usb 2.0 faster?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Gary Richardson
  • Start date Start date
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Gary Richardson

Hey,

I bought an Epson 4180 Photo scanner the other day. I'm pretty
satisfied with it over all.

When I got it, my motherboard only supported USB 1.1. Today I went out
and bought a USB 2.0 PCI card to see if it would speed up my scans. I
ended up with an IOGEAR GUF320.

The first thing I noticed is that plugged into a USB 2.0 port, the
scanner likes to hang. Most of the time the scan fails and I have to
power cycle the scanner and restart the scanner software.

When it does work, the scan doesn't seem to happen any faster. Whether
or not it's using USB 2.0, scanning a negative at 2400DPI still takes 2
minutes.

Is there a resolution/image size that using USB 2.0 will make a
difference? At my current level of ignorance, I'm guessing that this
little scanner can only bounce light off my pictures so fast and at
higher resolutions, it's slower than USB 1.1.

Thanks.
 
Gary Richardson said:
Hey,

I bought an Epson 4180 Photo scanner the other day. I'm pretty
satisfied with it over all.

When I got it, my motherboard only supported USB 1.1. Today I went out
and bought a USB 2.0 PCI card to see if it would speed up my scans. I
ended up with an IOGEAR GUF320.

The first thing I noticed is that plugged into a USB 2.0 port, the
scanner likes to hang. Most of the time the scan fails and I have to
power cycle the scanner and restart the scanner software.

When it does work, the scan doesn't seem to happen any faster. Whether
or not it's using USB 2.0, scanning a negative at 2400DPI still takes 2
minutes.

Is there a resolution/image size that using USB 2.0 will make a
difference? At my current level of ignorance, I'm guessing that this
little scanner can only bounce light off my pictures so fast and at
higher resolutions, it's slower than USB 1.1.

Thanks.
Click to expand...
Data transfer for USB 2.0 is faster than USB 1.1.
But not faster response for all devices.

The only advantage to USB 2.0 is the higher data transfer speed.
Which is only important if you have many Megabytes of data to transfer.

Since scanners are largely mechanical, USB 2.0 will not cause any
improvement in how long it takes to make a scan.

If you are having problems with the USB 2.0 card you bought, I would take it
back to the store.

The computer demand for USB 2.0 is pretty high, You need a computer that can
transfer at a data rate of about 60 Megabytes per second.

Operating Systems Requirements: Windows 98SE/2000/ME/XP, Mac G3 (Blue and
White or later), Mac OS 8.6 or greater, Mac OS 10 (for USB 2.0 support)
 
Hey,

Here's an update on this:

I replaced the USB 2.0 card and scanning no longer hangs. Looks like
there is possilby an interop problem betwen the IOGEAR card and Epson
scanners. I'm sure nobody cares since USB cards are so cheap and
replaceable.

It seems to be marginally faster when scanning images, but I have no
quantitive evidence to confirm this. It *seems* to take about 2-5
minutes less when scanning 8 negatives.

Thanks.
 
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