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First post, by ultra_code

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Hello to all that are reading this and that are allured at the idea of having a USB 2.0 PCI card that works in your Windows 98 SE computer, read on! This guide builds upon PhilsComputerLab's guide (check it out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avNkCG4LBU4&t=1s) with my experiences, and helps to fill in the gaps that were in his guide.

First, some backstory. For my Windows 98 SE retro gaming machine (Pentium 3 Windows 98 SE Retro Gaming Machine: My First Retro Build), I liked the idea of USB 2.0 support mentioned by PhilsComputerLab proposed in that video linked above, and so I got my own "cheap as chips" NEC-chipset-based USB 2.0 PCI card that was identical to his (eBay link to the card: Click me!). So, I then attempted to follow his instructions. However, while the first 2 drivers were found by Windows, the third one could not be found by Windows. I tested some of the other drivers that were provided with my Windows installation, but to no avail, with BSODs every attempt. I was missing something.

After closely watching Phil's video, I noticed that the driver that up to this point has been elusive to me was located in a "USB2.inf" file, a driver file which my installation lacked, most likely because Windows 98 SE comes without USB 2.0 support. Then the question is: How do I get hold of this file? Well, from the "nusb33.exe" file that he mentions of course (which "installs"
it for you) (of course, though, there is a 3-version newer version of that unofficial patch which I used, "nusb36.exe" (ver. 3.6), instead of the older version he mentioned)!

Here are links to "mirrors" from which you can download "nusb36.exe":
* http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/43605-maximus … comment-1000009 (official "source" with changelog)
* http://www.tmeeco.eu/Fileden/ (I believe I used this one)
* http://www.vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?file … 035&menustate=0 (a plug, perhaps? 😕 😁 )

Official links to older 3.X versions with changelogs (if you care):
* 3.5: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/43605-maximus … #comment-973211
* 3.4 (never released, according to this link) http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/43605-maximus … rivers/?page=51
* 3.1-3.3 http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/43605-maximus … ve-usb-drivers/

Anywho, these are the steps to get your own NEC-chipset-based USB 2.0 PCI card to work on your system (this assumes you are using Windows 98 SE, if it was not obvious enough already):
1. Run "nusb36.exe" and restart.
2. Shutdown the computer. Install the NEC card into a PCI lane on your motherboard.
3. Boot into Windows and wha-la!, as Windows is booting, you will be able to install all the drivers for the card (Windows does all of it for you).

If you already have the card installed before you read this "guide" of mine, follow these steps:
1. Go into your Device Manager and remove all NEC-related driver entries under the "Universal Serial Bus controllers" category which you most likely installed when you booted up Windows with the card installed for the first time, as well as that "unknown device" associated with the card (I assume you just skipped giving that "device" a driver and "left" it "unknown").
2. Run "nusb36.exe" and restart.
3. And again, the drivers will be available and should be installed.

I have actually done it both ways, and both work as mentioned.

This guide has two benefits over the one PhilsComputerLab has:
1. It works if you did not have "USB2.inf" already installed.
2. "NEC Open Host Controller (E+13)" gets installed instead of "NEC Open Host Controller" because of "nusb36.exe" being installed first, which is better (?), 'cause of the "(E+13)" part. 😀

I felt compelled to post this to try to help those who had the same problems that I had. For those who read this, good for you. Hoped it helped! 😀

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Reply 1 of 30, by weldum

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that's good man, i wish i could found this post before, i have an ALI usb 2.0 card, and for that one to get working you need to install the latest unified ali/uli driver in windows 98, and then "nusb3.6.exe"

with via cards it should be doable too

DT: R7-5800X3D/R5-3600/R3-1200/P-G5400/FX-6100/i3-3225/P-8400/D-900/K6-2_550
LT: C-N2840/A64-TK57/N2600/N455/N270/C-ULV353/PM-1.7/P4-2.6/P133
TC: Esther-1000/Esther-400/Vortex86-366
Others: Drean C64c/Czerweny Spectrum 48k/Talent MSX DPC200/M512K/MP475

Reply 2 of 30, by ultra_code

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weldum wrote:

that's good man, i wish i could found this post before, i have an ALI usb 2.0 card, and for that one to get working you need to install the latest unified ali/uli driver in windows 98, and then "nusb3.6.exe"

with via cards it should be doable too

The more you know.

I remember, though, with my Pentium 4 machine that when I tried to install the official USB driver for the motherboard for Win98, *none* of the USB ports, on the motherboard or with the NEC USB PCI card, worked with my flash drives, but then, when I uninstalled that driver and installed "nusb36.exe", all worked just fine.

I'm curious, though. What is this "unified ali/uli driver" you speak of? Is it a driver for the ALI chipset on the card to be even recognized by other drivers such as nusb36.exe?

