A computer components & hardware forum. HardwareBanter

If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Go Back   Home » HardwareBanter forum » General Hardware & Peripherals » Homebuilt PC's
Site Map Home Register Authors List Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read Web Partners

SUPER BIG THANKS TO PAUL ! USB 3.0 PCI Express Controller working ! =D



 
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #1  
Old November 15th 19, 10:05 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
[email protected]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 533
Default SUPER BIG THANKS TO PAUL ! USB 3.0 PCI Express Controller working ! =D

HI PAUL !

I WOULD LIKE TO THANK YOU FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART, WHY NOT ! =D

IF IT WASN'T FOR YOU I MIG?HT HAVE ?NEVER B?EEN PERSUADED TO TRY FLIPPING THE SLI/NORMAL PADDLE ON T?HE WINFAST MOTHERBOARD !

YOU TOUGHT ME IT'S NOT ONLY FOR SLI, BUT IT'S SIMPLY TO ENABLE THE SECOND PCI EXPRESS SLOT !!!!! =D

I WOULD HAVE NEVER KNOW THAT TWO PCI-EXPRESS CARDS CAN BE USED for different purposes ! =D

My Dream PC from 2006 was only USB 2.0 so far.

And for External USB Sticks and External USB Diskdrives that is kinda slow....

Only 33 Megabytes/sec, it's still fast enough to be useable but why waste time eh ?! These sticks and drives are USB 3.0.

So today I bought a USB 3.0 PCI Express card, which goes into a black slot, just like a graphics card.

Fortunately the winfast has two pci express slots, I was completely confused about PCI vs PCI Express. Even PCI usb 3.0 would have been usefull I think cause harddisks kinda limited to 60 to 120 megabytes/sec.

Anyway the external Seagate Backup Plus USB 3.0 Mass Storage Device 5 Terrabyte, 5.000.000.000.000 bytes is achieving 100 to 133 Megabytes/sec depending on block sizes, file system fragmentation and so forth !

THIS IS AN AMAZING SPEED. I knew USB 2.0 was bottlenecking the device at roughly 33 MB/sec. USB 3.0 is about 10x faster. I don't think it's hitting an USB limit anymore ! =D HIHIHI.

So this drive is now a WHOPING 4x (times) faster than before ! Which is amazing.

This will help me immensly... to offload video's and games and other downloads which are on my harddisks biting dust... to the usb devices for STORAGE/ARCHIVING.

And ofcourse new stuff as well !

33 megabytes/sec was enough to play the new doom version. 130 Megabytes/sec will be even better for maybe less texture pop-in.

I haven't GAMED YET. But I did do GPU benchmarks BEFORE and AFTER the paddle switch and so far it looks to be the EXACT same performance.

I tested with AIDA64 GPGPU benchmark.

Also CPU performance remains STEADY.

I am not sure if AIDA64 measures PCI Express traffic from Main RAM to PCI Express graphics card.

I am a little bit worried that it might be a bit slower... but if I have to wait double as long that might still be acceptable.

The text on motherboard says:

Top PCI Express 16x
Bottom PCI Express 8x

So I have no idea if it's not in 16x and 8x.

Or if it's divide to 8x 8x ?

Maybe you can answer me that question ?!

What does SLI mode do on this motherboard ?!

PCI Express lanes and SLI and such... confuse me.

Maybe I am lucky and it's a total of 24 pci lanes.

Or maybe it's just 16x full speed if only GPU is used...

Maybe the 8x for usb controller is shared from the other 16x

I have no idea how that works.

I might have to do a GPU and Harddisk or USB stick test at the same time.

I also still have to test USB Stick with Flash technology.

Curious what the performance of such a flash based card will be now that USB 3.0 is in.

I could not use the 128 GB stick cause it's linux... and apperently windows refuses to recgonize EXT4... HAHA Microsoft ! HAHA.

