USB 1.0 vs 2.0

[Ed Franklin]

Good morning all.

I finally got around to hooking up my first ever USB
device to my old Gateway G-series PII/400 machine. It is
a Cannon scanner, which seems to be working just great
over usb, but then again anything is better that using the
old parallel port connection.

My questions is this, I have updated all the drivers and
the system reports that it is using USB 2.0 drivers for
the hub, but with a system this old am I actually getting
the USB 2.0 speeds, or am I going to have to invest in an
add-on board to get those speeds and is it worth doing so.

Point is the scanner is working, should I even mess with
it.

[Nick Burns]

Your system is plenty capable of running at 2.0, but if you only have 1.0
USB you only get that speed and I suppose your system can use the 2.0
drivers and be backward compatible and running at 1.0. As far as adding a
2.0 USB card for your printer..it's not worth it. If I had some high end
video gear I might go for the 2.0 hardware.


"Ed Franklin" > wrote in message
...
> Good morning all.
>
> I finally got around to hooking up my first ever USB
> device to my old Gateway G-series PII/400 machine. It is
> a Cannon scanner, which seems to be working just great
> over usb, but then again anything is better that using the
> old parallel port connection.
>
> My questions is this, I have updated all the drivers and
> the system reports that it is using USB 2.0 drivers for
> the hub, but with a system this old am I actually getting
> the USB 2.0 speeds, or am I going to have to invest in an
> add-on board to get those speeds and is it worth doing so.
>
> Point is the scanner is working, should I even mess with
> it.

[Alex Nichol]

Ed Franklin wrote:

>I finally got around to hooking up my first ever USB
>device to my old Gateway G-series PII/400 machine. It is
>a Cannon scanner, which seems to be working just great
>over usb, but then again anything is better that using the
>old parallel port connection.
>
>My questions is this, I have updated all the drivers and
>the system reports that it is using USB 2.0 drivers for
>the hub, but with a system this old am I actually getting
>the USB 2.0 speeds, or am I going to have to invest in an
>add-on board to get those speeds and is it worth doing so.

USB 2.0 needs :

A USB 2.0 device

Connection through a USB 2.0 controller (and cables)

Drivers for those in the system.

Your machine will have USB 1.1 controller, so if the scanner is 2.0
(check its specs - USB 2.0 is not yet commonplace) you would need to
get a plug in USB 2.0 controller card - not very expensive, but you
would need to consider if the extra speed would justify the expense


XP SP1 has the drivers, and they can be found if you explore the Windows
Update Catalog for ones for Win2000 - the SP1 ones are there, but *not*
under Windows XP.

--
Alex Nichol MS MVP (Windows - File Systems)
Bournemouth, U.K.