be, and XP is notifying me of it with those little baloons. Yes I could turn off those notifications, but that would do nothing to fix the problem, which is that the usb 2.0 card is functioning at usb 1.1 performance with usb 2.0 devices. I've tried downloading (and installing and updating) all sorts of via usb 2.0 vt6202 drivers but nothing seems to help. I've even uninstalled the card and reinstalled it. The only thing I haven't tried is updating the motherboard's BIOS. The current BIOS version is the one that came installed with the motherboard when I bought it new in 2001 (before usb 2.0 was standard). Does anyone think it would help to fix the transfer speeds on the pci card? I'd rather not do it unless there's a strong chance it would help, considering how complex it seems it would be to do that. Ideas?
Oh VIA, VIA, VIA. Where would we be without good old VIA. I can tell you now that VIA have a very bad reputation when it comes to just about everything, especially USB cards! Does your motherboard use a VIA chipset? If so, you have no chance getting your VIA USB card to work. VIA USB cards a incompatible with VIA based motherboards Flashing your BIOS will not fix it at all. The age of your motherboard does not matter. I'm running a USB 2.0 card with an NEC chipset in my old VIA based motherboard with no problems. The only thing I can suggest is to use Microsofts own enhanced USB drivers. Go into device manager, right click 'VIA enhance USB host controller' and select 'update driver'. From there, select 'search for a driver manually' and press next. Then select 'show only compatible drivers'. You should see a list of compatible drivers. One of them being 'Via enhanced.....' and the other one being 'Generic enhanced.....' or 'Standard enhanced......'. Try using the latter and see what happens.
I think you're right, VIA sucks. I just went out and bought a cheap card with a NEC chipset and it works perfectly. I'm surprised though, I see those VIA chipsets on a lot of usb cards. Are they all faulty like that or do they work for most people? How can they get away with it?
If you look in the WarZone section of the forum, you will see I have posted a thread all about VIA. Feel free to rant about them there As for there USB cards, a lot of people have had problems with them (just look over the net)! Most of the budget and unbranded cards are VIA based. I'm glad to see you bought an NEC USB card, they are solid and reliable. I too had no problems installing and using this. Out of interest, which brand manufacturers it? Is your motherboard based on VIA?
What are you going to do with your VIA card? Sell it? I sold my VIA card on eBay and got more for it then it costs new! Ebay addicts will buy anything.. I should know.....
via kt133a on an epox board, nothing but good has come from this board as well as every other via product I've owned. I also have a via firewire card, they both work in my epox system and on my nforce2 abit nf7-s v.2 motherboard.
Okay, I don't want to start another VIA war! The irony is, I always end up with VIA motherboards whether I like it or not! My ECS P6bat is VIA based, and i've just bought a Tyan Tiger 133 Dual CPU mobo which happens to be VIA based! Life is cruel......