I did buy a new usb stick, the shop was out of 64 gb and 128 gb models, but maybe tomorrow they have new stock the guy said and might call.

So I did buy a 32 usb stick, so I could play with it tonight.

I just can't wait to see what kind of performance it will have... and at least I can perhaps install other operating systems on it... maybe for now or in the future.

I am kinda keen on trying to install windows 10 enterprise 64 bit, long term support, even though I can't run it on socket 939 motherboard, might be nice for in the future.

For star wars battlefront 2 a linuxswap of 32 gb might be needed, so this stick probably too small for linux experiments. Also doubtfull if star wars battle front 2 is ever going to work on this old system, maybe though if wine fixes enough bugs and such.

Though I am also interested in trying out ubuntu and other operating systems.

But first I will test the speed of this Kingston USB stick, it should be pretty good. Probably not stellar strangely enough, already saw on websites it will be around 60 MB/sec or so, not sure...

I kinda wanna see a seek test or so... kinda wondering if these flashes can seek faster than harddisks.

So far I am unsure... USB 2.0 might limit the number of seeks per second.

Perhaps USB 3.0 will set this device free cause of better protocol so it can spread it wings and fly ! =D

Anyway all of this speed gain would not have been possible if it wasn't for you !

So thank you again !

And maybe sometime in the future I might even do a GT 520 + GT 1030 graphics card test on this old computer.

But then I will probably use Linux for it... cause the newest nvidia drivers don't support the GT 520 anymore... which is kinda lame by nvidia, maybe they will change their minds... but maybe not. So for windows there is no point in that for now I think... installing old drivers is very risks so I wont do that, already wrote about that before.

I kinda regret I dont have a website for my experiments/logs might be helpfull for others or myself in future, these postings of mine will disappear after 5 years which is very regretfull.

I just realized I dont even store them anymore... cause of no outlook express usage... that kinda sucks... so I will store this text on my harddrive just in case... Though it's probably not that important... but still interesting story.

Other stories were more interesting... like that flipping of the paddle.

Though sometimes people or software copy our postings and place them on forums... that's kinda cool... but usually also all kinds of ads and maybe even viruses pop up on those websites but ok.

Is there any possibility to have software to work with google groups so I can have a local archive stored as well ?! Like a usenet newsgroup reader ?!

Bye for now,
Skybuck ! =D
  #2  
Old November 15th 19, 10:19 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
[email protected]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 533
Default SUPER BIG THANKS TO PAUL ! USB 3.0 PCI Express Controller working! =D

LOL, This kingston 32 GB data traveler usb stick is kinda crap, to total crap.

I was expecting much better performance, but the write performance is just crap,
12 MEGABYTE/SEC is top speed so far for writing.

I can't believe this stick is so slow, it's from 2014.

It does say so on websites though that write speed is limited to 10 MB/sec.

The read speed is fast though 128 MB/sec.

So sticks can write at 100 MB/sec and are same price.

So as far as I am concerned these kingston seem to be crap performance wise at least.

I wonder why these are so slow ?! Old tech maybe ?! Or maybe they protected or use some special writing method.

Quite strange.

Well at least the drive was super fast... at least if allowed to write with cache which is ok for me, also cache in windows is on even for small blocks it still achieves 1 MB/sec... where this kingston only achieves 130 kb/sec.

Amazingly bad performance... almost as bad as dial up modems haha.

Well the stick only costed 8 bucks but still... hmmm.

Not sure if I want to use a stick like this for anything serious... like windows 10 enterprise...

PROBABLY NOT. Cause if it needs to be upgraded I will pull my hair out because of waiting time, so this is a bit of a disappointment but ok.

This is a nice example why sales persons cannot be trusted though.

Must do go research on products first... I did tell him to give me kingston for some good speeds...

Saw one guy look a bit strange at me... but he probably didn't know either... but this story is kinda funny.

I did examine the newer kingstons... they are faster... so I assumed these smaller ones were going to be fast as well..

