USB 2/3 query

Is there some easy way to tell if your pc has USB3 ports/capability?

I've just gotten three ThinkCenter M91P's (I5's with 8 Gb ram and good
size hard disks) on good deal trade.

I've found a number of various "manuals" and spec sites that suggest it
does have USB3 but they differ on which ports etc. and how many. Too
many discordances to pick out the truth.

Physically looking at the ports and they all look the same, color etc.

Device manager gives no real clue that I can tell.

pjp wrote:
Is there some easy way to tell if your pc has USB3 ports/capability?

I've just gotten three ThinkCenter M91P's (I5's with 8 Gb ram and good
size hard disks) on good deal trade.

I've found a number of various "manuals" and spec sites that suggest it
does have USB3 but they differ on which ports etc. and how many. Too
many discordances to pick out the truth.

Physically looking at the ports and they all look the same, color etc.

Device manager gives no real clue that I can tell.

https://support.lenovo.com/ca/en/solutions/ht051764

"The M91 and M91p are the fastest ThinkCentre desktops
with SATA III hard disk drive and USB 3.0*. [Q67 chipset]

* Not a standard feature

Additional Information:

The Intel Q67 chipset support USB 2.0.

Solution

The user must install the PCI-E USB 3.0 adapter card
to achieve 3.0 speeds.

Once the adapter is installed, the user must install
the proper operating system drivers === Win7 lacks drivers
that can be obtained from the Lenovo support site.

TOWER PCI-E USB 3.0 Card, FH FRU 03T7030
Small Form Factor PCI-E USB 3.0 Card, LP FRU 03T7031
"

This is why the USB ports in the I/O plate
area all have the black plastic in the barrel,
as they're USB2.

USB3 has its own blue-colored motif :-)

In the case of your acquisition, you could
check out the slot contents with your eyeball.
If a card in the card slot area has the
blue tabs, you would suspect someone added
the "optional" USB3.

When you use add-in cards, the USB3 may not
run at full speed. When USB3 ports are on the
Southbridge/PCH, then they run at full speed.
Or as close to full speed as you're going to get.

This shows a design from the same era (P67).
Only USB2 show on the chipset. Anything else must
be added using a plugin card.

http://img.hexus.net/v2/cpu/intel/SB/P67B.jpg

Paul

On 29/05/2018 22:21, pjp wrote:

Is there some easy way to tell if your pc has USB3 ports/capability?

I've just gotten three ThinkCenter M91P's (I5's with 8 Gb ram and good
size hard disks) on good deal trade.

I've found a number of various "manuals" and spec sites that suggest it
does have USB3 but they differ on which ports etc. and how many. Too
many discordances to pick out the truth.

Physically looking at the ports and they all look the same, color etc.

Device manager gives no real clue that I can tell.


IME you will usually see "USB 3.0" somewhere in 'Device Manager' under
'Universal Serial Bus controllers' if you have some USB 3.0 ports.

The sockets do look slightly different if you look right inside, there
are 5 extra contacts in front of the four normal USB 1/2 ones near the
tip of the plastic tongue that has the contacts on it. That plastic
tongue is almost always blue on USB 3.0 sockets too.

--

Brian Gregory (in England).

pjp wrote:

Is there some easy way to tell if your pc has USB3 ports/capability?

Inside the USB port housing in the PC, is the plastic spacer block
inside colored white, black, blue, yellow, or red? "Same color" doesn't
tell us WHAT color.

https://www.geeksinphoenix.com/blog/...-by-color.aspx

VanguardLH wrote:
pjp wrote:

Is there some easy way to tell if your pc has USB3 ports/capability?

Inside the USB port housing in the PC, is the plastic spacer block
inside colored white, black, blue, yellow, or red? "Same color" doesn't
tell us WHAT color.

https://www.geeksinphoenix.com/blog/...-by-color.aspx

Ports *might* adhere to the 'standard' colour coding, but many don't.

My (HP) USB 3.0 ones are black and so is the 2.0 one.

As Brian Gregory mentioned, if the system has at least one USB 3.0
port, Device Manager should say 'USB 3.0'.

As the below Wikipedia picture shows, USB 3.0 ports have 9 pins. USB
2.0 ports have 4 pins. It's not really easy to see the total number of
pins, but it's relatively easy to see the number of pins near the
outside. If you see 5 pins in a row, it's USB 3.0. If you can't seen
a row of 5 pins, but do see a row of 4 pins, it's USB 2.0 (or 1.0).

To the OP: On my laptops, the USB 3.0 ports are marked with 'SS'
(SuperSpeed) as part of the USB icon. I assume that desktop ports are
marked the same.

See the top of this picture for an example of the SS+trident icon:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:USB_3_Pins_static.jpg

In article , lid says...

pjp wrote:
Is there some easy way to tell if your pc has USB3 ports/capability?

I've just gotten three ThinkCenter M91P's (I5's with 8 Gb ram and good
size hard disks) on good deal trade.

I've found a number of various "manuals" and spec sites that suggest it
does have USB3 but they differ on which ports etc. and how many. Too
many discordances to pick out the truth.

Physically looking at the ports and they all look the same, color etc.

Device manager gives no real clue that I can tell.

https://support.lenovo.com/ca/en/solutions/ht051764

"The M91 and M91p are the fastest ThinkCentre desktops
with SATA III hard disk drive and USB 3.0*. [Q67 chipset]

* Not a standard feature

Additional Information:

The Intel Q67 chipset support USB 2.0.

Solution

The user must install the PCI-E USB 3.0 adapter card
to achieve 3.0 speeds.

Once the adapter is installed, the user must install
the proper operating system drivers === Win7 lacks drivers
that can be obtained from the Lenovo support site.

TOWER PCI-E USB 3.0 Card, FH FRU 03T7030
Small Form Factor PCI-E USB 3.0 Card, LP FRU 03T7031
"

This is why the USB ports in the I/O plate
area all have the black plastic in the barrel,
as they're USB2.

USB3 has its own blue-colored motif :-)

In the case of your acquisition, you could
check out the slot contents with your eyeball.
If a card in the card slot area has the
blue tabs, you would suspect someone added
the "optional" USB3.

I've determined they're all only USB2.