USB resseting tool?

[Ghitulescu]

From time to time my laptop, that has 4 USB2.0 ports, let me know that a device supporting higher speeds is connected - the MS jargon for connecting an USB1.x device. The strange thing is that I don't have such devices, only 2.0.

Is there a way to reset the USB controller, otherwise I cannot burn over 0.7x (!!!) for DVDs or 4x for CDs, or transferring a DV AVI would be past 2012 :p

Maybe a viewer/diag tool would also help. I've tested USBVIEW but it always shows FullSpeed.

[littleD]

Thats silly but try other usb ports.

[Ghitulescu]

Yes, I tried, of course works, but sometimes this message doesn't appear, or lasts very short, as sometimes it's covered by other annoying sys messages like Your WLAN adapter is switched off, why don't you use it?

In short, sometimes I realize this only after the actual starting the burning or the data transfer, when it's too late ....

So, is there any tool to show, test and/or reset the USB ports?

[littleD]

But use ports that are v2.0 not v1.x . Usb ports are hardwired to controller and for example, usb port ver1 cant magically turn into ver.2.0. because you connected usb2.0 capable device.
Use always same port you know its really ver. 2.0.

The tool you looking for would be USBDeview (http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/usb_devices_view.html)

[Ghitulescu]

But use ports that are v2.0 not v1.x

I don't have USB 1.x, only 2.0. Four ports on the laptop and 4 external devices (3 HDDs and 1 DVDRW). All of them USB v2.0. And all of them USB 1.x compatible, that explains why I get into this.

I used before the MS own tool, USBview -> http://www.practicalpc.co.uk/computing/windows/usbview.htm, but it finds no issue, yet I'm back to compatibility mode.

The USBDeview still doesn't show the speed of an USB connection. It's nevertheless a great improvement over MSs own USBview.

[littleD]

I don't have USB 1.x, only 2.0.
OK if you claim that.

EDIT: So many ext devices. You may run out of usb 2.0 controllers and thus dvd-rw connect to free usb 1.x . Just guessing. Go to device manager and see what device is connected to which controller.

The USBDeview still doesn't show the speed of an USB connection
I take it this way. If device is connected to standard usb controller, then its usb1.x speed. If connected to enhanced usb controller, then its usb2.0. But i still may be wrong ;)

[Ghitulescu]

I'll check this out - thanks for the hint.

To clear this once for all:
Sometimes (very rare though), the very same device that normally is USB 2.0 is seen as an USB 1.x one. Same device, same port, same hardware, same software, but different time of the day :p. Sometimes I oversee the message, if any. I have only 4 ports, which are all v.2.0.

So, no 1.x devices and ports, only 2.0 with 1.x compatibility.

So far I saw, it happens during the initialisation, so it might be a protocol error that force both devices into v.1.x mode (like DMA, IDE, fax/modem and so on).

[littleD]

For checking usb version try ListUsbDrives (http://files2get.com/software/soft2/system-usb/usb-dlm.zip)

[saint-francis]

@ littleD,
Have you never experienced this? I have absolutely no USB 1.x devices or ports and this happens to me across many motherboards, laptops and PCI USB add-in cards. And when I get these messages the connected device operates at USB 1.0 speeds. I have only seen it happen with storage devices, such as a SD card reader. I have not found a solution, sorry Ghitulescu, although admittedly I have not tried very hard. Usually just plugging into a different port works.

[Ghitulescu]

@saint-francis
Thanx, this issue is not mentioned in the net so I thought I was the only one having this problem, thus the "late" posting.

The solution I was working on, and it seems working so far, was to use a hub 2.0 in between.

[video_magic]

My best guess at this issue from what I have observed is that the higher-speed USB 2.0 is more sensitive to things like power drain, power regulation, Amperage supply tolerances and the like.

This appears to me especially exacerbated on laptops, I think for two reasons:

The ports (and therefore the electrical connections of whatever is plugged in...) get 'loose' (I mean wobbly) as the usb plug gets knocked or pulled occasionally.

The power supply on a laptop are notoriouslyweaker in many ways. Additionally, chipset implementations are often different for power saving reasons, and the cooling is often terrible in laptops. These kinds of things can play around with your stability.

...
What happens sometimes is it fallsback to seeing things as USB 1, and the whole Plug 'n' Play thing? - you often have to 're-plug' to (temorarily) fix the issue - until the next time.
Sometimes, I've seen an issue where a person has had USB 1.0 built-in. They have upgraded their PC with a PCI USB 2.0 card. No-end of problems despite re-positioning the card and trying different combinations of USB devices in different ports, trying different versions of drivers etc etc. The PCI card & the onboard USB definitely both worked separately.

;) 1394a was superior to USB 2.0 .

If we are all going to use USB 2.0 we just have to normally accept the occasional problems, it's a flakey technology.

[Ghitulescu]

That makes a lot of sense, the hub can alleviate such problems, too. Thanks.

Yes, iLink was better, actually USB was designed with a different purpose in mind and upgraded later to higher speeds, while iLink was designed to support video streams and "deturned" later to other purposes. However, if one does not use the grounding for iLink, serious problems can occur.

[video_magic]

Indeed, if only all the big companies had adopted 1394a (which was quite well established as a technology since the mid-'90s, the better 'a' version by the Millenium) rather than going to 'USB 2.0!' :( . Actually, I know it was just for legacy support/backwards compatibility, but still......

I assume your hub is independantly powered!?!! :D


quick link USB 2.0 vs 'Firewire 400' (generally stating that Firewire is rather superior)
http://www.usb-ware.com/firewire-vs-usb.htm

[leeperry]

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/311272
The DevCon utility is a command-line utility that acts as an alternative to Device Manager. Using DevCon, you can enable, disable, restart, update, remove, and query individual devices or groups of devices.

[Ghitulescu]

I assume your hub is independantly powered!?!! :D
No, it wasn't necessary, all my external devices are self-powered.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/311272
Thank you for the windows "modprobe" :)

[ramicio]

if usb 2.0 is not enabled in the bios or something else goes wrong it will revert back to usb 1.x. everything is backwards compatible with usb.

[burfadel]

Toggle the 'Plug & Play OS installed' (or whatever its called, very similar to that). Sometimes 'No' may be beneficial even with Windows 7... Also disable legacy device under the USB options, since you state there no USB 1.x devices connected, it may help...?

[CruNcher]

Hmm Windows XP especially can be picky with handling usb and it sometimes happen that if you connected a lot of devices already to the same port that the USB configuration can go weird (especially if you not always clean disconnected) i know that this can go as far as the Devices suddenly Detected as they would be damaged :P only a cleanup of the whole USB ID configuration helps then and which of course means your Devices will be detected again on connection.