USB 2.0 worth it for scanner?

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CARBUFF

Ive currently got an HP 4570c that Ive been using for scanning slides and
photos as well as regular documents and such. Ive been happy enough with the
results. I had been using it through a usb 1.0 port. My new motherboard
supports usb 2.0 but Ive been not wanting to upgrade my xp to sp1 so I cant use
the USB 2.0 function. The scanner is a "high speed" usb 2.0 device. Sometimes a
slide scan can take a long time, like 5 or 10 minutes. Will switching to usb
2.0 reduce this time or is the time in the scanning process and not the
transfer from scanner to harddrive. In short, will upgrading to usb 2.0 make my
slides scan any faster? Thanks.

George
 
CARBUFF said:
Ive currently got an HP 4570c that Ive been using for scanning slides
and photos as well as regular documents and such. Ive been happy
enough with the results. I had been using it through a usb 1.0 port.
My new motherboard supports usb 2.0 but Ive been not wanting to
upgrade my xp to sp1 so I cant use the USB 2.0 function. The scanner
is a "high speed" usb 2.0 device. Sometimes a slide scan can take a
long time, like 5 or 10 minutes. Will switching to usb
2.0 reduce this time or is the time in the scanning process and not
the transfer from scanner to harddrive. In short, will upgrading to
usb 2.0 make my slides scan any faster? Thanks.

George
Click to expand...

IMO, probably not much. The scan time is processing the image, not
transferring the data. Unless you have a bootleg WinXP, SP1 and
security updates are, again IMO, a good idea.

Q
 
CARBUFF said:
Ive currently got an HP 4570c that Ive been using for scanning slides and
photos as well as regular documents and such. Ive been happy enough with the
results. I had been using it through a usb 1.0 port. My new motherboard
supports usb 2.0 but Ive been not wanting to upgrade my xp to sp1 so I cant use
the USB 2.0 function. The scanner is a "high speed" usb 2.0 device. Sometimes a
slide scan can take a long time, like 5 or 10 minutes. Will switching to usb
2.0 reduce this time or is the time in the scanning process and not the
transfer from scanner to harddrive. In short, will upgrading to usb 2.0 make my
slides scan any faster? Thanks.
Click to expand...

When you are scanning, does scannign ever stop for a while and then
resume? If so, this may indicate a bottleneck in the data transfer to
the PC. I had this with my film scanner on USB 1 until I switched to
Firewire. If not, it would probably make little difference.
 
CARBUFF said:
Ive currently got an HP 4570c that Ive been using for scanning slides and
photos as well as regular documents and such. Ive been happy enough with the
results. I had been using it through a usb 1.0 port. My new motherboard
supports usb 2.0 but Ive been not wanting to upgrade my xp to sp1 so I cant use
the USB 2.0 function. The scanner is a "high speed" usb 2.0 device. Sometimes a
slide scan can take a long time, like 5 or 10 minutes. Will switching to usb
2.0 reduce this time or is the time in the scanning process and not the
transfer from scanner to harddrive. In short, will upgrading to usb 2.0 make my
slides scan any faster? Thanks.

George
Click to expand...

You do not need SP1 to use the USB2 update, just download it from
Microsoft.com

Paul
 
Ive currently got an HP 4570c that Ive been using for scanning slides and
photos as well as regular documents and such. Ive been happy enough with the
results. I had been using it through a usb 1.0 port. My new motherboard
supports usb 2.0 but Ive been not wanting to upgrade my xp to sp1 so I cant use
the USB 2.0 function. The scanner is a "high speed" usb 2.0 device. Sometimes a
slide scan can take a long time, like 5 or 10 minutes. Will switching to usb
2.0 reduce this time or is the time in the scanning process and not the
transfer from scanner to harddrive. In short, will upgrading to usb 2.0 make my
slides scan any faster? Thanks.

George
Click to expand...
I'm not sure why you haven't installed SP1? I installed it when it
was first released, it cured quite a few problems with my computers.

There is some software that will only run properly under SP1.

There is a patch for USB 2.0 and another patch to keep the driver from
over taxing the CPU.
 
I'm not sure why you haven't installed SP1? I installed it when it
was first released, it cured quite a few problems with my computers.

There is some software that will only run properly under SP1.

There is a patch for USB 2.0 and another patch to keep the driver from
over taxing the CPU.
Click to expand...

