Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus (More info?)

Does anyone have any insight into this mildly frustrating problem:

Newly installed P4P800-E Deluxe, dual-boot system with Windows 98 SE and XP;
all relevant drivers installed from the CD, BIOS updated to 1002, no
problems in device manager in either system, USB 2.0 enabled in fastest mode
in the BIOS.

Under Window 98SE only, USB transfers are painfully slow on both back panel
and front ports. I have an HP ScanJet 7450 with USB 1.1 support, and it
takes almost a minute to transfer a small scan from the scanner to the
system. Under Windows XP the same scanner and the same port produce almost
instantaneous results.

I got similar results with USB thumb drives - very slow file transfers under
Windows 98, very fast under XP.

I put an Adaptec USB/Firewire PCI card in the system, and attached the
Scanner to the card, and got full-speed performance under Windows 98. But
the motherboard USB is basically useless in Windows 98.

I've checked the ASUS site for drivers, but they're the same as those on the
CD that came with the motherboard.

Does anyone have any idea of how to improve USB performance under Windows
98? (Please don't waste bandwidth with clever comments like "Don't use
Windows 98"; for various reasons, I need to use 98 much of the time.) Many
thanks in advance for any help.