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Reply 3 of 30, by weldum

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due to windows 98se/me not having usb 2.0 support at all, you need to install the chipset and/or usb 2.0 driver and then the native usb drivers.

the unified ali/uli driver is the driver used for ali and uli chipsets and pci usb cards. it's like via hyperion pro drivers, or nvidia nforce drivers.

the thing is that while native usb drivers work fine with usb 1.0/1.1 controllers, with usb 2.0 usually you need to install the corresponding driver to make it work.
these native drivers only add the possibility to use pen drives, external hdd, and other devices normally not supported by 98se

DT: R7-5800X3D/R5-3600/R3-1200/P-G5400/FX-6100/i3-3225/P-8400/D-900/K6-2_550
LT: C-N2840/A64-TK57/N2600/N455/N270/C-ULV353/PM-1.7/P4-2.6/P133
TC: Esther-1000/Esther-400/Vortex86-366
Others: Drean C64c/Czerweny Spectrum 48k/Talent MSX DPC200/M512K/MP475

Reply 4 of 30, by weldum

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sorry the_ultra_code, i was somewhat wrong, I use the Spanish version of windows 98se, so i used the latest version of nusb that i could find in that language, the 3.3 that doesn't detect my ali usb card.
i I now have just realized that you mentioned version 3.6, I'm going to try it and see if it works

DT: R7-5800X3D/R5-3600/R3-1200/P-G5400/FX-6100/i3-3225/P-8400/D-900/K6-2_550
LT: C-N2840/A64-TK57/N2600/N455/N270/C-ULV353/PM-1.7/P4-2.6/P133
TC: Esther-1000/Esther-400/Vortex86-366
Others: Drean C64c/Czerweny Spectrum 48k/Talent MSX DPC200/M512K/MP475

Reply 6 of 30, by holaplaneta

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Thanks for this, it guided me to get a SYBA SD-V2-5V USB 2.0 PCI card working on my ASUS P5A-B motherboard.

I found a very useful post in other forum by user Springbok and it gave some clues but I ran into some other issues. Sorry if this is a long post but it might help someone in the future.

___________

[SOLVED] - Issue with PCI USB 2.0 card in Asus P5A-B Mobo
So after doing a lot of searching, and buy 4 PCI USB 2.0 cards, I finally found the solution to the issues I was seeing.

There were 2 issues observed:

1) After installing the PCI card, the PC would boot, but the monitor would remain in power save/sleep mode, and would not turn on.
2) After installing the PCI card, the PC would boot, but the PCI card would not register with the bios, and windows XP would crash

I search long and hard to find the solution on the good 'ole inter-web. Alas, all I found were posted from eons ago up till 2012 asking if anyone had a solution. None of the posts actually provided a solution. I have titled this post to indicated that the issue has been solved, so that anyone who does a similar search in the future will find the solution.

So how did I find a solution? Well, after trying to search the web and coming up empty, I did a search for "PCI Compatible USB Card Asus P5A-b". Looking through all the results I stumbled upon this link

http://kmuto.jp/debian/hcl/ASUS/P5AB/

In this link, it listed an NEC PCI ID (103300e0) for a compatible USB 2.0 card.

I then did a seach for "NEC PCI ID"

That led me to this link

http://www.pcidatabase.com/vendor_details.php?id=284

From that link I found the the data for ID 0x00e0

This revealed the following info

Chip Number: uPD720100A uPD720102GC
Chip Description: USB 2.0 Host Controller

I then did a search for NEC

I then did a search on ebay for "NEC USB 720100"

This led to the discovery of the SYBA USB 2.0 Card, with the model number SD-V2-5U

Searching for this card, I found some conflicting info regarding the chip set number. As mentioned, I had bought multiple USB cards with different chips. One of them was an NEC with a 720101 chipset. That particular one was the one that did not register, and crashed windows XP.

I then went to Syba.com to get the specs of the card

http://www.sybausa.com/productInfo.php?iid=475

This confirmed that the SD-V2-5U model did indeed have the chipset I needed.

The cheapest eBay price for this was about $16. I checked newegg, but they did not have it.

I found this one on pcoutlet.com for under $13 shipped.

http://www.outletpc.com/c5531.html

Got it today. I was very concerned. The chipset said 720010. However, when I installed it, the bios registered all ports. I booted up XP, and XP found the card. I tested my USB mouse in all ports, and all of them worked.

So that is the story. I hope this thread saves someone the hassle I had.

_______________

So in my case, first I got a Rosewill RC-101 card. It looks very similar to the SYBA, and you would think that since it comes with a NEC chipset that it would work the same. Mine came with the one marked D720101.

After two days of trying everything my pc NEVER detected it.

