Why am I not getting USB 2.0 speeds?

[Scottes]

I just replaced my Lexar multi-reader with a new PNY CF reader since the Lexar was getting slow speeds. (800 megs in 15 minutes). I figured the Lexar was actually doing USB 1.1 speeds since I heard of others getting much higher transfer rates.

The new PNY one says "USB 2.0" all over it and specifically says "Achieve blazing data transfer speeds of up to 480 Mb/sec in USB 2.0 systems." So I know it's not just USB 2.0 compatible, but this thing should do USB 2.0 speeds.

It's not getting speeds like that (not that I expect 480). I just transferred 633 MB in 10 minutes 12 seconds. Dog slow.

So I'm beginning to assume that I don't have a USB 2.0 system for some reason. It's running Windows 2000 Professional with all the latest patches. It's a Dell PowerEdge 330 running 1.8 GHz CPU and a gig of RAM.


Anyone have any ideas about why I'm getting such dog transfer rates?


Also, does anyone know if the X's Drive II should also be getting USB 2.0 transfer rates to the PC?

[FlipsidE]

I have had nothing but trouble finding out if my Dell Notebook USB ports are 2.0. I don't think they are at all though simply because I just recently bought a USB 2.0 8-in-1 media card reader, and when I plugged it in, XP immediately popped up a message that read something like, "High speed USB device plugged into a non-high speed port." That pretty much told me right there that I was running USB 1.1. In my case, most of my photo processing is done on my desktop (which does have USB 2.0).

I have a feeling that you are probably running USB 1.1 also. I would recommend grabbing a USB 2.0 expansion card. That would make speeds improve dramatically.

FlipsidE

[mikesd]

Scott, if you go here http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/my_systems_info/en/system_profiler_agreement?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs and enter your computer information, it should tell you your configuration as to whether you have 2.0 or not. If you do and it is not engaged you might have to go into your bios and change the setting.

[CyberDyneSystems]

You know after tha last round of these posts ,. I was beginning to think that my USB2 downlaod had slowed down .. but if your getting 800MB in 15 minutes I'm still over 4 times faster than you are getting Scott...

I was downloading nearly full 4GB MD cards in about 20 minutes...

So for me the "slow down" was just getting used to 4GB MD drives as opposed to 1 GB CF cards...

I have not timed the transfer from the X-Drive 2 specfically (from the hard drive) but I do know that on my system it is much quicker than from a CF card... ie: the hard drive should be able to take much more advantage of USB2 speeds than a CF card.

[FlipsidE]

Scott, if you go here http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/my_systems_info/en/system_profiler_agreement?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs and enter your computer your information, it should tell you your configuration as to whether you have 2.0 or not. If you do and it is not engaged you might have to go into your bios and change the setting.

- Yeah, my Dad tried doing that exact same thing to find out whether my grandfather's (his father's) Dell Inspiron 2650 notebook had USB 2.0 ports on it. According to my father (who knows quite a bit about computers), there's no indication of USB port speeds for my grandfather's notebook. I have an Inspiron 2650 also, so I'm assuming I'll get the same thing.

That's why I think it's all hit or miss with Dell. If you can find it on their page, great. Otherwise, I'd assume you only have USB 1.1 with that machine.

FlipsidE

[mikesd]

Here is another configeration program that is very good. http://www.webattack.com/get/aida32.shtml

[Scottes]

Well, I checked Dell's page and find that nothing is mentioned about "USB 2.0" just "USB"

I also realized that this system is almost 3-1/2 years old. It might be time for an upgrade... My wallet will love that. This is the longest - by far - that I've ever had a system before upgrading. 3-1/2 years isn't bad, and it still does everything I need. I could never imagine myself saying that...

I'm guessing that this system is too old for USB 2.0. Time to go shopping...


AIDA is pretty cool. But it says that my CPU is running at 106C - is that bad? Seems pretty hot to me. But it says nothing about USB.

[FlipsidE]

106C? seriously? At that temp, I think your CPU would be literally smoking or on fire. Doesn't sound like it's reporting correct temperatures. Also, are you up for building your own PC or do you want a pre-built?

<-- Big PC freak!

FlipsidE

[Scottes]

I was done with building my own PC 10 years ago. Now I just want something that works, is stable, and is under warranty just in case. I've built too many systems in my life, and I refuse to do PC support any more, even for myself.

I'm thinking Alienware... 3.4 GHz, 2 Gigs of RAM and a 250 Gig SATA drive...

[FlipsidE]

Alienware = GOOD in my book. Also, another thing to look at if you want something that powerful...take a gander at the Gen 4 Dell XPS Desktops. They are AMAZING machines!

