XP Drivers

Having problems with your USB connections?

This can be a tricky problem to troubleshoot because of the fact that each USB device requires different hardware settings, which can conflict with other USB devices. Since multiple USB devices share a single path into your computer, it can be confusing (and time consuming) trying to isolate the problem.You might be dealing with driver issues on a single USB device, compatibility issues between the devices plugged into the same USB slot on your computer, or even a problem with your USB cord or slot in your computer.

Before you start troubleshooting a USB problem, double-check the fundamentals: Does your USB cable have a good connection? Confirm that any USB hubs are properly connected and plugged in to powered electrical outlets. Many failures can be traced to unplugged equipment or devices that are plugged into outlets that are not receiving power.

To isolate the problem, have a simple USB device that works properly on another computer, such as a USB mouse. You can test this device on the computer experientcing the problems to verify that the USB port, not a faulty device or cord, is causing the problem. Here are some other common issues with USB connections and how to fix them:

• No USB device will work

Possible causes: Operating system compatibility, controller/hub compatibility, configurations for USB controllers, controller drivers

Make sure that your operating system supports USB, then check all of your devices to make sure they are supported by the controller. Next, check the controller’s settings and drivers. (Each of these things must be compatible with each other.)

• All devices occasionally stop working at the same time

Possible causes: Controller drivers, Power management, USB controller configurations, bandwidth

Bandwidth can be an issue if several devices are transferring large amounts of data. Common devices that hog bandwidth include printers, scanners, hard drives, cameras, and DVD/CD drives. To solve this, you might try dividing the USB devices between different USB root hubs.

If your system experiences sporadic controller failure, you probably have a problem with power management. You might have bus-powered scanners or hard drives that are drawing more power than your computer can provide. If your computer requires more power, try replacing your computer’s power supply with one that provides more watts.

• Several devices work fine, but others won’t work

Possible causes: Controller/hub compatibility, USB controller configurations, power management, controller drivers, device drivers, bandwidth

First move one of the working devices to another root hub to see if the problem is in a particular root hub or with the devices themselves. Next, remove external hubs from the equation to see if they are the problem. Try the problematic devices individually on the computer. If they work, it’s either a device driver or power issue. If they don’t work, it’s a controller compatibility issue, a device driver problem, or a lack of bandwidth. To solve compatibility issues and driver errors, try updating the drivers.

• Several devices occasionally stop working at the same time, while others are fine

Possible causes: Power management, device drivers, bandwidth

First, try to isolate the particular event that’s common to all failures. Your system might be experiencing a sporadic controller failure if your devices are split across root hubs. Try moving the devices to another root hub to see if the problem is in a particular root hub or the devices themselves. Remove external hubs from the equation to see if they are the problem. Try the problematic devices individually on the computer. If they work, it’s a device driver, power issue, or bandwidth pinch.

• One device never works

Possible causes: Device drivers, Controller/hub compatibility, Power management

If the device works on another computer, check to make sure it is compatible with your controller. If your device is bus powered and it never activates, lights up, or registers with your computer, then a power issue may be to blame. Next, check your drivers to see if they are compatible or need updated.

• One device occasionally stops working

Possible causes: Device drivers, power management, bandwidth.

Again, isolate the particular event that’s common to all failures. Move the device to another root hub to see if the problem is in a particular root hub or the device itself. Remove external hubs from the equation to confirm they are not the problem. Also, try using the device when no other USB peripherals are connected. You probably have a driver problem, but it could also be a problem with the power or bandwidth.

Solving USB Issues:

Operating system compatibility
Several operating systems don’t support USB:

• Some Windows 95 releases
• Windows NT
• Mac OS prior to 9
• Linux kernels prior to 2.2.7

If you’re using Windows 95, go to USB.org, check the FAQ, and download the USBReady.exe program, which will tell you if your Windows 95 computer is USB compatible. The new USB 2.0 standard may require additional drivers or patches that aren’t included with the OS. Check the device’s documentation for more information.