However I found this post by user Springbok and got the SYBA SD-V2-5V from eBay. From the pictures of the auction I made sure it came with a NEC D720100 chipset.

When I finally installed it in my Win98SE PC, it was correctly recognized, but the "Nec USB Open Host Controller" in device manager had a yellow warning mark and every time I inserted a USB thumb drive in any port, the machine would freeze.

For three days I changed the ports, tried pretty much everything and installed all the drivers I could find:
ALi Integrated Driver 2.13 WHQL
nusb24e.exe
nusb33e.exe
nusb36e.exe
U2v2_1.exe
uPD720100 - USB 2.0 Driver for NEC uPD720100 chipset For Windows 98, 98SE, ME, 2000, XP - Ver 2.4.1
uPD720101 - USB 2.0 Drivers for NEC uPD720101 chipset For Windows 98, 98SE, ME, 2000, XP - Ver 2.4.1
uPD720102 - USB 2.0 Drivers for NEC uPD720102 chipset For Windows 98, 98SE, ME

And still the "Nec USB Open Host Controller" would not get rid of the yellow warning mark. I got several BSOD in the process of trying to update the drivers and used SAFE MODE a lot, enabled and disabled PNP thru OS in the BIOS, played with the IRQ channels, disabled other resources in device manager... nothing.

Until today that I removed the card, inserted the brand new Rosewill RC-101 one again, just to see if with all those previously installed drivers maybe it would be recognized by Windows. Windows 98 SE still did not detect it so I took it out and put in the SYBA again...

Windows recognized it perfectly and it has been working since with no issues. Device manager shows everything working all right.

So I hope this long story helps somebody like the one from user Springbok did for me. This post here at VOGONS and his really gave me the guidance to go and look for a card with this particular chipset for the ASUS P5A-B mobo.

Reply 7 of 30, by TechieDude

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1) After installing the PCI card, the PC would boot, but the monitor would remain in power save/sleep mode, and would not turn on.

I had a similar issue with a NEC USB 2.0 card on my Intel Advanced/EV (430FX) board running Windows 95C with XUSBSUPP. Pressing Enter twice brought it back every time, until I tampered with it and somehow it stopped doing that and now it just works normally. I don't even remember what I did. I've heard that it normally shouldn't even work because 430FX doesn't support PCI 2.1.
Oh, and Win95 can't really use USB 2.0, so if you go that route, you're stuck with USB 1.1 speeds. It still beats removing the HDD and connecting it to another PC anyway.

Reply 9 of 30, by darry

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the_ultra_code wrote on 2020-05-31, 17:29:
TechieDude wrote on 2020-05-30, 12:10:

It still beats removing the HDD and connecting it to another PC anyway.

And that's why you get a hot-swap bay. 😁

100Mbps Ethernet has been fast enough for my needs so far . There are PCI (not PCI Express) Gigabit card, but I do not know if any of them have Windows 98 drivers .

Reply 10 of 30, by ultra_code

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Actually, StarTech sells a PCI gigabit Ethernet card on Amazon for really cheap. Has 9x drivers (I think 95, definitely 98SE and ME). Have one in my Pentium III-S system, and has worked wonderfully for me. Just a heads up - StarTech has a poor time understanding the concept of providing the user with a well-organized driver disc.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0000TO0BQ/ … e?ie=UTF8&psc=1

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Reply 11 of 30, by darry

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the_ultra_code wrote on 2020-06-04, 05:21:

Actually, StarTech sells a PCI gigabit Ethernet card on Amazon for really cheap. Has 9x drivers (I think 95, definitely 98SE and ME). Have one in my Pentium III-S system, and has worked wonderfully for me. Just a heads up - StarTech has a poor time understanding the concept of providing the user with a well-organized driver disc.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0000TO0BQ/ … e?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Thanks. I ordered one of those and a D-Link DGE-530T (Marvell 88E8001, which after searching a bit, I found has Windows 98 drivers too) . I will see which one gets the best throughput when I backup over LAN using Acronis . The slower one will replace the 3C905B in my testbed Pentium 3 .

Reply 12 of 30, by OMORES

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USB 2.0 can be also a much simpler story in Windows 98SE .

I recently bought a PCI-E 1x - USB with VIA 6212L card (PERICOM P17C9X bridge chip) and simply works in Win98SE. (I also have the ubiquitous PCI version)

This is how it looks with original drivers from 1999 - it will recognize any USB 1.1 devices with no fuss. (recognized my mouse and SPDIF-USB interface). After I install drivers VIA USB 2.0 drivers from 2005, my USB 2.0 - WLAN will show up and this is it.
via_usb_recognized_windows.png
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Reply 13 of 30, by schmatzler

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There are also backported USB drivers from Windows XP + ME combined:

http://www.mdgx.com/files/USB20DRV.EXE

I usually just install the latest NUSB and after that, this package. Works well on a German 98SE with an otherwise pretty finicky NEC card.

