USB Ports & Cables

khushy · 21 Sep 2006 at 08:10

I thought I would ask anyway.

Are USB 1.0/1.1 cables different to USB 2.0 cables?

Reason for asking is that on my PC I have 4 onboard USB sockets at the motherboard - I have a couple of extesnion cables running from these and I recently bought an MP3 player for my wife.

When I plug it into the end of the ext cable, where there is a mini 3 USB hub, it works fine 100% as a slow device - and winxp keeps telling me that it would be faster in a High Speed port.

When I remove the hub and plug the MP3 player directly into the cable end - it only works intermittently - you can hear it being recognised - but nothing appears in win explorer.

I discovered yesterday that if I remove the ext cable and plug the MP3 player directly into the USB socket on the motherboard - it works perfectly at the right speed!!!

Very Very odd!

Have I just got the wrong extn cable?

System Summary . . .

ASUS P5WD2-e Premium
Corsair XMS2 PC8500 2Gb RAM
Pentium D 955 Extreme

with ALL the latest BIOS

All other devices work fine with/without the mini hub!

Khushy

Munromax · 21 Sep 2006 at 08:17

Cables shouls be the same.
Sounds like the Extension cable could be iffy!

khushy · 21 Sep 2006 at 08:21

Munromax said:
Cables shouls be the same.
Sounds like the Extension cable could be iffy!

Thats kind of what I have been thinking - the other little problem is that the little extn panel that came with the MOOBO (2 x USB, Audio + Firewire) the USB's dont recognise THIS device at all - but they work on my other devices.

Any other ideas?

Khushy

wizardmaxx · 21 Sep 2006 at 08:44

There is a very definite difference between USB 1.0 and USB 2.0 cables. Thats why u will have delayed write failures on an older atx case with those front panel usb port that plug into the mb. They are not USB 2.0 compliant, therefore cannot handle the bandwidth.

Connecting directly to the mb would work since there is no interface between the port and the device (ie usb extension).

When you buy an extension cable there should be a little USB 2.0 sticker on it or the packaging should say USB 2.0 certified.