Controller/hub compatibility
USB computers manufactured more than a year ago are limited to USB 1.1 devices. USB 2.0 is much faster and is usually backward compatible with the older 1.1, but it’s possible that a USB 2.0 device could refuse to work on a USB 1.1 controller or external hub, so check to see if there’s a compatibility issue.

Assuming a firmware update is available, you may need access to a USB 2.0-equipped computer to apply it. Check the manufacturer’s Web site for information on using your USB 2.0 device in a USB 1.1 system.

Configurations for add-on USB controllers
Check the Windows Device Manager to see if the USB controller is recognized or is experiencing a conflict.

• For Windows 2000:
  Click Start, Programs, Control Panel, System. Then choose the Hardware tab, and then click the Device Manager button.
• ForWindows XP:
  Click Start, Control Panel, select the Systems applet, click the Hardware tab, and then click the Device Manager button.

The Device Manager will likely refer to the USB controller as a USB Root Hub, USB Controller, or USB Bridge. The usual suspects of IRQ addresses and memory address conflicts are the first things to check. PCI devices shouldn’t have many problems, being Plug and Play, but EISA cards may require more adjustment.

If the hardware appears to work, reinstall the drivers. If that fails to resolve the problem, relocate the card to another slot in case a master/slave configuration error is occurring.

Integrated USB controller settings
If you suspect the trouble is with your USB controller settings, check the Device Manager for a conflict. Depending upon how well integrated the controller is with Windows, you may be able to adjust the IRQ or memory address settings from the Device Manager.

Next, try rebooting your computer and entering the BIOS configuration. USB settings are usually listed in the “peripherals” section. You’ll need to check for an entry marked “USB Controller” that is off or inactive. If this entry is already active, check the IRQ and memory addresses. Use the Device Manager to ensure that no other device is using those settings. You may need to reboot a few times to find a valid IRQ/memory address combination that won’t conflict with other devices.

If the hardware settings are fine, reinstall the drivers.

• USB keyboards
  When editing the BIOS, enable “DOS USB Keyboard Support.” Enabling this option will allow you to use a USB keyboard when booting a system with a boot disk.
• Controller drivers
  Check the motherboard manufacturer’s web site for driver updates. Many motherboard suppliers release driver combinations that include a number of hardware drivers. Confirm that you have the latest driver installed. Some operating systems also provide drivers, so make sure you have the latest available software patch as well.

Power management
Most computers have some form of sleep mode connected with the screensaver. A controller is not harmed when an energy setting kicks and eliminates its power. However, the OS may fail to power up the controller again. You can eliminate this error by opening Power Options and disabling System Standby.

In Windows 2000, access the Power Options applet by clicking Start, Settings, Control Panel, Power Options.

In Windows XP, go to Start, Control Panel, Power Options. You’ll find the System Standby option on the Power Schemes tab, which opens by default.

For laptop computers, you shouldn’t disable the power management permanently. If the manufacturer doesn’t have a patch for the laptop, consider switching to non-USB devices when possible. You could also create two profiles for users: a portable profile with power management enabled and a desktop profile with power management disabled.

Excessive loads on the bus can also cause power problems. The USB controller can power USB devices. Small devices like your mouse and keyboard aren’t a significant drain, but larger devices, such as scanners, hard drives, web cams, and speakers can draw considerable power. You might be able to eliminate the problem by spreading the power-hungry devices across multiple root hubs. Otherwise, acquire a good self-powered external USB hub.

Inexpensive external hubs sometimes fail to meet the USB power specifications and subsequently cause all devices on the hub to fail. Upgrading to a USB hub that supplies more power solves this kind of problem.

