USB 1.0 or 2.0?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Chris Mayers
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Chris Mayers

Hi,

I have an oldish laptop I've 'inherited'. Its probably about 4-5 years old.
It has a single USB port, but I'm not sure if it is USB 1.0 or USB 2.0.

Is there an easy way to tell for sure what it is? Either by physical
inspection (externally) or looking in Control Panel or somewhere similar?

I want to buy an external HDD, but I think it will only work if I have a
USB2.0 port.

Regards and TIA,

Chris Mayers.

PS The laptop is a Compaq Armada M700. But I'm really looking for a
technique for telling the difference I can apply to any computer I happen to
be using.
 
In Chris Mayers <[email protected]> had this to say:

My reply is at the bottom of your sent message:
Hi,

I have an oldish laptop I've 'inherited'. Its probably about 4-5
years old. It has a single USB port, but I'm not sure if it is USB
1.0 or USB 2.0.

Is there an easy way to tell for sure what it is? Either by physical
inspection (externally) or looking in Control Panel or somewhere
similar?

I want to buy an external HDD, but I think it will only work if I
have a USB2.0 port.

Regards and TIA,

Chris Mayers.

PS The laptop is a Compaq Armada M700. But I'm really looking for a
technique for telling the difference I can apply to any computer I
happen to be using.
Click to expand...

Look in your device manager. Look under USB. If it's 2.0 it will be listed
as enhanced. It's 4-5 years old so it's probably not 2.0 but rather 1.1.
This isn't a major issue as MOST USB 2.0 devices are backwards compatible
and will work just fine though a bit slower than they would on the newer
ports.

Galen
 
Thanks for your reply. I guess it is 1.1 then...

Do you know if iPods are USB1.1 compatable??

Thanks again,

Chris.
 
In Chris Mayers <[email protected]> had this to say:

My reply is at the bottom of your sent message:
Thanks for your reply. I guess it is 1.1 then...

Do you know if iPods are USB1.1 compatable??

Thanks again,

Chris.
Click to expand...

I am almost 100% certain that they are.

A brief search at Google shows this:

Tweeter - Apple IPODSHUFFLE512 iPodT Shuffle 512 MB:
http://www.tweeter.com/sm-apple-ipodshuffle512-ipod-shuffle-512-mb--pi-1927808.html

That particular model is backwards compatable and it's reasonable to assume
that the remainder are as well. The package should tell you more as with an
iPod specific site but I'd guess that they are.

Galen
 
Galen said:
In Chris Mayers <[email protected]> had this to say:

My reply is at the bottom of your sent message:

Look in your device manager. Look under USB. If it's 2.0 it will be listed
as enhanced. It's 4-5 years old so it's probably not 2.0 but rather 1.1.
This isn't a major issue as MOST USB 2.0 devices are backwards compatible
and will work just fine though a bit slower than they would on the newer
ports.
Click to expand...
I'd say A LOT slower. So it really depends what you need to transfer. If you
need to transfer several gigabytes of data, it could be hours if you do it
under USB 1.1. I have USB 1.1, but bought a PCMCIA USB 2.0 card for about
$20, and I used it when I have to backup a few gigabytes of data.

guillermo
 
In Guillermo <[email protected]> had this to say:

My reply is at the bottom of your sent message:
I'd say A LOT slower. So it really depends what you need to transfer.
If you need to transfer several gigabytes of data, it could be hours
if you do it under USB 1.1. I have USB 1.1, but bought a PCMCIA USB
2.0 card for about $20, and I used it when I have to backup a few
gigabytes of data.

guillermo
Click to expand...

Actually if you said "a LOT slower" I'd agree with you 100%. I didn't know
the exact figures but I know that my USB HDD that I use on this PC is much
slower when I use it on a lappy that's only using 1.1... Just for your/our
referrence I went to the Plextor site and dug this out:

USB 1.1: 12Mbits/s (1.5MBytes/s)
USB 2.0: 480Mbits/s (60MBytes/s)
Parallel Port: 480Mbits/s (60MBytes/s)
Serial Port: 480Mbits/s (60MBytes/s)
Firewire: 100-400Mbits/s (12.5-50MBytes/s)

Galen
 
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