It's also got the added benefit that more USB composite devices are supported - for example, my 122 key IBM Model M terminal keyboard (converted to USB).

"Windows 98's natural state is locked up"

Reply 15 of 30, by darry

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darry wrote on 2020-06-04, 06:24:
the_ultra_code wrote on 2020-06-04, 05:21:

Actually, StarTech sells a PCI gigabit Ethernet card on Amazon for really cheap. Has 9x drivers (I think 95, definitely 98SE and ME). Have one in my Pentium III-S system, and has worked wonderfully for me. Just a heads up - StarTech has a poor time understanding the concept of providing the user with a well-organized driver disc.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0000TO0BQ/ … e?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Thanks. I ordered one of those and a D-Link DGE-530T (Marvell 88E8001, which after searching a bit, I found has Windows 98 drivers too) . I will see which one gets the best throughput when I backup over LAN using Acronis . The slower one will replace the 3C905B in my testbed Pentium 3 .

The DGE-530T I got turned out to be another revision with a Realtek RTL8169SC . I would not mind except the RTL8169SC is known to have performance issues under Linux an I do use Linux when backing up, so I need all the throughput I can get .
I just ordered an Intel Pro 1000 GT which has Windows 98 SE drivers too .

Reply 16 of 30, by lordmogul

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I got one of these generic cards with VT6421A & VT6214L for 4x USB 2.0, 1x2 IDE and 2x SATA. While it has it's own known issues, there are drivers for 98 SE and all functions, USB & IDE & SATA, work fine. Bought it for the USB 2.0 but having some more ports for more drives doesn't hurt.

P3 933EB @1035 (7x148) | CUSL2-C | GF3Ti200 | 256M PC133cl3 @148cl3 | 98SE & XP Pro SP3
X5460 @4.1 (9x456) | P35-DS3R | GTX660Ti | 8G DDR2-800cl5 @912cl6 | XP Pro SP3 & 7 SP1
3570K @4.4 GHz | Z77-D3H | GTX1060 | 16G DDR3-1600cl9 @2133cl12 | 7 SP1

Reply 17 of 30, by inondesia

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the_ultra_code wrote on 2017-10-29, 16:38:
Anywho, these are the steps to get your own NEC-chipset-based USB 2.0 PCI card to work on your system (this assumes you are usin […]
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Anywho, these are the steps to get your own NEC-chipset-based USB 2.0 PCI card to work on your system (this assumes you are using Windows 98 SE, if it was not obvious enough already):
1. Run "nusb36.exe" and restart.
2. Shutdown the computer. Install the NEC card into a PCI lane on your motherboard.
3. Boot into Windows and wha-la!, as Windows is booting, you will be able to install all the drivers for the card (Windows does all of it for you).

If you already have the card installed before you read this "guide" of mine, follow these steps:
1. Go into your Device Manager and remove all NEC-related driver entries under the "Universal Serial Bus controllers" category which you most likely installed when you booted up Windows with the card installed for the first time, as well as that "unknown device" associated with the card (I assume you just skipped giving that "device" a driver and "left" it "unknown").
2. Run "nusb36.exe" and restart.
3. And again, the drivers will be available and should be installed.

I have actually done it both ways, and both work as mentioned.

my question = do we still need to provide installation cd? cause i don't have it.

Reply 18 of 30, by ultra_code

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inondesia wrote on 2020-11-25, 02:32:

my question = do we still need to provide installation cd? cause i don't have it.

Um... no, I don't believe so. I'd think that the NUSB package would contain all of the drivers you need. Not sure though.

If you need a replacement install CD, head over to WinWorld.

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Reply 19 of 30, by inondesia

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the_ultra_code wrote on 2020-11-26, 18:40:
inondesia wrote on 2020-11-25, 02:32:

my question = do we still need to provide installation cd? cause i don't have it.

Um... no, I don't believe so. I'd think that the NUSB package would contain all of the drivers you need. Not sure though.

If you need a replacement install CD, head over to WinWorld.

yo man you still alive n kickin! thanks for replying.

i already install nusb package but it didnt work. only one driver missing. its the PCI COMMUNICATION DEVICE driver. i try looking for it in the internet right now. do you know anything about it?

*i'll burn installation cd as a last resort. already downloaded the iso from winworld.

btw my rig is my brother old pentium 2 rig with no internet card and a broken old mouse. so CD drive is the only gateway in. i bought this cheap unknown brand pci usb card to make things happen. its turn out, nothing happened. yet. 😁