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Old August 5th 12, 09:03 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
Paul
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Default USB 3 card not working

Mick wrote:

Hi Paul,
Thank you for your help.

I looked at how the card was seated and it did not look like it was
right home in the slot
so I removed the cover plate holding the cards in place, and removed the
card and bent the back plate so that when it was seated in the
motherboard it lined up with the holding plate.

I did get the writing on the card, it is an ASRock USB 3.0 ROHS with
24C0XX004222 on the other side.

But still no joy, so I put the card driver disc in again and did a
repair of drivers.
I rebooted and windows said the new software was installed ok.

The warning sign has gone but no life from the card.

If the card has been damaged, and I bought a Buffalo USB 3 card as I put
in my XP Computer
Should i use the ASRock disc and remove the cards driver before fitting
a new Buffalo USB 3 card ?

I do not want to go back to the computer supplier again.
Mick.


I think the Asrock XFast USB3 drivers, would be for Asrock USB.
They should only work on specific chips. Your motherboard doesn't
have a USB3 chip, as near as I can determine. So it's possible
the XFast USB3 software isn't a worthwhile option ? I tried looking
at the software, but can't figure out what it's supposed to do.

If you insert the Buffalo card, use the CD that came with it and
install those drivers. Maybe you'll get a response.

It's possible, the card you've bent the faceplate on, is not
an Asrock card, and the Asrock driver is not the one to use.
If the chip is Fresco Logic, then perhaps a driver from
Fresco Logic is in order.

You could check the Programs and Features control panel, and
see if the Asrock XFast USB3 is removable from there.

It's too bad you've bent the faceplate. If the faceplate had
rivets instead of screws, you should have stopped there. As your
system builder likely provides a short warranty for the installed
hardware, and a replacement USB3 card might have been covered under
warranty. Bending the faceplate would void the warranty.

In terms of fitting cards in a PC...

1) The motherboard bolts into place. There are up to nine screws.
2) The I/O plate area, constrains the position of the motherboard a bit.
But, it's possible to move the motherboard a bit in the X-Y plane.
3) As a system builder, you use a "test card" and test that the installed
cards fit smoothly. This checks the X-Y displacement, and makes sure
the motherboard is properly centered. You jiggle the motherboard around
a bit, until all the slots work smoothly. Failure to center the motherboard
properly, leads to perhaps one of the inserted cards starting to bend,
or failing to seat. I learned this the hard way, while adjusting my
motherboard in my first computer. Took a while for me to clue in :-)
4) In the Z-axis, there is an issue as well. When you buy a computer case,
it comes with a bag of screws. The bag includes standoffs (or, on cheap
computer cases, the standoffs are just a piece of metal sticking up from
the chassis). The standoffs that come in the bag, are precisely the right
height. If you use standoffs from another bag, the card could be raised
or lowered too much with respect to the motherboard. If you insert
washers (not needed) under the motherboard, that too will ruin the Z-axis
alignment. The inserted cards will go in on an angle, and there is a slight
risk of pins shorting (like on a double-row AGP connector).

So fitting cards is a three dimensional problem. And requires some care
from the system builder, to install such that all cards slide smoothly into
place.

The video card slot, has a "heel grip" on it, to help hold the card in place.
Before ripping a video card out of its slot, the heel grip must be released.
It's best to learn how the mechanism of release works, before the video card
is inserted, so you won't force it the wrong way later. I have a lot of trouble
working the lever on some of the ones I've got here.

The issue I had with my PCI Express card, was the faceplate attached with two
screws. And the positioning of the plate vertically wasn't right. A slight
adjustment of the screws, was all I needed to seat the gold pins of the
PCI Express card, into its slot. Then my card magically appeared, I could
offer drivers, and so on.

If a card is riveted, and it's not making contact, either return it and
get your money back. Or use the warranty and have them swap it. When I've
had poorly designed cards before (CMI8738 PCI audio cards), they were all
designed wrong, so a warranty swap won't change anything.

What should normally happen, is you'd get a "new hardware" dialog if a
card without drivers was detected. It should show up in Device Manager.
With no drivers, it should have a mark indicating it's malfunctioning
(because there are no drivers). It's when a card isn't making contact,
that *nothing* happens - no new hardware dialog, and no "lonely" entry in
Device Manager, asking for attention.

A replacement USB3 card shouldn't be too expensive. Read the
reviews before buying one, because there is at least one
brand of chips known not to be good (with respect to driver quality).
Use the drivers that came on the CD, to at least test the chip
on the card is not dead. Later, you can look for a driver update,
if you feel like it.

Paul
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