Ali 8-port FireWire/USB 2.0 PCI: poor performance common?

[Mike Paul]

Seemed like a good idea: instead of paying $60 for a combo USB
2.0/Firewire card, I bought a semi-generic Ali 8-port FireWire/USB 2.0
PCI card for $26, and now I'm wondering if they all are slow or if
it's a bad interaction with my motherboard or something.

It works, but Firewire can't play back my DVDs from a burner I have in
an external box. The 120GB hard disk in a Belkin USB 2.0/Firewire
enclosure only works well under USB and only when I plug it in and
reboot, and took almost an hour to copy a 4GB file onto the external
drive. Way slower than I expected from USB 2.0.

While composing this, I tried the hard disk via Firewire again, and
the whole system locked up until I pulled the plug. I guess it was
slowly accessing the hard disk, and it was taking a while.

I disabled the P3V4X motherboard's onboard USB 1.1 as best I could,
but don't see any improvement.

I used the supplied USB 2.0 driver, then tried running without it. No
change.

Any ideas, other than buying a more expensive card (came up with that
one myself)?...

 

[JEM]

Try putting in a different PCI slot if it's available.
Sounds like IQR sharing issue.... Had the same problems
with ATA controllers, firewire, TV tuners... Usually the
case. Check the MB manual, WEB site, or forum for your
board.

 

[Mike Paul]

Try putting in a different PCI slot if it's available.
Sounds like IQR sharing issue.... Had the same problems
with ATA controllers, firewire, TV tuners... Usually the
case. Check the MB manual, WEB site, or forum for your
board.

Well, swapping the board around did get the Firewire working properly,
but the USB 2.0 still acts like 1.1. Although, due to my case's slot
openings not being generous enough, I can't plug into the card's ports
and have to use the USB 2.0 / Firewire hub I installed in a 5-1/4" slot.
Maybe there's something wrong with that, so when the small hub I need to
split the one internal USB port shows up, I'll test my USB 2.0 hard disk
on the internal port and see if it's any better. I bought a CompUSA
8-in-1 media reader for a 3-1/2" slot, and can't run that and the external
hub without even more hardware.

Thanks...

 

[JEM]

for USB 2.0 to work you have to have XP SP1 installed, or
use the driver disk that came with the card. If the
drivers are installed correctly, the USB will show up
as 'enhanced USB controller'.

 

[Mike Paul]

for USB 2.0 to work you have to have XP SP1 installed, or
use the driver disk that came with the card. If the
drivers are installed correctly, the USB will show up
as 'enhanced USB controller'.

Well, I finally got the small USB 2.0 hub to use both internal devices off the
card's one internal USB port, but no matter what I do - shove the card around
to pick up random IRQs or assign a specific one, it doesn't show any sign of
being 'enhanced'.

XP SP1 is installed, and I've tried the ALI driver that came with the card
plus another I found on a German website. Nothing helps.

I can't get the IRQ sharing to stop. It wants 3 IRQs, and one of them is 11,
shared with my video card and at least one other device. NO conflicts
reported by XP, but that's not exactly reassuring.

Any chance you need something better than a 733Mhz PIII on an ASUS P3V4X to
make it work? Some under-documented conflict, maybe?

I'll play for a while before I just let it sit. At least the 8-in-1 media
reader works, and the 4-port USB hub works, so I can have 1.1 performance when
I need it. Too bad I was aiming for 2.0...