FlipsidE

[Scottes]

The Alienware is only $2035... Hmmmm.... This is possible....

<droool>

[FlipsidE]

Go for the Alienware then!! I think you'll enjoy that 2GB of RAM when editing photos. I am jealous! I got a 1GB machine here, but I eat up the page file CONSTANTLY when editing a lot of photos, applying large filters, or enlarging photos.

FlipsidE

[Scottes]

Yeah, I just went to 1 GB about 6 months ago. What a difference! 2 GB means no barriers.

But I'm thinking about that Alienware dual Opteron system... I like to do things when other things are going on.... But I'm against non-Intel because I really do like stability before performance. Too many years of running mission-critical networks I guess.

[FlipsidE]

Well, for photo editing, I would think that Intel currently has the edge...simply becuase of the HyperThreading capability. Not sure if PS makes use of multiple threads to do filters, but if it does, then the P4 should be able to be out the A64's in that realm.

Personally, I'm big into PC gaming. So, I have an A64 as they run circles around the P4's in gaming performance right now.

Plus, I'd make sure you got a version of windows that could support a dual opteron system. I would assume that a pre-built would have the correct setup. I'm not dead sure every version of XP can handle dual processors, but I could be wrong about that. Also, I would make sure that if you are running on processor intensive application that that applications supports multiple processors.

I'm not sure that for non-commercial machines dual processors are the way to go. I would recommend sticking with one processor right now...just make it a fast one :)

Just my $0.02 since I don't have any experience with dual processor systems...only going on hearsay.

FlipsidE

[ilya]

Well, I checked Dell's page and find that nothing is mentioned about "USB 2.0" just "USB"

I also realized that this system is almost 3-1/2 years old. It might be time for an upgrade... My wallet will love that. This is the longest - by far - that I've ever had a system before upgrading. 3-1/2 years isn't bad, and it still does everything I need. I could never imagine myself saying that...

I'm guessing that this system is too old for USB 2.0. Time to go shopping...


AIDA is pretty cool. But it says that my CPU is running at 106C - is that bad? Seems pretty hot to me. But it says nothing about USB.

Presume that's 106 F (40 celsius = normal), cause otherwise you'd be at 220 F = normal for a 10 lb turkey)

Try installing a USB 2.0 driver before giving up, you'll find a couple here http://www.usbman.com

[Scottes]

Well it specifcaly says that the motherboard is at "96C (205F)" and CPU is at "108C (226F)"

Ouch. Personally I'd hoping it's just wrong. But I may shut the system down for a few hours and check it right after turning it on.


I'll try those drivers. Thanks!

[CyberDyneSystems]

40 celsius is not too hot for most CPU's ...
Ever run an Athlon "classic" ...?

Also,. a USB 2 card is like $18.00 if you have an open PCI slot. But of course you know that,. it's just more fun to get a swank AlienWare with 2GB of ram.. :)

[tim]

I've seen threads on FM forums about how long it takes to run a filter on a given image. My PC (2.6 P4 768MB RAM) took like 80 seconds, a guy with dual AMD chips took about 25 seconds, and a guy with 4 xeon processors took like 15 seconds... just a thought for you. My PC does everything in PS CS pretty quickly, except for the dog slow file browser.

[Scottes]

40 celsius is not too hot for most CPU's...

But 96C probably is... It's still within limit, I believe, but I don't like it.


Aida is cool. For some reason my AGP is disabled... Figuring that out now...

[Scottes]

My PC (2.6 P4 768MB RAM) took like 80 seconds, a guy with dual AMD chips took about 25 seconds, and a guy with 4 xeon processors took like 15 seconds...

Neat Image is the only think i really wait for. I wouldn't mind seeing that get reduced.

Oh, pano stitching tends to take some time when I'm up around 200MB....

[tim]

PhotoStitch is way faster than neatimage, i've switched to that, and will probably buy the pro version some time.

[CyberDyneSystems]

But 96C probably is... It's still within limit, I believe, but I don't like it.


Aida is cool. For some reason my AGP is disabled... Figuring that out now...

Holy crap!

When I had openend this thread (long before I posted) your post above mine was not posted yet,. I still thought we were talking about a farenheit/Celsius typo!

Ummm.. yes,. that is hot.

[Avalonthas]

Tip for those with a relativly new desktop who feel there getting 1.1 speeds. Alot of manufactuerers, especially those who build "cheaper" then name brand computers offer 4 or more USB slots. Most of the time u get one or two in the front and 2-8 in the back. Just from info i get from my own comp and many friends, the front USB ports seem to be more than often 1.1 , but the back ones are usually 2.0. In my case this is true but i dont know if it is for others. Try it out.

