I have an old system with a USB1 pci card, for some reason my usb asdl modem shuts down after a while or if i use another usb device at the same time, the other device continues working and its apparent that just one usb slot looses power, i tried an new usb 2 card but it wont power up at all, maybe this is not compatible with my old system (details below)
any advice would be great
Dave

QDI motherboard
P2 300 mhz
win 98

This is unusual but it sounds like your PCI slots can't draw enough power to run the USB card properly. I've heard of a similar problem before with high-power graphics cards but I'm surprised that a USB card would have this problem. The ADSL modem is, in most cases, being powered through the USB port, which, in turn, draws its power out of the PCI slot. What's the other device - is that taking its power through the USB port as well?

Thanks for the reply, if i use any device such as camera, external disc drive or flash memory i have problems, it's probably due to the age of the system.

As already been said it might be a power comsumption issue.
What might do the trick would be connecting an active (powered) USB hub which will power all connected USB devices

That's a good idea Bad_Karma[CORE]

Dave71, I've got a feeling there's a USB update for Windows 98 on the Microsoft web site: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads.

If you've got an AMD processor, then this update may help:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/r...DisplayLang=en

In fact, even if you haven't got an AMD processor, it's worth a go anyway.

Originally Posted by DJNafey

That's a good idea Bad_Karma[CORE]

Dave71, I've got a feeling there's a USB update for Windows 98 on the Microsoft web site: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads.

Friend of mine had a similar problem. Connected a powered usb hub, plugged it into the back of th epc, then connected all usb devices he had and it worked just fine. Thats why it came to my mind in the first place.

The patch u suggested might be helpful but only if his USB controller is a VIA one. Here is a directdownload link and a little description:

Download http://www.softwarepatch.com/windows/usbvia.html

This patch from Microsoft fixes a hardware-specific problem affecting USB connections on PCs with a VIA USB Controller and AMD processor. This is only for Windows 98 Second Edition. Here is how Microsoft describes it:

"Universal Serial Bus (USB) devices that are plugged into a computer running Microsoft Windows 98 Second Edition may not work if the following hardware components are installed on the computer: AMD processor (running at 350 MHz or faster) and VIA Technologies USB controller.

This behaviour occurs because there is a timing-specific problem in the Universal Host Controller driver (Uhcd.sys) that may prevent USB devices from be properly enumerated under specific timing conditions."

Here is how The Software Patch describes it:

Some times when you plug in a piece of hardware (eg camera, modem, MP3 player) into the USB connection you find that it works. Other times, it doesn?t. The reason this happens is that there is a problem in the programming. This patch will fix it.