USB device drivers
The ability to hot-swap USB devices is a great feature, but it relies on a somewhat oversimplified set of all-purpose drivers. Some devices may appear to be general-purpose devices when in fact they are not. You need to install the drivers before you connect the device to the PC. Sometimes you need to reboot to give the new drivers priority over the all-purpose drivers. Skipping the reboot will break the whole process.

If you think the new drivers aren’t receiving priority, completely uninstall the device in question. You may have to leave the device connected to uninstall it properly. At other times you may be able to remove a device’s drivers using Control Panel’s Add/Remove Programs applet, just as you would with other software.

Sometimes it’s necessary to upgrade a device’s firmware, which is basically a driver that runs on the peripheral. The more advanced the device, the more likely it is that the firmware can be upgraded. Your mouse probably doesn’t have any firmware upgrades. Scanners, hard disks, printers, optical disks, and other sophisticated peripherals likely have upgradeable firmware. Check the manufacturer’s site to make sure that you have the most recent update.

Bandwidth
USB root hubs can each support up to 128 devices, but they can run out of bandwidth, depending on consumption rates. USB 1.1 is limited to 12 Mbps, not counting the bus management overhead. USB 2.0 has 480 Mbps with about 420 Mbpsavailable, so it can support more devices. Combine an Ethernet adapter, a printer, and an external CD-ROM or hard drive on a single USB controller, though, and the PC can quickly exhaust its capacity.

The only solution for bandwidth problems is to either stop using all the devices simultaneously or distribute the load. Make sure you put devices that will always see use, like Ethernet adapters and USB speakers, on different root hubs. You may need to get additional USB controllers, which are inexpensive, typically costing less than $40.

USB problems are usually an easy problem to solve. First, isolate the problem. Unplug all USB devices from the system, including USB hubs. Next, take a known good USB device and attach it to the system. If the known good device works, then you can be sure that there is nothing wrong with the port itself.

Now take the device that was malfunctioning and plug it directly into one of the computer’s USB ports while no other USB devices are connected to the system. If the device starts working, the problem most likely was that device was conflicting with another USB device. One way that USB devices can conflict with each other is if they share a common serial number. Each USB device in a system must have a unique serial number. Having two devices with a common serial number is very rare, but there are documented cases of it happening.

If the device now works and it isn’t sharing a serial number with another device, it was probably malfunctioning because of an overloaded USB hub or a conflicting device driver (Click here to run a scan for updated drivers). The only real way to sort out the problem is to use trial-and-error by plugging in various combinations of USB devices until you find the device or devices that the malfunctioning device is conflicting with. Once you track this down, you can usually solve the problem by moving the devices to different physical USB ports or by updating the drivers for both devices.

What if plugging in the malfunctioning device without any other USB devices being plugged in doesn’t cure the problem?

Try checking the computer’s Event Logs for clues to the malfunction. If the event log doesn’t give any clues, try plugging the malfunctioning device into another computer. If the device works on the other computer, then you can be sure that the device is good.

If the alternate computer is using an operating system other than Windows XP, the problem could be that the device or its driver isn’t Windows XP-compatible. Check to see if there are updates for your device for XP, if not, contact the device’s manufacturer to see if there are any known issues with using the device with Windows XP.

If the alternate computer is running Windows XP and the device is working, then I recommend checking out what version of the device driver is being used on each machine and using the one that works, even if it isn’t the most recent.

When Windows XP won’t recognize any USB device, regardless of which port it’s connected to, there is likely a BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) or Windows configuration problem. Check to see if there is a configuration option on your computer in the BIOS that asks whether an IRQ (Interrupt Request) should be assigned to USB. Although the option’s actual wording varies among BIOS manufacturers, you should enable this option by setting it to either On or Yes (depending on your BIOS manufacturer and BIOS version). Otherwise no USB devices will work in XP.

Here’s how to check if you have the latest Windows XP 2.0 USB Drivers installed on your system:

If you see a yellow exclamation ( ) next to the line, this indicates there is a problem with the device. To fix the problem, right click on the entry and select Properties. Click on the ‘Troubleshoot’ button and follow the prompts. In most cases this will help find a solution. The alternative is to right-click and select ‘Update driver’ while your computer is connected to the Internet.

