schlang wrote on 2023-02-07, 12:54:

Kahenraz wrote on 2023-01-25, 15:41:

At least we can 3D print our own brackets now.

where?

Hubs.com will 3d printing and other manufacturing.

VIA USB cards need special drivers. Search USB depositories. Some of 478 pin mainboards does not work with selected USB 2.0 and older controllers, but you have BX chipset. This chipset is automatically recognizable by Windows 98 and up, but have a try to load latest chipset software by Intel.

I think I'll be sticking to an Ethernet crossover cable between my windows 10 PC and my old P133 win98se machine.

It seems the consensus is to go with a NEC card for any sort of reliable USB 2.0 support, but the performance hit to a machine like mine would probably be too great. and it seems some people have a performance hit without anything tying down the USB ports, while others are only affected with devices connected. Driver issue maybe?
Looking whats available locally, the only NEC cards I can find are of the BGA variant, and are generic, with no suffix after uDP720101.

Here's an example:

Another thing of note, the VIA cards seem to be available with both a 3.3v regulator beside it, and without. This might explain some of the cases where people have computers which won't post with a card present without a regulator.

With regulator:

Without regulator:

I think the BGA variant is the last iteration, or one of the last, since it's more integrated.

USB sticks only worked for me on the 720100 chip but not the 720101 chip.

Maybe it‘s because of a driver issue since I had the 720100 preinstalled and then put the 720101 in, but its worth noting. Unfortunately, the 720100 is quite rare now on ebay.

Each NEC chip has a separate driver set. They are similar names but are not interchangeable.

Kahenraz wrote on 2023-04-05, 17:12:

Each NEC chip has a separate driver set. They are similar names but are not interchangeable.

yep I know but the appropriate driver didn't really work either...

Turning off my COM ports and parallel ports allowed my VIA controller to take up those resources perfectly. I can turn off the onboard 1.0 controller on my GA-5AX to free up for future expansions.

Some tests with the NEC D72010XF1 vs. VIA VT6912L.

System: SY-6BA+III, Tualeron @1.6GHz (133MHz bus, PCI 33MHz), RAM 1024 MB CL3

Testing an SSD with an NTFS partition using a SSD to USB adapter.

Got unexpected results!

NEC D72010XF1
Crystal Disk Mark on WinXP SP3

hdparm -tT on Linux 4.9.0

Timing cached reads: 340 MB in 2.00 seconds = 173.65 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 58 MB in 3.02 seconds = 19.18 MB/sec

VIA VT6912L
Crystal Disk Mark

hdparm -tT

Timing cached reads = 174.5 MB/s
Timing buffered disk reads = 31.80 MB/s

VIA is the clear winner. I was expecting the NEC to be faster. Maybe it will be better/faster or more convenient on a slower system. I need to do more testing.

how was CPU utilization when copying? and CPU overhead (any cpu test between the two when computer is idle) when not in use, with lets say pendrive or mouse plugged in?

rasz_pl wrote on 2023-05-07, 09:46:

how was CPU utilization when copying? and CPU overhead (any cpu test between the two when computer is idle) when not in use, with lets say pendrive or mouse plugged in?

I couldn't detect any difference in CPU usage between them during the tests (100%) but I didn't measure cpu usage when I wasn't testing. It's an interesting idea to try. I'll test it on a different build.

USB 2.0 cards have a tendency of using a ton of CPU power even when doing nothing. Im wondering if the speed difference is somehow due to better drivers.

New member... hello!

Just jumping on the back of this thread having not had time to read the whole thing (apologies) as I'm failing to get a Link-It / Belkin card to work in my Aopen AX6BC. It has an NEC d720101gj chip.

Basically installing the card in a PCI slot (I tried 2) gives me a blank screen at boot-up. Seeing as the hard drive still make some noises I'm thinking it could be a conflict with the AGP graphics card. It's a GeForce 4 MX420.

Would be grateful for any pointers. 😀

G40 wrote on 2023-05-17, 16:36:

New member... hello!

Welcome 👶

G40 wrote on 2023-05-17, 16:36:

Basically installing the card in a PCI slot (I tried 2) gives me a blank screen at boot-up. Seeing as the hard drive still make some noises I'm thinking it could be a conflict with the AGP graphics card. It's a GeForce 4 MX420.

I had a similar issue trying to use the first PCI slot when an AGP card is installed.
Can you try a different PCI slot? or maybe a different video card? What about a PCI video card?