WELL NOPE !

NICE SCAM YOU GOT GOING THERE KINGSTON !

Last just not call you scammers just yet... maybe this is just old tech and was the best back then...

Not sure...

Feels ****ed though hahaha.

Not sure what I am going to use this for... probably some "DOOM" gaming !

Yeah... Wait oh-oh I just realized even DOOM don't fit on this I think...

Yeah it was 42 GB... this is actually just 28 GB... so 32 GB number is misleading as well.

Wish manufacturers would stop with that misleading number crap for capacities...

Suppose I have a very serious requirement: 32 GB swap parition... or 32 GB file whatever... this thing would not have been usefull for it !

Bye for now,
Skybuck.
  #3  
Old November 15th 19, 10:33 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
[email protected]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 533
Default SUPER BIG THANKS TO PAUL ! USB 3.0 PCI Express Controller working! =D

OH WOW.

I just made a discovery.

The ATTO Disk Benchmkaring tool also has an IO/s chart !

There are two radio dials/circles in bottom right corner.

Click IO/sec to see results.

For smallest it's like this:

512 bytes, writes: 259
512 bytes, reads: 11.30k

So I guess that means 11.300 reads ?!

That's pretty impressive.

I will do another test of the usb harddisk to compare.

USB Harddisk:

512 bytes, writes: 1.89k / sec
512 bytes, reads: 10.50k / sec

So clearly the usb harddisk is superior.

However I will do one final test with trying to by-pass write caches and such:

Similar results though the windows cache is still on.

Well I have seen enough.

For now the Seagate USB 3.0 External Harddisk of 4.5 TB is far superior in performance and results and quantity.

( I haven't tried booting from it yet but that will probably work well, not from usb 3.0 pci express controllers but usb 2.0 it does show up)

However it was also a lot more expensive: 130 euro at BCC.

But as far as I am concerned definetly worth it.

It's kinda **** I can't test the other usb stick Sandisk it was 60 euro for only 128 GB but then you pay for the speed I guess.

Then again this harddisk is super speedy... kinda strange...

And ofcourse the usb stick is much smaller.... though the harddisk would probably fit in a pocket as well but would be much less comfortable and probably can't take a lot of hits.

USB Stick already fell down 4 times lol cause of it's ****ty small size.

There is the chance of losing these usb sticks.

So again for reliabilities sake my vote for now goes to the usb harddisks... I am simply a little bit more carefull with them !

Hmmm........

Bye for now,
Skybuck.
  #4  
Old November 16th 19, 12:15 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
[email protected]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 533
Default SUPER BIG THANKS TO PAUL ! USB 3.0 PCI Express Controller working! =D

One last bit of advice:

Always detach all power cables when working on computers.

I've seen some pretty strange behaviour when I didn't:

1. Network card failing/not detected/re-detected/driver re-installed.
2. BIOS would not detect USB Stick.

Funny stuff !

I unplugged all cables, including network and hdmi cable to prevent loops.

Waited 1 or 2 minutes.

And voila, USB Stick working again... being detected in BIOS !

Remarkable story isn't it !

It does make sense though.

When touching electronics... they don't like that... haha kinda like me kinda

Also the power cables get probably loops, electricity holes... weird stuff.

Sometimes computers need "fresh" electricity ! =D LOL.

Bye,
Skybuck ! =D
  #5  
Old November 16th 19, 12:19 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
[email protected]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 533
Default SUPER BIG THANKS TO PAUL ! USB 3.0 PCI Express Controller working! =D

OH Forgot one more weird sympton:

Windows would not shut down.

Might be because I removed cheaper usb stick.

Or might it was because of expansion seagate drive, yes I have a second one 3 TB.

I reconfigured it to also use write caching to test it's speed.

The system C drive is 80 to 100 MB/sec (mostly 80) pretty consistent has best performance for small files. 2.8 MB/sec or so don't now why... maybe optimized by defrag of windows.

