too many USB ports?

[Spoon2001]

My motherboard (Via KT400 chipset) has 6 built-in USB 2.0 ports, provided by
the Via 8235 southbridge chip. They've been OK, but Via USB isn't the best,
and I thought I'd try to do better.

I put in a Syba PCI card with 5 USB 2.0 ports (4 external, 1 internal) -
based on NEC chip - without disabling my motherboard ports! That made 11
ports in all.

Things seemed to be working ok ... but I had problems when I tried to use a
Seagate 200GB hard drive, installed inside an self-powered Adaptec USB 2.0
drive enclosure. I finally unplugged the Syba card, connected it to one of
the motherboard ports (via a 4-port external hub), and then the drive worked
all right.

What was the likely cause of the problem? Too many USB controllers / hubs /
ports going all at once? I didn't examine Device Manager too closely, but I
didn't see any "yellow bombs" showing any resource conflicts.

Funny thing ... I hooked up another drive (Seagate 120G drive inside an
older USB 2.0 drive enclosure), and it worked ok, even with the Syba card
installed and the motherboard ports still enabled.

 

[Smoker~]

My motherboard (Via KT400 chipset) has 6 built-in USB 2.0 ports, provided
by the Via 8235 southbridge chip. They've been OK, but Via USB isn't the
best, and I thought I'd try to do better.

I put in a Syba PCI card with 5 USB 2.0 ports (4 external, 1 internal) -
based on NEC chip - without disabling my motherboard ports! That made 11
ports in all.

Things seemed to be working ok ... but I had problems when I tried to use
a Seagate 200GB hard drive, installed inside an self-powered Adaptec USB
2.0 drive enclosure. I finally unplugged the Syba card, connected it to
one of the motherboard ports (via a 4-port external hub), and then the
drive worked all right.

What was the likely cause of the problem? Too many USB controllers / hubs
/ ports going all at once? I didn't examine Device Manager too closely,
but I didn't see any "yellow bombs" showing any resource conflicts.

Funny thing ... I hooked up another drive (Seagate 120G drive inside an
older USB 2.0 drive enclosure), and it worked ok, even with the Syba card
installed and the motherboard ports still enabled.

You don't mention your specific problem(s) when trying to use the Seagate
USB drive. Could it be that it wasn't always detected? If so, that's a well
known problem with various fixes -- none of which work for everyone. On a
cold boot and often on a reboot, the drive is detected and shows up
everywhere it should, then may disappear later. No-name and anyname external
enclosures get the same problem. It will still appear in Device Manager and
nowhere else. But I shouldn't guess. And you shouldn't make us guess.

I think the other drive worked okay because it was new to the system on that
particular boot. Or it could be that it draws one or two less watts than a
larger drive and doesn't screw up the USB power.

There's no details you give to compare one drive experience to the other. I
will guess you didn't run the smaller drive through the courses you did with
the 200GB drive/not give it time enough to develop the same symptoms?

The only fix I know that works is to reboot or turn off the machine and cold
boot. It's always a problem and functionality lasts in various time spans.
I'm surprised that most people never encounter this.

I read where Microsoft acknowledges that this is a problem between Windows
XP and USB and they crapped around the issue and came up with a solution
that's least likely to work, as well as blaming various hardware
manufacturers.

It's possible to have too many ports, but not in your configurations.

You might care to check out http://usbman.com as that's the main site for
anything USB and troubleshooting.

 

[Spoon2001]

You don't mention your specific problem(s) when trying to use the
Seagate USB drive. Could it be that it wasn't always detected? If so,
that's a well known problem with various fixes -- none of which work
for everyone. On a cold boot and often on a reboot, the drive is
detected and shows up everywhere it should, then may disappear later.

I think you are right. I think the drive wasn't always detected, or Windows
would intermittently stop seeing the drive.

I plugged in the drive after booting, with the usual auto-detect going on.
Then I tried back up to the Seagate 200G in the Adaptec USB enclosure, using
Norton Ghost, and then a file-by-file backup program. Frequently I heard
sounds like the one I hear when a device is connected and disconnected.
Also, a little yellow triangle frequently appeared in the system tray with
an exclamation point ... ok, Google tells me that is a Warning, and I'm
seeing disk errors in the System Event Viewer. Typical message in Event
Viewer: An error was detected on device \Device\Harddisk3\D during a paging
operation.

I think the other drive worked okay because it was new to the system
on that particular boot. Or it could be that it draws one or two less
watts than a larger drive and doesn't screw up the USB power.

Both drives enclosures have their own power supplies, FWIW. The newer one
is an Adaptec bought in 2005, the older one is a PPA bought in 2003.

There's no details you give to compare one drive experience to the
other. I will guess you didn't run the smaller drive through the
courses you did with the 200GB drive/not give it time enough to
develop the same symptoms?

With both the Syba USB adapter plugged in and the motherboard ports enabled,
I copied 26GB of files to the Seagate 120GB in the PPA enclosure - no
problems! But it was much different with the Seagate 200 in the Adaptec
enclosure. I tried running Ghost and a backup program, and the problems
appeared almost immediately. I wouldn't get as far as 500MB of data
transferred, much less 26G.

But once I unplugged the Syba card, leaving only the Via USB ports, I was
able to copy 60G to the Seagate 200G / Adaptec drive, using Norton Ghost.

The only fix I know that works is to reboot or turn off the machine
and cold boot. It's always a problem and functionality lasts in
various time spans. I'm surprised that most people never encounter
this.
I read where Microsoft acknowledges that this is a problem between
Windows XP and USB and they crapped around the issue and came up with
a solution that's least likely to work, as well as blaming various
hardware manufacturers.

It's possible to have too many ports, but not in your configurations.

You might care to check out http://usbman.com as that's the main site
for anything USB and troubleshooting.

Thanks for the information!

 

[Robert Bollinger]

Use a powered usb enclosure, self powered is really for low power devices
only.

Does the drive come and go? Does it appear once then not again? I don't know
of a real "issue" about this as an XP problem.

I suspect that you simply have power issue...


Robert Bollinger, MCP.