P4T533 (Not C) and USB 2.0 Problem

  • Thread starter Thread starter I.P. Daly
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I.P. Daly

The System:
P4T533 Asus Mobo Rev 1.03 BIOS 1006 (with optional USB 2.0 Port)
512 MB Samsung 232-pin RDRAM
Intel P4 2.53 Ghz CPU
PNY/Verto Ti4600 128MB AGP Video card
Soundblaster Audigy Platinum soundcard
Diamond v.92 Internal Modem/FAX card
Linksys 10/100 ethernet card
430W PS

Internal IDE Drives:
Pri Mas: WD 40GB (Boot drive - Jumpered as Cable Select) +
Pri Slv: Not Used
Sec Mas: LG-4040 DVD Burner
Sec Slv: LG-4160 DVD Burner
RAID 1+0: WD 250GB (ID:0) Jumpered as Cable Select +
RAID 1+0: WD 250GB (ID:1) Jumpered as Cable Select +
+ Note: These drives are mounted in ViPower Removable Racks

External USB 2.0 Drives:
WD 120GB in Bytecc External Enclosure (Jumpered as Master)*
WD 120GB in Bytecc External Enclosure (Jumpered as Master)*
*Note: Both are plugged into the Mobo's Optional USB2.0 Port)

Additional Devices:
Belkin 7-Port USB 2.0 Hub
HP 895 Printer (Using USB)
Visioneer 8100 Scanner (Using USB)
Linksys WRT54G Router
Linksys PSUS4 Print Server

Operation System:
Windows 2000 Professional with Service Pack 4

Okay... Simply put, no matter what I do, I cannot get USB 2.0
throughput. It is roughly equal to USB 1.1 throughput. A 43MB file
takes about 33 seconds to transfer to either of the external drives,
whereas my friend's older, slower (400 Mhz FSB - 1.6Ghz P4) copies the
same file to his external USB drives in about 4 seconds!

Device Manager shows an Asustek Enhanced USB Host Controller, and
other USB Host Controllers, but nowhere does it mention USB 2.0 at
all. One utility (I forget which one) reported no USB 2.0 devices on
the system.

Calls to Asus Tech Support haven't helped. One tech suggested taking
the Mobo out and laying it on cardboard or other non-electrically
conductive surface to make sure the board wasn't touching and/or
shorting on the case. That didn't help. Another tech suggested getting
a USB2.0 PCI card, which I did. Guess what? That didn't help
either!!!

Took one of the external drives and connected it to a computer with a
known working USB 2.0 port and it worked as it should so I know the
drives and enclosures are good.

Had the system stripped down to the boot drive and one external. No
joy. Wiped the boot drive and installed XP Pro. No joy.

So, my questions are these:

Is there an inherent problem with this Mobo's implementation of USB
2.0 and, if so, is there a fix?

Is there any way to turn off USB 2.0 on the Mobo? When I had the PCI
USB 2.0 card in, USB was turned off in the BIOS, and a jumper on the
Mobo was moved, but the ports still seemed to be working.

Has anyone else had this problem? Did you solve it? If so, how?

Any and all help is greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

-sorry for the lengthy post.
 
I.P. Daly said:
The System:
P4T533 Asus Mobo Rev 1.03 BIOS 1006 (with optional USB 2.0 Port)
512 MB Samsung 232-pin RDRAM
Intel P4 2.53 Ghz CPU
PNY/Verto Ti4600 128MB AGP Video card
Soundblaster Audigy Platinum soundcard
Diamond v.92 Internal Modem/FAX card
Linksys 10/100 ethernet card
430W PS
Click to expand...
Okay... Simply put, no matter what I do, I cannot get USB 2.0
throughput. It is roughly equal to USB 1.1 throughput. A 43MB file
takes about 33 seconds to transfer to either of the external drives,
whereas my friend's older, slower (400 Mhz FSB - 1.6Ghz P4) copies the
same file to his external USB drives in about 4 seconds!

Device Manager shows an Asustek Enhanced USB Host Controller, and
other USB Host Controllers, but nowhere does it mention USB 2.0 at
all. One utility (I forget which one) reported no USB 2.0 devices on
the system.

