USB 3.0 mobo compatibility?

[acousticdj]

I have an asrock alive nf6p vsta mobo. I just bought a USB 3.0 external hard drive. Can I add a USB 3.0 card to this board? It has pci express slots. AMD Athlon 64 x2 4600 THANKS

 

[legendkiller]

All you need is a USB 3.0 adapter with PCI Express x1 on it or at least...

 

[acousticdj]

Thanks. A video on youtube said that mobos more than a few years old might not be compatible with USB 3.0 even if the card physically fits in the pci express x1 slot on the board. Know anything about this? My mobo is right on the border. It would be great to know before buying the card. Asrock's site has no info about it.

 

[sk1939]

No idea, all you can do is try it and see.

 

[popatim]

Many older motherbds use a bridge chip to conevert the pciex1 slot that you see to run on a pci bus internally so that you won't see the full benefit of USB3.

By the way, your usb3 drive will work fine on your usb2 port, up to the maximum transfer speed of the drive or usb2, whichever comes first.

 

[acousticdj]

That makes sense. Might be worth trying anyway. Thanks again. This is a great forum.