USB 2.0 Question

[David Burnett]

I have an external USB 2.0 CD-RW that is performing poorly. I think it is
due to the fact that I only have one USB hub that is integrated into the
motherboard for six USB ports.

My question is would I be better off putting in a PCI card and adding more
ports, or using a self-powered USB hub that connects to an existing port but
supplies its own power from an AC outlet?

 

[Mikey]

David Burnett loudly proclaimed to the world that:

I have an external USB 2.0 CD-RW that is performing poorly. I think
it is due to the fact that I only have one USB hub that is integrated
into the motherboard for six USB ports.

My question is would I be better off putting in a PCI card and adding
more ports, or using a self-powered USB hub that connects to an
existing port but supplies its own power from an AC outlet?

Adding a powered hub won't help performance, if there is enough power to run
the device then that's all it needs, if there wasn't enough it would shut
down and the computer would tell you about the problem.
A USB 2.0 pci card with more ports would be the way to go to improve
performance.

Are you sure the existing USB port and HUB are both USB 2.0?

 

[Rich Barry]

A self-powered USB hub

 

[kony]

I have an external USB 2.0 CD-RW that is performing poorly. I think it is
due to the fact that I only have one USB hub that is integrated into the
motherboard for six USB ports.

My question is would I be better off putting in a PCI card and adding more
ports, or using a self-powered USB hub that connects to an existing port but
supplies its own power from an AC outlet?

Does your motherboard's onboard hub(s) support USB2 or only USB1?

What do you call poor performance, give us an idea of the MB/s
transfer rate, like how long it takes to read from AND write to the
external drive, a good test file size might be a few hundred MB file
(or largest available if none are that big).

If your onboard ports only support USB1 then get a USB2 card. If on
the other hand they support USB2 then unplug any other devices using
second plug on same port/hub, see if it makes any difference. If the
onboard ports are USB2 then it shouldn't help much if at all to use a
USB2 card OR hub instead.

Dave

 

[David Burnett]

The hub is 2.0
I get about 4000kB /s transfer rate.
The drive can write at 52x and I use 48x media, but I can only write at
about 12x and there are still pops and hisses.

 

[kony]

The hub is 2.0
I get about 4000kB /s transfer rate.
The drive can write at 52x and I use 48x media, but I can only write at
about 12x and there are still pops and hisses.

So the hub does appear to be operating in USB2 mode. Is the USB
functionality provided by the motherboard's southbridge, or a separate
chip on the motherboard (like NEC)? I was just wondering if you had
other PCI devices that might be hogging the bus, would be an issue if
it's a separate chip. Other than that I'm out of ideas.

What do you mean by "pops and hisses"? These are audio CDs you're
making? If so, are you certain that the source drive is doing
accurate DAE, as noise is often a sign of ripping too fast from the
reader.


Dave

 

[David Burnett]

The pops and hisses tend to lessen a lot when I slow the burn speed, so I
think it is related to the write mode.

I did some system checking, and it seems I have conflicts between the PCI
bus and DMA controller.
Also, as you mentioned, I have a conflict between the USB hub and some cards
I have installed.
I have contacted my computer manufacturer for assistance, but that is up in
the air.
Thanks for your help.