Calls to Asus Tech Support haven't helped. One tech suggested taking
the Mobo out and laying it on cardboard or other non-electrically
conductive surface to make sure the board wasn't touching and/or
shorting on the case. That didn't help. Another tech suggested getting
a USB2.0 PCI card, which I did. Guess what? That didn't help
either!!!

Took one of the external drives and connected it to a computer with a
known working USB 2.0 port and it worked as it should so I know the
drives and enclosures are good.

Had the system stripped down to the boot drive and one external. No
joy. Wiped the boot drive and installed XP Pro. No joy.

So, my questions are these:

Is there an inherent problem with this Mobo's implementation of USB
2.0 and, if so, is there a fix?

Is there any way to turn off USB 2.0 on the Mobo? When I had the PCI
USB 2.0 card in, USB was turned off in the BIOS, and a jumper on the
Mobo was moved, but the ports still seemed to be working.

Has anyone else had this problem? Did you solve it? If so, how?

Any and all help is greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

-sorry for the lengthy post.
Click to expand...

There are two USB chips on your board. The Southbridge has USB 1.1
ports on it. A NEC D720100A chip provides four USB 2.0 ports (actually
the chip is a five port, but Asus is using four of the ports).
As far as the OS is concerned, the NEC chip should look like any
other third party plug-in PCI USB card. So, adding yet another
PCI card to the computer, really shouldn't change anything,
unless the D720100A chip on your mobo is burned out or something.

http://www.necel.com/usb/en/product/upd720100.html

Now, since you are using Win2K SP4, that should include a USB2
driver. You already found the "Enhanced" entry, so that is
supposed to be the key. That, and a USB2 root hub listed in
Device Manager (does power management when a USB2 device is
plugged in), should be enough to get USB2 to work.

The NEC chip is used in a lot of other products.

According to my old PCI device vendor list:
http://web.archive.org/web/20030715220851/http://yourvote.com/pci/pcidev.csv

the NEC chip has this info:
PCI\VEN_1033&DEV_00E0

If I download this Dlink USB card driver from here:
http://www.dlink.com/products/support.asp?pid=153&sec=0#drivers

I get this file:
ftp://ftp.dlink.com/Usb/du520/Driver/du520_driver_210.zip

There are Orangeware drivers in there (ousb2.inf) that mention
1033/00E0, meaning the Dlink DU-520 uses the NEC chip.
There is also an .exe file in there, which I didn't bother
to examine. I would expect the .exe is used for Win2K/WinXP,
while the three Orangeware files would be used for Win98SE etc.

So, you can scrounge around for drivers like that, and try them
out. I would probably take a spare disk, do a Windows install on
it, and then try out various drivers, to see if things improve.
(I guess I just don't trust restore points.)

(USBman.com notes that NEC card drivers aren't interchangable,
and if the enumeration doesn't match, that would be the reason why.
I think the "Subsys" part of the enumeration might be responsible
for that. Perhaps a little creative editing of the .inf will
fix things up :-) )

I also snagged these two files, found while looking in various
mobo makers downloads. No idea what they are for, but the
usb_2.0 one might be similar to the Dlink file. It is possible
these have Orangeware components in them as well. (Actually,
I see mention of Adaptec in there ? Very strange.)

ftp://ftp.aopen.com.tw/pub/driver/mb/nec/usb_2.0.exe
ftp://ftp.aopen.com.tw/pub/driver/mb/nec/2.1.31000.20400_ao.exe

Remember to try the USB 2.0 ports on the back of
the computer, and not any connected via adapters. The
reason for this, is an adapter cable could be bad or
non-USB2 compliant. A USB 2.0 port on the back of the computer
gets its signals through the PC board directly, and should
have better signal quality. Check your manual to see which
connector is which, as each connector stack on your mobo,
contains a USB2.0 and a USB1.1 connector, and you have to
figure out whether the port you want, is the top connector
or the bottom. Why they mixed the two on the same connector
stack is a real mystery. (I just looked in the PDF manual,
and you should be using the bottom connector.)

There really doesn't seem to be much "dirt" on the Nec
controller in Google, so I don't know why it isn't working
for you.

