USB 3.0 PCIe x1 Card Not Working

[bugmenot]

I have a USB 3.0 PCIe x1 NEC 720200F1 chipset Card.

I tried both my pcie x1 slots.

I tried with and without the 4 pin molex cable connected.

I updated the drivers and firmware from http://www.station-drivers.com/page/nec.htm

When I plug in a usb 2.0 usb stick it works.

When I plug in 2.5" 500gb usb 3.0 hard drive nothing gets detected.

What can I try next ?

Ebay Item number: 330503380168

 

[kajabla]

Try a different USB 3 product. Your particular hard drive may be the problem.

 

[bugmenot]

Unfortunately I don't have another usb3.0 device to test with.

The HD is a Western Digital 500GB My Passport Essential Portable Hard Drive, Black, USB 3.0, if it makes any difference.

Edit - It's also a WinXP system

 

[kajabla]

That drive claims to be compatible with XP, so that's probably not it. Have you installed its driver? If not, get it from wdc.com.
You don't have any friends with drives, any place to borrow (or rent?) a drive? Try Craigslisting a request to rent a USB 3 drive for a day just to see if you can recognize it.

 

[evongugg]

Try a different cable.

 

[ngoy]

First, plug the drive into a USB 2.0 slot, it should be found as USB 2.0. If that doesn't work, your drive has a problem. If it works on usb 2.0, then make sure you are pushing the usb 3.0 cable ALL the way into the connector - usb 3.0 connectors are longer. If plugged into a usb 2.0 slot they stick out a tiny bit more than a usb 3.0 slot.

 

[kajabla]

That doesn't quite rule out the drive-problem issue. It could just have problems with its USB 3 interface. My point is that the card may still not be the problem.

 

[bugmenot]

The hard drive has always worked in a usb 2.0 port.

kajabla - I updated the firmware on the wd drive.

ngoy - I played around with the cable, and finally got it to work, it's really finicky, sometimes I can get it to work, sometimes not.

evongugg - I will try and pickup another cable soon, so I can find out if it's the cable or the pcie card


Know I just have to find out why the usb 3.0 speeds are lackluster.
4GB file 2.29mins for usb 3.0 and 3.12mins for usb 2.0. But that's an issue for another topic.


Thanks for all the help.

 

[ngoy]

Glad to know it at least works. Main issue could be Windows XP, I don't know of any benchmarks using that platform and USB3.

Please make sure your virus scanner is disabled when you do the transfer test, it will adversely affect performance if reading, scanning, then writing.

I get around 80MB/s with my drive, a 2TB WD Elements iirc. Win7 64bit, i5-2500k, msi p67a-gd55

 

[kajabla]

What are your specs? A weak processor could keep the speeds down, I suppose.

 

[bugmenot]

It's an older system, but not to out dated I believe.

Intel core2duo e6600 2.4GHz Conroe
Asus P5ke-wifi
2GB Patriot PC2-6400
Nvidia 8800GTS
80GB Velociraptor Sata2
640 WD HDD Sata2
WinXP

 

[kajabla]

Yeah, that's not slow enough to throttle I/O.

 

[Sagenth]

I have a biostar mobo tf560 A2+ I believe. I just spent 2 hours trying to overclock my motherboard.. and it was working.. but my x1 slot stopped working. I have my headset plugged into that slot through a usb 3.0 card.

I couldn't get the computer to recognize the headset unless I plugged it into another port (2.0) or until I reverted to normal clock rates. I have been getting bad FPS rates with a gtx580 so I decided to oc until I got a new motherboard. Alas my headset doesn't work with any integrated usb ports, the usb controller runs out of bandwidth.

So the short of it is, if you are overclocking.. try using your default clock rates. This mobo I've got is a piece of crap, the bios overclocking engine it comes with makes my frame rate drop even worse.. and if I do manual clocking my headset won't function 100%

 

[ruggb]

I posted this in a separate thread but it seems to be too important a topic not to spread it everywhere. Overnight from a sleep and it is still working.
There r a lot of posts about this problem. No answers - until now - maybe.
I read a post about a problem with a wireless mouse. Someone posted an answer ref to an Intel white paper RE USB3 noise in the 2.4GHz band. The problem was only helped using some copious shielding of connectors and components.

OK, after trying every driver update and fw update I could find, I decided my issue with my PCIe to USB acted like it was a noise thing so I pulled it out, disassembled the PCIe connector, lined it with copper foil tape and connected it to a grd pin on the PCIe connector. Then I wrapped the tape around the cable up to the front panel box and connected that foil to the foil in the connector.
It has not been a long time 2 hrs maybe, but it never stayed up this long from a boot.
I am hopeful.
If u try this, other methods and other metal foil may work. I have had this copper tape for a long time. Make sure ONE end it grounded preferably close to the MB. If u ground both ends u will get a ground loop and maybe make things worse. I might cover it with scotch tape to prevent the cable from touching the chassis, though the cable is much stiffer now.