D drive/data is 100 MB/sec or so... good i/o... unfortunately drive full for a long time old system is there on too.

Seagate 4.5 TB drive is probably fastest for bigger blocks 130 MB/sec.

Quite impressive !

Hopefully the shutdown issue is not caused by the newly installed driver.

Probably was a fluke.

If the shutdown problems returns I will let you know otherwise consider it solved for now

Bye,
Skybuck =D
  #6  
Old November 16th 19, 02:46 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
[email protected]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 533
Default SUPER BIG THANKS TO PAUL ! USB 3.0 PCI Express Controller working! =D

THE SHUTDOWN PROBLEM REMAINS !

HMMMMM.

NOT SURE HOW TO DIAGNOSE WINDOWS 7 SHUTDOWN PROBLEMS.

WILL GOOGLE IT SOON.

OFCOURSE THIS SITUATION IS NOT IDEAL, THIS WOULD "TAX" THE POWER BUTTON DOUBLE TO TURN ON AND TO TURN OFF THE COMPUTER.

IT'S ALREADY 10 YEARS OLD OR SOMETHING SO IT'S NOT IN THE BEST CONDITION.

SO I'D RATHER SOLVE THIS ISSUE.

IT'S ALSO SLIGHTLY ANNOYING CAUSE I AM USED TO WALK AWAY FROM PC AS IT SHUTS DOWN AND THEN MAYBE LATER CHECK IF IT'S SHUT DOWN.

MY INITIAL GUESS IS THAT SOMEHOW THE EXTERNAL USB HARDDISK CONNECTED TO PCI EXPRESS CONTROLLER STAYS ON AND REFUSES TO SHUT DOWN.

COULD BE A DRIVER ISSUE NOT SENDING THE CORRECT SIGNAL.

COULD ALSO BE AN PCI-EXPRESS ISSUE, PERHAPS PCI-EXPRESS CANNOT BE USED TO SHUTDOWN EQUIPMENT.

KINDA STRANGE SITUATION.

BYE FOR NOW,
SKYBUCK.
  #7  
Old November 16th 19, 03:28 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
Paul[_28_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,467
Default SUPER BIG THANKS TO PAUL ! USB 3.0 PCI Express Controller working! =D

wrote:
THE SHUTDOWN PROBLEM REMAINS !

HMMMMM.

NOT SURE HOW TO DIAGNOSE WINDOWS 7 SHUTDOWN PROBLEMS.

WILL GOOGLE IT SOON.

OFCOURSE THIS SITUATION IS NOT IDEAL, THIS WOULD "TAX" THE POWER BUTTON DOUBLE TO TURN ON AND TO TURN OFF THE COMPUTER.

IT'S ALREADY 10 YEARS OLD OR SOMETHING SO IT'S NOT IN THE BEST CONDITION.

SO I'D RATHER SOLVE THIS ISSUE.

IT'S ALSO SLIGHTLY ANNOYING CAUSE I AM USED TO WALK AWAY FROM PC AS IT SHUTS DOWN AND THEN MAYBE LATER CHECK IF IT'S SHUT DOWN.

MY INITIAL GUESS IS THAT SOMEHOW THE EXTERNAL USB HARDDISK CONNECTED TO PCI EXPRESS CONTROLLER STAYS ON AND REFUSES TO SHUT DOWN.

COULD BE A DRIVER ISSUE NOT SENDING THE CORRECT SIGNAL.

COULD ALSO BE AN PCI-EXPRESS ISSUE, PERHAPS PCI-EXPRESS CANNOT BE USED TO SHUTDOWN EQUIPMENT.

KINDA STRANGE SITUATION.

BYE FOR NOW,
SKYBUCK.


It could be an open registry hive.

Windows 7 should have a built-in copy of UPHClean
(User Profile Hive Cleanup Service) for that.

