USB 2.0 card -coexist with onboard USB1.1 ? 1

[lpphiggp]

I've got a system with an EPOX EP-8KTA3PRO KT133A based mobo, running XP Pro SP1a, and, wishing to upgrade to USB 2.0, I installed a SIIG 4+1 USB 2.0 PCI controller card from Best Buy.
After booting up and installing the drivers, I started to experience frequent lockups, about every 3 minutes, which would last for about 30 seconds or so. Even numlock would not respond, then curiously, the computer would respond again for a few minutes until the next freeze. It didn't appear to be triggered by accessing any particular device or app.
When I pulled the card out, the freezing stopped. I don't think I should have to worry so much about IRQ or DMA conflicts with XP, with ACPI and PCI Steering and all that, but I'm wondering if my onboard USB 1.1 root hub can't coexist with a v2.0 USB controller. I don't really see why not, but has anyone successfully gotten such an arrangement to work for them ? I hadn't disabled the onboard USB in the BIOS, but I did in Device Mgr.
I'm very close to returning the card and getting an Adaptec, perhaps with more ports if necessary.
I also just installed the latest VIA USB filter drivers, maybe that will help ?
TIA

 

[bcastner]

Do this as well, update the XP USB drivers:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en;822603

Be careful of some USB devices:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;819017

 

[Blujacket]

Should be no problem with both the onboard and add-in USB ports, they use different IRQs [IRQ Steering]. The onboard uses IRQ 12 and the add-in card uses either shared IRQs or the IRQ assigned by the BIOS to the slot it is in.

I have better luck with the Belkin cards with NEC chipset.

 

[lpphiggp]

The Siig card is based on the NEC chipset, actually.
I wound up returning it, and getting a generic CompUSA card based on the ALI chip. I figured I might want to stay away from the NEC chip, just in case.
I also installed the MS patch mentioned above by bcastner.
After installing the new ALI card physically, I powered up and went into the BIOS and disabled the onboard USB for good measure and restarted, but while booting, the computer froze once more.
Rebooted again, got into windows, device manager, installed the ALI drivers, which only after then did I see the generic MS USB drivers disappear from Device Manager.
I would have thought they'd go bye-byes before loading the ALI drivers. Anyway -
It's been stable ever since loading the ALI drivers, although I haven't actually plugged anything into the USB ports yet - I just wanted to see if the computer would stop freezing first. (I had nothing plugged into either USB ports before when it was freezing). It seems cured of the freezing, so far. Tonight I'll start plugging my gear back in:
HP 7550 printer, Visioneer 8700 scanner, and my MX-700 Logi mouse (I love that thing!)
I've got new gear on the way, items I've just purchased like a HDD enclosure, a smart drive, etc, which is mostly why I wanted to upgrade to 2.0 in the first place.

 

[lpphiggp]

Oh well, I jumped the gun.
As soon as I plugged in my HP 7550 everything went down the toilet. ACPI is about as stupid as things can get, I have now every single device crammed on one IRQ. I've switched around cards on different slots, and made adjustments in the BIOS, but all it seems to do is move the IRQ that everything communicates on.
Next step, I'm removing ACPI off this computer - so long as I do it the right way ("update" driver in DevMgmt), I shouldn't have to do a total reinstall of the OS. Sheesh.

 

[linney]

This article is fresh off the presses at Microsoft, does it apply to you?

832577 - The computer stops responding during startup

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;832577&FR=1&PA=1&SD=HSCH

 

[bcastner]

The "right way" is not to change ACPI settings through Device Manager, but through a repair install.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;299340

I know I have seen others suggesting this is doable under Device Manager, but I still do not trust or believe it.

 

[lpphiggp]

Hi linney, thanks, but the article doesn't quite apply. I have no USB1.1 FDD devices, in fact, at this point, the old USB1.1 controller is completely shut down and removed.
Also, USB2.0 support is via a PCI card, not my BIOS.

bcastner - true, MS doesn't recommend or support the method I employed, but I think I meant in comparison to just disabling ACPI in the BIOS - which will surely kill the OS.
Actually, I've suffered no drawbacks from it, I only needed to reinstall my video card and sound card drivers, and that was after add'ly removing the PCI bus from Device Manager (which I've done before, but not this computer) So far, I'm back to where the lockups have stopped, and my IRQs seem much better balanced, but tonight I'll really test by plugging in a few USB devices. One other thing though, I still can't manually assign resources, I think I need to also disable IRQ steering from the Standard PC HAL. Could they make this any harder ?
I had the USB mouse working okay before, it seems to mainly be the HP7550 with it's dot 4 USB hub causing my nightmare. If I could just get the computer to see the printer and skip seeing the hub and media drives, I have no interest in the computer seeing those.

 

[bcastner]

To manually control IRQs you need to do the install, F5, model choice, and choose a standard PC model without ACPI or Power Management features.

I do not know of any "good" way to change the hal model other than through a reinstall.

As I cautioned above, I honestly do not think this is something that can be done through Device Manager, or even through Recovery Console and overwriting the hal.dll file.