If you do not see the”USB2 Enchanced Controller”, then you don’t have the USB 2.0 driver installed. You need to install either Windows 2000 Service Pack 4 or Windows XP Service Pack 3. After you have installed the Service Pack, restart your computer, then go back to the Device Manager and check the status of the USB Controllers. If you see the USB2 Controller, (without the yellow exclamation point) you’re good to go.

If not, you’ll need to find the specific USB 2.0 driver for your system. The six manufacturers of USB 2.0 controllers: Acer Labs, Intel, NEC, SiS, VIA and nVidia (which may appear as ‘Standard Controller’), but sometimes they are re-branded by other companies. In this case, you will need to find out which Controller is on your system and visit the manufacturers site for an update or special instructions.

Installing a USB Printer – For printers that are linked to a computer by a USB cable. Here’s how locate problems with and update your printer driver:

A USB printer is linked to your computer by a USB cable. This cable should come with your printer, but if not can be found easily at any electronic store. One end of the USB cable is a simple male USB connector, the other end is a special “Type B” USB connector. The USB connector fits easily into your computer, the other end goes into your printer. If it doesn’t fit in easily, try rotating the cable.

To link your computer with your printer, plug in the USB cable, and turn the power to your printer on. You will notice a pop up warning that new hardware is being installed and that Windows will try to find the drivers for it. (At this point, you will not see your printer online yet.) Now you need to install the drivers for your particular printer. If you have the original CD that came with your printer, you can try to install the drivers from it first. However, these CDs become outdated, and you might have better luck going directly to the manufacturer’s web site to download the most up to date driver for your printer.

I am going to use an HP printer as an example. Search in Google for whatever manufacturer your printer is. (Click here for a directory of popular printer manufacturers.) The directions from my example will be very similar for whatever brand your printer is.

Go to www.hp.com Click on “Support & Drivers” tab at the top

Follow the steps to identify your printer.

Once the correct printer is identified, select your operating system.

Now you will see a list of drivers available for download. Also, if there are software updates you can download them from this page as well.

By clicking on one of the links, you are redirected to a webpage that explains (in most of the cases) what the software products is designed to do. That page contains the actual download link.

By clicking on the download link, a download window appears. Then choose a location where to save the file to. (I suggest creating a separate folder, name it after your printer and burn it on a CD later (it will save you from repeating this process whenever you format your hard drive or install a new version of Windows). After you have saved the file, go to that location, and double click it. It will bring up a warning window and you choose to run or cancel it. (Since we know it is downloaded from the manufacturer’s official website, it does not contain any viruses, spyware, or adware.) Click Run: and follow the prompts.

When connecting devices to your computer, make sure that you have the proper cables. For printers, USB is the most common type.

If you are unsure what type of cord you need, check your manual. (If you can’t find it, most manuals can be downloaded from the manufacturer’s website. Search by model name which is located on your printer.)

Some things to look for when buying a USB cable for your printer:

• Most printer-compatible USB cables have a flat “A” plug and a squarish “B” plug. The A end goes into a USB port on the back of your computer, and the B end is plugged into the back of the printer.
• Make sure the cord is long enough. (The standard 3 ft size is rarely long enough to connect the printer to the computer. I would buy one that is at least 6 ft.)
• Some cables have gold contacts, heavy shielding, or some other gimmick. These are generally unnecessary for printing, but shielding may be prudent if you have a cordless phone installed near your printer.

How you can tell if you have USB 2.0 on your computer, and why it matters:

If you plug a USB 2.0 device into a USB 1.1 port, Windows XP will display a warning message indicating that it will drop back to the slower data transfer speed. (USB 2.0 clocks in with a data transfer speed of 480 Mbits/second compared to USB 1.1’s 12 Mbits/second.)