But why that would happen out of the blue, that
doesn't add up.

*******

If it isn't that, it could be that your new USB3 card
has a "service" which is running, it's a monitor service
and it puts up the message "this device could run faster
if plugged into a USB3 port". That's about all I can think
of, in terms of the recent change to your system. You'll
need to track down branding information for your USB3 chip.
If this is Windows 7, Vista, or WinXP, then those need
driver software installed, and that kind of service
would be part of the install. You could try disabling
that service, but first you have to find it.

To find that service on my machine, I had to use Sysinternals
Process Monitor, plug a USB3 stick into a USB2 port, and
I could see activity coming from "rusb3mon.exe" in my
ProcMon trace. And there is a Run key to start that when
the computer boots - I looked in regedit to find it. This
is how the EXE gets launched. Autoruns might list a thing
like that, and give an "easy tick box" to disable it
for a test run.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\Run
RUSB3MON REG_SZ "C:\Program Files\Renesas Electronics\USB 3.0 Host Controller Driver\Application\rusb3mon.exe"

It's possible the equivalent of that on your machine,
is preventing shutdown (for 15 seconds).

I tried looking in C:\WINDOWS\inf at the INF files, but
they make no mention of this monitor program and how
it launches. I had to find it the hard way, with Procmon.exe.

So the theory would be, that whatever brand of USB3 chip
you've got, maybe there is a problem with the equivalent
of that program. OSes like Win8 or Win10 don't need
third party software for that.

Paul
  #8  
Old November 16th 19, 05:05 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
[email protected]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 533
Default SUPER BIG THANKS TO PAUL ! USB 3.0 PCI Express Controller working! =D

(Most likely problem is a hardware one, see below)

It could be an open registry hive.


? So you mean I should close "hives" with regedit ? Never heard of such a thing/problem.

Windows 7 should have a built-in copy of UPHClean
(User Profile Hive Cleanup Service) for that.


Hmmm some external software tool ?

But why that would happen out of the blue, that
doesn't add up.


Yup.

*******

If it isn't that, it could be that your new USB3 card
has a "service" which is running, it's a monitor service
and it puts up the message "this device could run faster
if plugged into a USB3 port". That's about all I can think
of, in terms of the recent change to your system.


I am pretty ANAL about services, I don't wanna any unnecessary services running.

There are no additional services running then before I bought the thing so that's a relief

You'll
need to track down branding information for your USB3 chip.
If this is Windows 7, Vista, or WinXP, then those need
driver software installed, and that kind of service
would be part of the install. You could try disabling
that service, but first you have to find it.


No additional service required.

To find that service on my machine, I had to use Sysinternals
Process Monitor, plug a USB3 stick into a USB2 port, and
I could see activity coming from "rusb3mon.exe" in my
ProcMon trace. And there is a Run key to start that when
the computer boots - I looked in regedit to find it. This
is how the EXE gets launched. Autoruns might list a thing
like that, and give an "easy tick box" to disable it
for a test run.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\Run
RUSB3MON REG_SZ "C:\Program Files\Renesas Electronics\USB 3.0 Host Controller Driver\Application\rusb3mon.exe"

It's possible the equivalent of that on your machine,
is preventing shutdown (for 15 seconds).


Hmm don't think so but I will look into it... this sounds kinda odd... but could just be a monitoring service to launch stuff automatically it can probably be shutdown on your system somehow.


I tried looking in C:\WINDOWS\inf at the INF files, but
they make no mention of this monitor program and how
it launches. I had to find it the hard way, with Procmon.exe.

So the theory would be, that whatever brand of USB3 chip
you've got, maybe there is a problem with the equivalent
of that program. OSes like Win8 or Win10 don't need
third party software for that.


It's more likely something much more strange, like a hardware problem because windows is also pretty ANAL about shutdown it will just terminate everything, so thinking this is a software issue is a bit strange but ok... windows can act strange, but my hunch was already with the pci express thing

Repeating part of my post he

I think it might be a hardware issue, see my other postings about this.

