Is USB v2.0 a mobo thing... (1 Viewer)

[Rob Varto]

Does your mobo have to support USB v2.0 in order to get the benefits of it or can you install a v2.0 card into a v1.1 mobo and still get blazing fast speed for data transfer?

I found a Lite-On 16x CD-RW for $195 with a v2.0 USB card. Im assuming I can just plug it into my mobo which support v1.1 and it would be "upgraded" to v2.0? Is that correct?

 

[Hugh M]

you are correct. there are of course the usual things that may prevent this from being successful. But, that is definitely the plan.

only the ports which are connected to the card will be USB 2.0, unless you pruchase a USB 2.0 hub to connect to it. Any hubs that you have right now will not do anything more than they already do.

 

[Duncan Barth]

When you put the USB2.0 card that came with your burner into your computer, you are adding USB2.0 ports.

The ports on your motherboard will still be USB1.1, while the ports on the add-in card will be USB2.0.

Obviously, you want to have the burner plugged into one of the ports on the card for maximum speed.

 

[Rob Varto]

Gotcha.

Thanks guys.

 

[Darren Lewis]

There was an issue with drivers for USB2.0. I think Microsoft were supposed to be releasing them, but then decided to let the manufacturers release their own - best to check first.

 

[John Wilson]

I have a related question.

Do you see much benefit if your computer has only a 133 MHz fsb? I thought I remember reading that USB 2.0 is rated at 200 MHz. Wouldn't that imply that only a newer computer with 200 MHz fsb or better would really see the benefit of USB 2.0?

Thanks for your response.

 

[Duncan Barth]

The short answer: No, you don't need a new motherboard.

The long answer:

The FSB of your machine is essentially irrelivent, since the the USB2.0 card will plug into a PCI slot, which is much slower anyway.

The PCI bus (on most home systems) runs at 33Mhz. But it is 32 bits wide, giving 33.33Mhz x 32bits = 1064Mbits/sec of bandwidth for all your devics (USB ports, IDE controllers, etc.)

USB2.0 has a maximum data bandwidth of 480Mbits/sec ... a rate that you aren't going to realistically achieve with any peripheral.