EHCI hand-off or not on XP \ VOGONS

EHCI hand-off or not on XP

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First post, by zilog256

Posted on 2025-10-10, 17:07

zilog256 Offline

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Hi there.

(Long story)

I've built 4 LAN PCs for XP retrogaming with oldskool friends: I insisted on using old hardware (I had most of it) : P4P800 / P4S800 / A7N8X / NF7-S, FX5900Xt, FX5900ZT, FX5700LE, Radeon 9250 (yeah :p) etc

Alas, wanting to use high res graphics such as 1680x1050 or 1080p made these cards a bit struggling, AND the PCs are beginning to fail (all USB dead on the P4S800, all USB dead on P4P800 *and* fried a keyboard and a mouse dongle), so I've decided to do a less "vintage" but more efficient approch.

(Short story)

So I've built 4 PCs to achieve cheap LAN retro XP gaming but instead of using high end components of the end of AGP era or even C2D/C2Q, I chose the last classic generation = Sandy/Ivy bridge stuff (and GTX 660 cards that litterally chew anything I give'm, of course)

So I have H61/H77/B85 motherboards running windows XP, and I can't figure out if I have to set EHCI (and available sometimes XHCI) handoff ON or OFF ; I've tried both for EHCI, seems to work either way ; some report mouse input might be laggier using one or the other option , and there's really NO clear answer to that seemingly simple question after thorough googling, so here I am 😀

=> XHCI handoff : NO I suppose = the BIOS sets the USB 3.0 ports as 2.0 and that's it as there a no (easy at least) drivers for USB 3.0 on XP, right?

=> EHCI handoff: NO too should be the most logical option for XP no?

Thanks for your insights!

Last edited by zilog256 on 2025-10-10, 19:31. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 1 of 4, by Sombrero

Posted on 2025-10-11, 06:54

Sombrero Offline

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I looked into this some years ago myself and based on the information I found it seems to be like so:

- XHCI hand-off should be enabled with Windows 7 and everything older, disabled with Windows 8 onwards as those OS's can handle it themselves
- EHCI hand-off should be enabled with Windows XP SP2 and everything older, disabled with Windows XP SP3 onwards as those OS's can handle it themselves

Except that doesn't seem to hold true in all cases, I have a motherboard (Asus P5K) where WinXPSP3 stalls during install unless EHCI hand-off is enabled. And then it needs to be disabled while installing an unofficial "SP4" I like to use, which is just an compilation of every update Microsoft released for WinXPSP3 through Windows Update.

Makes me wonder is the cut-off point of EHCI hand-off not actually WinXPSP3 itself, but somethere along the updates SP3 got throughout the years. Or maybe there is just some nuance how some motherboads handle it.

Reply 2 of 4, by zilog256

Posted on 2025-10-11, 22:16

zilog256 Offline

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Location: france

Thanks for the input, much appreciated, I feel less alone 😀

My installs are of course SP3, and I also have unofficial post SP3 stuff I didn't bother to install.

Well, I had the idea that the handoff feature when ENABLED just passed the handling of USB to the OS that has the ability to do it, thus needed to be DISABLED if the OS is too old (BIOS handling) etc = so it's the exact contrary of what you're saying (or I'm being mixed up which is absolutely possible in this mess :p)

Reply 3 of 4, by Sombrero

Posted on 2025-10-12, 06:15

Sombrero Offline

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zilog256 wrote on 2025-10-11, 22:16:

Well, I had the idea that the handoff feature when ENABLED just passed the handling of USB to the OS that has the ability to do it, thus needed to be DISABLED if the OS is too old (BIOS handling) etc = so it's the exact contrary of what you're saying (or I'm being mixed up which is absolutely possible in this mess :p)

I'm starting to remember what an incredible mess of contradicting information this was. Back then after looking into it I decided it's as I previously wrote but I don't remember on what information I based it on or where I found it, but that has seemed to be correct at least in my use. For example on one of my motherboards I don't get USB 2.0 when booted up with FreeDOS on usb stick if EHCI hand-off is disabled.

Kinda wonder could this vary between motherboards, causing all the confusion. If so I suppose all you can do is pick a setting and see how it goes?

Reply 4 of 4, by zilog256

Posted on 2025-10-12, 11:13

zilog256 Offline

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Posts: 21
Joined: 2021-03-25, 10:05
Location: france

Yes, this is definitely something tricky and not well documented ; I'll do hit and miss tests, then, we're stuck with this..

Thank you for your input 😀

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