[mikesd]

Since we are talking about speeding computers up, here are a couple of sites everyone might find helpful. They both explain what a computers running procceses functions are and give reccomendations as whether to turn them off or keep the running. Black Vipers also tells how best to turn them off and which ones you dont need that eat up alot of resources. http://www.answersthatwork.com/Tasklist_pages/tasklist.htm and http://www.blackviper.com/

[Scottes]

Whatever happened to Moore's Law?

My 3.5-year-old system is 1.8 GHz with a 400 MHz front side bus.
The fastest I can find now is 3.6 Ghz with an 800 MHz front side bus.

What happened?

[mikesd]

One example from Viper is operating windows in the XP theme, which is the green cartoonish appearance eats up a ton of valuable resources. By going into services and disabling "themes" windows defaults to the classic theme and frees up alot of valuable power. Don't know if there is any interest, or everybody is already ahead of me on this, but there are a lot of things that can bo done to maximize someones current system to the fullest. Thanks; Mike.

[Belmondo]

Whatever happened to Moore's Law?

My 3.5-year-old system is 1.8 GHz with a 400 MHz front side bus.
The fastest I can find now is 3.6 Ghz with an 800 MHz front side bus.

What happened?


Well, let me see.....

Guess you're just going to have to type faster. Maybe you can get some pointers from CDS.

[JZaun]

If win 2000 is like xp, you can go to control pannel, system, hardware, device manager and double click on the usb device listed, it should show if usb 1 or 2,, at least my xp does.

JZ

[musthavemuzk]

i would hope there is a free pci slot to dump in a pci-usb2 card. since you said the computer does what you want it to do then i would go this route to keep you going and improving transfers.
not saying you have to stick with that forever, but this is a quick fix and cheap as well.
then you can plan for the replacement computer if it is still needed.

i have purchased many koutech pu-520 cards from newegg.com they come to $16 with shipping and are a breeze to install. 4 external and 1 internal usb2 connections.

just my 2 cents on that.

Monty

[FlipsidE]

Computer technology advancement has slowed dramatically over the past couple of years especially. The whole "double in 18 months" thing just isn't around anymore.

FlipsidE

[tim]

It's the transistor count that doubles every 18 months, not performance. Slashdot linked to an article on it recently.

[PacAce]

have you considered the Firewire board (if you don't already have it) and a firewire card instead? With my firewire card (the slower 400 mbps one) I can transfer 920.8 MB in 3 minutes and 20 seconds flat. With the firewire 800 card, if they come out with one soon, that'll even cut that time in half.

[Scottes]

i would hope there is a free pci slot to dump in a pci-usb2 card.

Yeah, that's next on the list. I need some more 500ma ports anyway, as my USB hub is just a 100ma.

[maderito]

I resolved my USB speed problems by installing another card reader and now get 2GB downloads in 10 minutes (improved from 40 minutes at USB 1.1 speeds).

Question: Can you run 2 USB card readers at the same time and get the same speed per reader -- thus 4GB in 10 minutes in my case?

[CyberDyneSystems]

You could if each were on a different actual port... and what a grand idea...

[Longwatcher]

I resolved my USB speed problems by installing another card reader and now get 2GB downloads in 10 minutes (improved from 40 minutes at USB 1.1 speeds).

Question: Can you run 2 USB card readers at the same time and get the same speed per reader -- thus 4GB in 10 minutes in my case?

I tried this and it slowed them both down by more then half. On the other hand I didn't have to sit around waiting for one to get done to start the next, just let them both go.

On my machine I thought the front ones were USB 1 because I kept getting the not plugged into high speed port, but I found if I unplug and then plug back in it runs much faster. All of my 8 USB ports (3 in front, 5 in back) are USB 2.0 (or at least all I have tried lately). I usually get a 2GB CF card download of my Lexar reader in a about 5 minutes. The key word is usually. Sometimes I think it gets confused and slows down a bit and then it takes about 10 minutes. I know something is wrong if it says it will take more then 13 minutes to download a 1GB card these days. I then unplug and re-plug it in. The fastest copying device is still my delkin picture pad to computer. It does about 1 GB every 2 minutes. If I could just copy cards to it faster I would be in heaven.

I love my machine, but am starting to chain firewire devices as I only have 2 firewire ports (one in front, one in back).

BTW: anyone see the new Western Digital 250GB media center external hard drive. It has an 8-in-1 reader built into the drive.