According to Arc_Light some of these USB 3.0 PCI Express controllers might not follow the official PCI Express standard and are designed to only work in PCI Express 1x slots.

I can try move it to one and see if it makes a difference.

I will probably do so in the coming days, I want some rest first

Bye,
Skybuck =D

P.S.: To Be Continued =D
  #9  
Old November 16th 19, 04:50 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
[email protected]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 533
Default SUPER BIG THANKS TO PAUL ! USB 3.0 PCI Express Controller working! =D

Fortunately somebody else, very intelligeable researched this problem already and posted about it:

Basically what he is saying/writing about is that some of these USB 3.0 PCI Express cards are designed to only work in 16x or 1x mode and not 8x mode as is the case with my current PC setup.

There is hope for me to solve this problem. When I changed the paddle card I had to remove the graphics card and I noticed this little black slot which looks like a pci express slot designed for mini graphics cards and indeed the motherboard manual says this is a PCI Express 1x slot.

So that is a very funny tiny little black slot, always wondered if I would ever use it.

Now the issue is the GT 1030 is a dual slot graphics card so it's covering this little slot when it's placed in the top 16x pci graphics slot.

I could move this graphics card to the other pci express graphics 8x slot.

Since sli mode probably runs in 8x 8x... this won't matter much.

And thus I could put the pci express card in the tiny little cute 1x slot.

I hope that won't have any bad effects on bandwidth though... for either graphics card or usb 3.0.

So far a single pci express slot should be able to offer: 250 MB/s

What I do worry about is what if I want to use multiple usb devices at same time ?

Currently 2 would be the limit... bandwidth wise if they both 120 mb/sec or so.

Currently I have no plans to use usb devices at same time, but I was kinda thinking about it... since it can go both ways.... upload/download... never tried that before with external drives, could be cool.

Anyway... not even sure if this usb 3.0 pci controller will fit in that little slot but I think so consulting manual:


Yes it says "single-lane (1x) pci express v 2.0.

It also supports hot-swap for usb devices so that is good to know.

The reason why I dont like placing the GT 1030 lower is:

It would be further away from the exhaust fans... and exhaust hole...

And closer to my creative labs soundblaster, which is still necessary for 7..1 surround sound... though there is also real-tek surround sound but would need special cables for it, and it's probably not as good... then again... who knows

I don't do any windows 7 updates... so I don't really need re-boot/shutdown options.

However for linux and other experiments it might get annoying if this shutdown issue is in linux as well which is kinda interesting to find out.

For now I don't consider this shutdown hang critical... then again... power cuts might hurt harddisks... especially if power button becomes shaky... and it suddenly flips back on...

The risk of power surges.... I dont like that idea.

Also my love for the soundblaster is slightly dwingling now that there are some alternatives... have toslink working... and creative drivers no longer working properly.

Plus system is very well cooled, so I think there is little risk to moving the graphics card down.

Was already thinking of it... cause it might make airflow better for GPU, since pci express controller obstructs it a little bit.

Fortunately the X-FI Elite Pro soundblaster 7.1 is a PCI card, so it can be moved to a different slot...

For example down... or perhaps even up... depending on how I want the airflow to be.

Probably down towards the power supply... though maybe then the power supply might get obstructed a bit.

If I place it near CPU... perhaps air flowing to GPU might be better or worse...

I have seen some GPU shrouds being used also on power supplies and/or above gpu's can't remember clearly... there form some kind of duct... so that is kinda weird.

For now the idea of power surges towards my harddisk is a very scary prospect.

So I will solve this situation soon.

Though today/saturday/the next day I am a bit lazy and need to give my body/back some rest from all the heavy PC lifting yesterday... definetly don't wanna hurt my back.

So for now I am taking it easy and relaxing... but maybe tomorrow or in a few days I will solve this situation.