Good luck,
Paul
 
There are two USB chips on your board. The Southbridge has USB 1.1
ports on it. A NEC D720100A chip provides four USB 2.0 ports (actually
the chip is a five port, but Asus is using four of the ports).
As far as the OS is concerned, the NEC chip should look like any
other third party plug-in PCI USB card. So, adding yet another
PCI card to the computer, really shouldn't change anything,
unless the D720100A chip on your mobo is burned out or something.

http://www.necel.com/usb/en/product/upd720100.html

Now, since you are using Win2K SP4, that should include a USB2
driver. You already found the "Enhanced" entry, so that is
supposed to be the key. That, and a USB2 root hub listed in
Device Manager (does power management when a USB2 device is
plugged in), should be enough to get USB2 to work.

The NEC chip is used in a lot of other products.

According to my old PCI device vendor list:
http://web.archive.org/web/20030715220851/http://yourvote.com/pci/pcidev.csv

the NEC chip has this info:
PCI\VEN_1033&DEV_00E0

If I download this Dlink USB card driver from here:
http://www.dlink.com/products/support.asp?pid=153&sec=0#drivers

I get this file:
ftp://ftp.dlink.com/Usb/du520/Driver/du520_driver_210.zip

There are Orangeware drivers in there (ousb2.inf) that mention
1033/00E0, meaning the Dlink DU-520 uses the NEC chip.
There is also an .exe file in there, which I didn't bother
to examine. I would expect the .exe is used for Win2K/WinXP,
while the three Orangeware files would be used for Win98SE etc.

So, you can scrounge around for drivers like that, and try them
out. I would probably take a spare disk, do a Windows install on
it, and then try out various drivers, to see if things improve.
(I guess I just don't trust restore points.)

(USBman.com notes that NEC card drivers aren't interchangable,
and if the enumeration doesn't match, that would be the reason why.
I think the "Subsys" part of the enumeration might be responsible
for that. Perhaps a little creative editing of the .inf will
fix things up :-) )

I also snagged these two files, found while looking in various
mobo makers downloads. No idea what they are for, but the
usb_2.0 one might be similar to the Dlink file. It is possible
these have Orangeware components in them as well. (Actually,
I see mention of Adaptec in there ? Very strange.)

ftp://ftp.aopen.com.tw/pub/driver/mb/nec/usb_2.0.exe
ftp://ftp.aopen.com.tw/pub/driver/mb/nec/2.1.31000.20400_ao.exe

Remember to try the USB 2.0 ports on the back of
the computer, and not any connected via adapters. The
reason for this, is an adapter cable could be bad or
non-USB2 compliant. A USB 2.0 port on the back of the computer
gets its signals through the PC board directly, and should
have better signal quality. Check your manual to see which
connector is which, as each connector stack on your mobo,
contains a USB2.0 and a USB1.1 connector, and you have to
figure out whether the port you want, is the top connector
or the bottom. Why they mixed the two on the same connector
stack is a real mystery. (I just looked in the PDF manual,
and you should be using the bottom connector.)

There really doesn't seem to be much "dirt" on the Nec
controller in Google, so I don't know why it isn't working
for you.

Good luck,
Paul
Click to expand...

Thank you Paul for the post, links and suggestions. While I have not
as yet tried everything you suggested, there has been some "progress",
albeit baby-steps.

I now have the Microsoft USB 2.0 drivers installed, and there is
finally a USB 2.0 Root Hub in Device Manager. There wasn't one before.
The external USB drives are definitely connected to the USB 2.0 ports
on the optional rail. They were also tested in the USB 2.0 ports on
the bottom of each stack on the backplane of the motherboard.

I am definitely NOT getting USB 1.1 throughput from these ports.
Accessing the external drives after plugging them into the 1.1 ports
took much longer. Still, I am not achieving the same throughput my
friend gets. As a test, he copied to his external drive about 4 GB of
files in 12-15 minutes. The same operation takes me 30-35 minutes -
more than twice as long.

He's an Electrical Engineer and knows about computers inside out. He's
built several computers over the years. In fact, he built and does all
the major hardware work on this machine because I am a quadriplegic
and can't do it myself. He's stumped about this! He also doesn't
understand why, after installing the USB 2.0 PCI card, it suffered the
same slowdown, and why, after disabling USB 2.0 in both the BIOS and
via Motherboard Jumper, the Mobo's USB 2.0 ports seemed to remain
active.

Any other thoughts/suggestions are very much appreciated.

Thanks.
 
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