Do I Have USB 2.0?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Buck Turgidson
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Buck Turgidson

Sorry to post such a mundane question. I am trying to determine if I have
USB 2.0. It is a Dell Notebook, about 1 year old.

This is what I was able to glean from the HW Profile:

Manufacturer: Intel
Model: Intel(R) 82801CA/CAM USB Universal Host Controller - 2482
Driver: usbuhci.sys
Sunday, November 24, 2002
Supported
 
Go to Device Manager and open the item for "Universal Serial Bus
controllers". If you have USB 2 installed, you should have a line similar to
"Standard Enhanced PCI to USB Host Controller". If the line isn't there, you
either don't have USB2 or don't have the USB2 driver installed. Did the
laptop come with Windows XP's Sevice Pack 1 already installed or did you
have to upgrade to SP1? USB2 wasn't supported in pre SP1 without adding the
drivers. The drivers are included in SP1, but just installing SP1 ususally
doesn't update the driver automatically.

See this article to upgrade to USB2 once SP1 is installed.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;329632&Product=winxp
 
Is USB 2.0 a software thing? I was thinking that I needed to buy new
hardware. Sorry for being so dense.
 
Buck Turgidson said:
Is USB 2.0 a software thing? I was thinking that I needed to buy new
hardware. Sorry for being so dense.
Click to expand...

Your question was not dense...
for USB2 you need *both* the proper hardware and software.
For example...if you add a pci USB2 card... it will only funtion as USB1
unless you install the USB2 software also.

OTOH: with USB1 hardware, there is no way to upgrade to USB2 unless
you also upgrade the hardware
 
Your question was not dense...
for USB2 you need *both* the proper hardware and software.
For example...if you add a pci USB2 card... it will only funtion as USB1
unless you install the USB2 software also.

OTOH: with USB1 hardware, there is no way to upgrade to USB2 unless
you also upgrade the hardware
Click to expand...

Thanks for the patient response. I've installed HDDs and memory in
desktops. Do you think I could install a new USB 2.0 card in a notebook?
 
Thanks for the patient response. I've installed HDDs and memory in
desktops. Do you think I could install a new USB 2.0 card in a notebook?
Click to expand...
I know nothing at all about notebooks...
I think you'd have to talk to the manufacturer to see if that would be
possible
 
Thanks for the patient response. I've installed HDDs and memory in
desktops. Do you think I could install a new USB 2.0 card in a notebook?
Click to expand...

Some of them have firewire already if you're just wanting to add an
external drive?
 
Yes, you can install USB2 in a laptop. You will need to get a PCMCIA card
that supplies USB2 and place it in one of the card slots. USB2 is, as was
stated, both hardware and software dependent. However, many computers with
USB2 didn't have the drivers installed initially because the original
release of Windows XP didn't have them. Letting XP see if there are newer
drivers for your USB ports is simple. If you have installed SP1 for XP it
doesn't find any newer drivers, then you don't have USB2 (assuming the
drivers aren't already installed for USB2, if they are they should show in
Device Manager as mentioned earlier).
 
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