I will also take a look at Paul's solution.

I will also post the original text of this guy who found this problem.

Apperently an electronics guy/spec reader or something.

He probably spent quite some time reading through the pci express spec and somehow found out these cards don't respect the spec...

I am not sure if I would have ever found or thought of that... maybe I kinda already suspected something fishy was going on with this product.

So once again this PC shop... is kinda selling bad products...

Everytime I buy something there there is something wrong with it... at least it's somewhat cheap ? Or are alternatives as expensive hmmm...

I might have to stop buying at that shop... cause every time it's pretty junky or problematic

Guy at shop don't really care... which is a little bit sad !

But at least it's there if there is no alternative or whatever and when I am in a rush and don't want to order on the internet.

No internet banking yet... might have to get that though, on special account hopefully isolated from rest, might talk to bank about that, they probably think I am crazy not sure though, time and energy needed for that

Then again if I had bought one on internet, maybe same problem

Bye for now,
Skybuck.
  #10  
Old November 16th 19, 04:53 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
[email protected]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 533
Default SUPER BIG THANKS TO PAUL ! USB 3.0 PCI Express Controller working! =D

Part 1, problem description:

Posted 18 February 2014 - 12:45 AM

Hi folks,

I recently bought an Anker USB 3.0 2-Port PCI-E Express Card With 20-Pin Connector via Amazon (see here), and installed it on my home PC. It is attached to a pair of USB 3.0 connectors on the front of the PC via the 20-pin connector, and is receiving additional power via the usual 4-pin power connector. The PC in question is home-built, and major components being the following:

MSI P7N SLI Motherboard (MS-7380-030, NVidia 750i SLI chipset)
Intel Core2Quad Q9550 CPU (2.83 GHz)
4GB of G.SKILL 2GB 240-Pin DDR2 800 SDRAM
PNY GeForce GTX 650 Ti 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCIE 3.0 x16 Video Card
SIIG DP FireWire 800 PCIe 1394b Adapter (NN-FW0012-S1)
Thermaltake Toughpower Cable Management 700W PSU (W01060RU)
Three SATA and one IDE hard disk (various WD units)
One SATA and one IDE optical drive (NEC and LG)
Two external FW800 hard disks (Iomega units)
Dell U2312HM LCD Monitor with integrated USB 2.0 hub

I'm running Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit, fully patched, with Malwarebytes Pro and Avast! Antivirus (Free) for system protection. My UPS (CyberPower PR1500LCD) indicates that I am in no danger of maxing out my PSU.

The problem I'm having is very simple: After the Anker USB 3.0 PCIE card is physically installed in my computer, using the newest drives from the Anker website (VIA 4.30A - already checked, nothing newer is available on the VIA website), Windows consistently hangs when shutting down. The screen indicates "Shutting Down...", the small circular icon animates for a bit, but within a minute or so the animation stops and the keyboard becomes non-responsive (can't light the NumLock, Caps Lock or Scroll Lock lights via keypress, no response with CTRL-ALT-DEL). I've left the machine in that state for hours and it does nothing more - the only solution is to manually shut down / reboot.



The problem persists even when nothing is plugged in to any of the USB ports associated with the Anker USB 3/0 PCI card. The problem goes away whenever the Anker USB 3.0 PCIE card is removed from the PCIE slot it's in (leaving the 4-pin power and 20-pin USB 3.0 front panel connectors attached). Finally, I am able to reproduce this behavior consistently - that is, I am able to hang Windows instantaneously - if I go to Device Manager and attempt to disable or uninstall the drives for the VIA USB eXtensile Host Controller (listed under USB Compliance (Host/Device) Controller), and also if I attempt to run USB 3.0 Command Verified from www.usb.org, here, as a means of troubleshooting what's going on:

http://www.usb.org/developers/tools/



I've already tried using msconfig to boot into diagnostic and safe modes with the hardware installed; the problem persists in both cases. The unit works fine otherwise, in that when it's installed, it recognizes my two USB 3..0 memory sticks with no issue and transfers files to and from them at the speeds one would expect without ever dropping connection. I attempted to downgrade to the VIA 4.00B driver for the chipset the Anker USB 3.0 PCIE card uses, but the installation never completes (though at least this does not hang Windows).