Every time I go to download it from the win update website it hangs when it
says it is analyzing my system. And as another poster suggested, I cant
download the usb 2.0 drivers from microsoft as they have removed them from the
website. My system is really full of stuff so I guess I will wait until I
absolutely cant do without sp1 then do a fresh reinstall with it. Thanks.

George
 
CARBUFF said:
Ive currently got an HP 4570c that Ive been using for scanning slides and
photos as well as regular documents and such. Ive been happy enough with the
results. I had been using it through a usb 1.0 port. My new motherboard
supports usb 2.0 but Ive been not wanting to upgrade my xp to sp1 so I cant use
the USB 2.0 function. The scanner is a "high speed" usb 2.0 device. Sometimes a
slide scan can take a long time, like 5 or 10 minutes. Will switching to usb
2.0 reduce this time or is the time in the scanning process and not the
transfer from scanner to harddrive. In short, will upgrading to usb 2.0 make my
slides scan any faster? Thanks.
Click to expand...
Whether USB2 makes any difference at all depends on the size and
resolution that you are scanning at. On scans of small objects, like
postage stamps, or of large areas at low resolution, like photos at
300ppi, it probably will not make any difference at all.

The critical test is to listen to the scanner motor while making a scan.
If the unit is producing data faster than the USB1.1 bus can transfer it
to the computer then the scanner head will stop moving while the bus
catches up. The improvement in scan speed that you should get when
updating to a faster bus is simply the total amount of time that the
scanner head spends waiting for data to transfer over the slower bus. So
if you listen to the scanner and the head is stationary for 50% of the
time then you will double your scan speed. If the head is only
stationary for 1% of the time then you will hardly notice any difference
in speed at all.
 
I'm not sure why you haven't installed SP1? I installed it when it
Finally got the sp1 to install, took long enough, jeez. I t will be interesting
to see if the usb 2.0 makes a difference. Or if it even works right with my
nforce 2 chipset.

George
 
George, you DO want to upgrade to SP1...absolutely do it...then check the
results with USB 2.0 yourself. I'm not familiar with that scanner.

j.
 
The critical test is to listen to the scanner motor while making a scan.
If the unit is producing data faster than the USB1.1 bus can transfer it
to the computer then the scanner head will stop moving while the bus
catches up.
Click to expand...

I don't think you can rely on this method. What if the scanner itself
can't keep up and "stops and thinks" before sending data? For example:

When I run a scan without ICE the stepper motor purrs along
uninterrupted. However, when I do turn ICE on, there are numerous and
long stops.

Even allowing for the scanner to send the IR channel data (which I
don't think is the case) the time it takes to complete an ICE scan
(about 3 mins) is not commensurate with non-ICE scan time (about 1
min). That's an increase of 300% for, nominally, 33% more data.
Therefore, it's the scanner itself that "stops and thinks" before
sending data or, the scanner software on the PC side tells it to cease
until the software digests the data it has already received.

Either way, even though in some cases listening to the stepper motor
may indicate a transfer bottleneck, I don't think it's a reliable
method because of many other variables.

Don.
 
Don said:
I don't think you can rely on this method. What if the scanner itself
can't keep up and "stops and thinks" before sending data? For example:
Click to expand...
The scanner thinks??? There's more processing power in a single celled
amoeba than most scanners! ;-)

Seriously though, yes you do have a point - it is possible that the bus
itself is not the limiting factor, but the processing power of the
computer or the access speed of the memory or hard disk. However, with
a modern PC capable of interfacing via USB2 in the first place this
should not be a problem. I should, of course, have caveated my advice
with the instruction to test while scanning raw with minimum post
processing such as ICE etc. Then it just becomes a matter of how fast
the scanner can generate data and transfer it to the PC across the bus.
If the PC cannot store the data faster than a USB1.1 bus can deliver it
then asking this question would be the least of your worries.
 
George, you DO want to upgrade to SP1...absolutely do it...then check the
results with USB 2.0 yourself. I'm not familiar with that scanner.
Click to expand...

Yes, I did finally get it to install, took a long time though. Installed the
usb 2.0 drivers then reinstalled the scanner. I remember when I previously
installed it windows warned me that it was a high speed usb device on a low
speed port. It didnt do that this time. It said it found a usb 2,0 device and
installed it without any fuss. It seems to make no difference in the time. I
scanned a negative at 4800 dpi before the 2.0 and then did it again after. The
times were nearly identical. So, I guess its not the buss thats the bottleneck
in this case.

George
 
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