1. Right click on “My Computer” and select “Properties.”
2. Select the Hardware tab and click the Device Manager button.
3. When Device Manager appears, click the + sign next to the Universal Serial Bus Controllers branch.

If you see an entry containing the words “Enhanced USB Controller”, then the system has a USB 2.0 controller. If you see an entry containing the words “USB Controller”, the system has a USB 1.1 controller.

Note: This tip applies to both Windows XP Home and Professional editions.

USB problems after upgrading Windows - It is not uncommon for USB devices to cause problems after upgrading a computer from Windows 98, Me, 2000, XP or Vista. If you encounter a problem after you upgrading, first check to see if your device is compatible. Check the Windows hardware compatibility list (HCL) and the manufacturer’s site for information regarding compatibility. You should also download and install the latest device drivers (click here to scan your PC for updated drivers). Some devices listed on the HCL don’t function properly and also there are devices not listed on the HCL which function perfectly, depending on the particular driver used. Sometimes it just comes down to a process of trial and error.

Windows won’t recognize any USB devices – When Windows XP won’t recognize any USB device, regardless of which port it’s connected to, there is likely a BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) or Windows configuration problem. Check to see if there is a configuration option on your computer where the BIOS that asks whether an IRQ (Interrupt Request) should be assigned to USB. Although the option’s actual wording varies among BIOS manufacturers, you should enable this option by setting it to either On or Yes (depending on your BIOS manufacturer and BIOS version). Otherwise no USB devices will work on XP.

Problems with XP’s USB Controller – A problem with Windows XP’s USB Controller configuration can also prevent any USB devices from working. To determine whether the USB controllers are working properly, open Device Manager and expand the Universal Serial Bus Controllers node. Beneath this node, you should see a USB Universal Host Controller and a USB Root Hub.  You should see either a USB Universal Host Controller and a USB Root Hub listed for each of your computer’s USB ports or a USB Universal Host Controller and USB Root Hub for multiple ports.

Regardless of how many USB Universal Host Controller and USB Root Hub entries your PC has, if any of the icons have a red X over them, they’ve been disabled. If a device is disabled, you can enable it by right-clicking the device and selecting Enable from the resulting shortcut menu.

Also, check the driver that is being used for your USB ports. To do so, right-click on a USB component, click Properties and select the Driver tab. The Driver tab should list the Driver provider as Microsoft. The Digital Signer should be Microsoft Windows XP Publisher. If it lists anything else, you might want to update the driver. (If you have just updated the driver and started having problems, you might want to try to roll back the driver.)

If the driver appears to be OK, but you can’t seem to make any USB device function, then use the Uninstall button. This will allow you to remove the driver completely and make Windows think that the USB ports don’t even exist. Then you can go back to the System Properties sheet and click the Add Hardware Wizard button. This will allow Windows to redetect your computer’s USB ports. Normally, during the redetection process, Windows will try to enable the ports using the standard Microsoft drivers. Assuming that there is nothing physically wrong with your computer’s USB ports, this should fix the problem.

Bandwidth and power problems – Another common problem with USB devices is that you can only use so many USB devices simultaneously. This is because each USB 1.1 port is limited to 12 Mbps (megabits per second) of bandwidth (USB 2.0 allows for 480 Mbps) and 500 mA. If you exceed either of these limitations, then the USB devices will cease to function.

There is no real way of knowing how many USB devices you can use before you exceed your bandwidth limitations. There is also no monitor to examine the USB bandwidth. You’re going to have to evaluate it for yourself. Scanners and digital cameras use a lot of bandwidth because they transfer large files of data to your computer. Think about what devices are connected to your computer’s USB port, and how they are being used. If you have lots of devices connected that transmit a lot of data, you might be pushing your luck on the port’s available bandwidth.