You could also try freeing up resources in the BIOS menu. Disable devices you don't use (Parallel/Serial ports, native USB) and don't assign an IRQ to the video card.
In the resource manager tab set all IRQs and DMAs to PnP unless you're using a particular sound card.

tauro wrote on 2023-05-17, 16:45:

Can you try a different PCI slot? or maybe a different video card? What about a PCI video card?

You could also try freeing up resources in the BIOS menu. Disable devices you don't use (Parallel/Serial ports, native USB) and don't assign an IRQ to the video card.
In the resource manager tab set all IRQs and DMAs to PnP unless you're using a particular sound card.

Thank you! All good ideas, I tried everything suggested last night, unfortunately none have solved the issue. The only alternative graphics card I had to hand was a similar MX440 AGP card, but at this stage I'm thinking it probably makes more sense to find another USB 2.0 card...

These NEC cards are hungry for resources in a way that a lot of old boards just don't like. I have had a lot of problems with them on my test bench, which is an a Intel branded 440BX board. When the thing starts acting up, it will begin complaining about resource conflicts in the worst way, even in slots and with configurations it worked with in the past.

Kahenraz wrote on 2023-05-18, 15:48:

These NEC cards are hungry for resources in a way that a lot of old boards just don't like. I have had a lot of problems with them on my test bench, which is an a Intel branded 440BX board. When the thing starts acting up, it will begin complaining about resource conflicts in the worst way, even in slots and with configurations it worked with in the past.

Interesting. What works well for you? Wondering if I'm better off doing without USB 2.0 - would be a luxury to transfer files quickly and easily but I'd rather have a stable and fast machine...

G40 wrote on 2023-05-18, 08:25:

Thank you! All good ideas, I tried everything suggested last night, unfortunately none have solved the issue. The only alternative graphics card I had to hand was a similar MX440 AGP card, but at this stage I'm thinking it probably makes more sense to find another USB 2.0 card...

G40 wrote on 2023-05-18, 16:37:

Interesting. What works well for you? Wondering if I'm better off doing without USB 2.0 - would be a luxury to transfer files quickly and easily but I'd rather have a stable and fast machine...

Here's some other things to try:
Disable Video BIOS Cacheable and Video RAM Cacheable.

Don't plug any USB devices when you start the computer. Only plug them when the system has already booted.
I found best stability this way. It's also more stable with NEC card (slower) than the VIA card (faster, less stable).

USB 2.0 is not really necessary if you set up a network and transfer files that way, that's been my experience. Don't bother with gigabit cards. 10/100 is as good as it gets and they're probably less resource hungry. That being said, I have a gigabit LAN card on my P3 system.

G40 wrote on 2023-05-18, 16:37:

Kahenraz wrote on 2023-05-18, 15:48:

These NEC cards are hungry for resources in a way that a lot of old boards just don't like. I have had a lot of problems with them on my test bench, which is an a Intel branded 440BX board. When the thing starts acting up, it will begin complaining about resource conflicts in the worst way, even in slots and with configurations it worked with in the past.

Interesting. What works well for you? Wondering if I'm better off doing without USB 2.0 - would be a luxury to transfer files quickly and easily but I'd rather have a stable and fast machine...

I haven't found anything that works well for me that's USB 2.0. However, on the same motherboard, same OS (98 or ME), same unofficial drivers, onboard USB 1.1 controllers are always solid. The only loss is that throughout is limited to 10mbps, so it's really slow for large file transfers.

Kahenraz wrote on 2023-05-19, 02:07:

G40 wrote on 2023-05-18, 16:37:

Kahenraz wrote on 2023-05-18, 15:48:

These NEC cards are hungry for resources in a way that a lot of old boards just don't like. I have had a lot of problems with them on my test bench, which is an a Intel branded 440BX board. When the thing starts acting up, it will begin complaining about resource conflicts in the worst way, even in slots and with configurations it worked with in the past.

Interesting. What works well for you? Wondering if I'm better off doing without USB 2.0 - would be a luxury to transfer files quickly and easily but I'd rather have a stable and fast machine...

I haven't found anything that works well for me that's USB 2.0. However, on the same motherboard, same OS (98 or ME), same unofficial drivers, onboard USB 1.1 controllers are always solid. The only loss is that throughout is limited to 10mbps, so it's really slow for large file transfers.

Am leaning towards keeping things simple and making do with the onboard USB 1.1, which as you say works perfectly, albeit slowly.