Normally I'm pretty good about doing my own troubleshooting - this is the first time in many years I've been unable to deal with an issue on my own - but in this case my research online does not identify anyone else with the same problem, much less a solution, and troubleshooting is not obvious given that I can't seem to touch the hardware without hanging Windows. At this point, I'm at a bit of a loss as to what's going on, and was hoping someone here might have some advice.



The one avenue of attack I am considering is finding a way to uninstall the drivers for the unit while it's not physically plugged in, since at that point this should not hang Windows. This is not something I've had to do in Windows 7 before, but I'm confident I'd find a way given enough research - at which point I could attempt to reproduce the problem with no drivers at all (if it still hangs, to me that would indicate a hardware issue) and also with the older VIA 4.00B drivers for the unit, available he



http://www.via-labs.com/en/support/downloads.jsp



That said, my fear is that it doesn't hang with no drivers but does with the VIA 4.00B drivers - at which point I've made no progress. I'm further concerned that, in addition, Windows 7 may not appreciate me manually removing drivers like that, and I may cause myself problems in attempting to do so.



Another thing I noted was that Device Manager indicates that the Anker USB 3.0 PCIE card has IRQ -6 (0xFFFFFFFA) to itself. PCIE boards should use message-signaled interrupts (MSIs) which are indicated via negative numbers in the Device Manager, so that seems OK. On the other hand, this is the only actual device directly using an MSI - the other four MSIs in use (IRQs -2 through -5) are all PCI standard PCI-to-PCI bridges. Not sure if that matters or not.



The third thing I've noticed is that the Event Log is filled with paired warnings of this sort (Event 0, hcmon):



Detected unrecognized USB driver (\Driver\xhcdrv).

Detected unrecognized USB driver (\Driver\pci).



From my research, hcmon.sys should be associated with my install of VMWare Player, and is VMWare's USB monitoring tool. Likewise, "\Driver\xhcdrv" clearly refers to USB 3.0 (XHCI) hardare, which can only mean the Anker USB 3.0 PCIE board. This may very well be that this is simply because VMWare Player doesn't play nice with USB 3.0 hardware in general, however. Would not expect that to hang the system, but just in case, I uninstalled VMWare Player. Sad to say, this did not solve the problem.



In the meantime, I'd appreciate any addtional advice / assistance here. I'm honestly not sure whether this is a case of bad hardware, a driver issue, or something else entirely, and have contacted Anker support as well in parallel to this post, though it remains to be seen whether I'll be speaking with someone with enough experience to tell me something I don't already know (perhaps I'm too cynical, and nothing against Anker in particular, but my hopes are not high).


Thanks in advance,



Arc_Light
 




Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

vB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Forum Jump

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
A question for our resident genious ....Paul of course:) --- nothing further inside... thanks for your help/reply Paul! [email protected] Homebuilt PC's 0 April 23rd 11 08:41 PM
16x PCI Express graphics + 4x PCIe SAS controller - how would itwork out electrically? Squat'n Dive General 6 July 14th 09 09:45 PM
ATI AIW 2006 PCI Express - how to get FM working? dieHard® Ati Videocards 2 May 7th 06 03:34 PM
hardware assisted 4-port SATA PCI Express controller someone Asus Motherboards 1 April 30th 06 11:53 AM
P4S533 USB 2.0 Host Controller Not Working JB Asus Motherboards 5 February 2nd 04 03:27 PM


All times are GMT +1. The time now is 12:02 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.6.4
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright ©2004-2024 HardwareBanter.
The comments are property of their posters.