Power consumption is a lot easier to figure out than bandwidth consumption. To figure out how much power you are consuming, there are a few things to keep in mind. First, each USB port on your computer supplies 500 mA. This 500 mA has to be shared among all devices connected to it. If you connect a single device to a USB port, power consumption isn’t a consideration, because most USB devices only consume around 100 mA.

Things start getting interesting when you start connecting USB hubs. If you connect a USB hub to a USB port, then the port’s 500 mA must be shared between the USB hub and all of the devices connected to the hub. You can also daisy chain USB hubs. If you daisy chain USB hubs together, you can have up to five hubs connected in a series. 500 mA must be sufficient to power all connected hubs and devices. A USB hub does consume power, even if no other devices are connected to it.

Many manufacturers have started making USB hubs that have an external power supply. If you have a USB hub with an external power supply, the power supply will supply a total of 500 mA to the hub. This means that if you have multiple powered hubs daisy chained together, then each hub will be self sufficient and will consume almost no power from the computer’s USB port or from other hubs in the chain.

There are still limitations though. The five-hub limit still applies whether the hubs are powered or not. The other limit is that you must still avoid overburdening any one hub with USB devices with excessive power consumption. Finally, external power sources do nothing to provide extra bandwidth. If you were to interconnect five hubs with four devices each, you could connect 20 USB devices to a single USB port, as long as none of the devices had excessive power consumption. At the same time, though, these 20 devices would have to share the 12 Mbps of available bandwidth.

Windows will actually tell you how much power your USB devices are using. This number doesn’t actually measure power consumption, but rather how much of the USB port’s power is being used. Remember that you can have powered USB hubs connected to the computer. If a powered hub is connected, then the devices will be feeding off of the hub’s power, not off of the computer’s power. Therefore, the computer will show you that there is very little or no power being drawn from the USB port.

To view USB power consumption, return to the Device Manager, right-click the USB Root Hub entry, and click Properties to display the USB Root Hub Properties sheet. Select the Power tab and you will see how much power is being drawn from the USB ports.

If a device (or a combination of devices) draws too much power, then the hub will usually turn off the port. To get the port to function again, you must disconnect the device and reattach it to the port. Depending on the type of hub that you are using, there may also be a dialog box that prompts you to reset the port.

Problems with a specific USB device – This usually an easy problem to solve. First, isolate the problem. Unplug all USB devices from the system, including USB hubs. Next, take a known good USB device and attach it to the system. If the known good device works, then you can be sure that there is nothing wrong with the port itself.

Now take the device that was malfunctioning and plug it directly into one of the computer’s USB ports while no other USB devices are connected to the system. If the device starts working, the problem most likely was that device was conflicting with another USB device. One way that USB devices can conflict with each other is if they share a common serial number. Each USB device in a system must have a unique serial number. Having two devices with a common serial number is very rare, but there are documented cases of it happening.

If the device now works and it isn’t sharing a serial number with another device, it was probably malfunctioning because of an overloaded USB hub or a conflicting device driver. The only real way to sort out the problem is to use trial-and-error by plugging in various combinations of USB devices until you find the device or devices that the malfunctioning device is conflicting with. Once you track this down, you can usually solve the problem by moving the devices to different physical USB ports or by updating the drivers for both devices.

What if plugging in the malfunctioning device without any other USB devices being plugged in doesn’t cure the problem? Try checking the computer’s Event Logs for clues to the malfunction. If the event log doesn’t give any clues, try plugging the malfunctioning device into another computer. If the device works on the other computer, then you can be sure that the device is good.

If the alternate computer is using an operating system other than Windows XP, the problem could be that the device or its driver isn’t Windows XP-compatible. Check to see if there are updates for your device for XP, if not, contact the device’s manufacturer to see if there are any known issues with using the device with Windows XP.

If the alternate computer is running Windows XP and the device is working, then I recommend checking out what version of the device driver is being used on each machine and using the one that works, even if it isn’t the most recent.