External HD help, Please Read Carefully.

[U2K Tha Greate$t]

I repeat , please read carefully. I say this, because i notice people have a habit of not reading and refusing to answer the question directly.

.............................................................................

Alright , take a look at my system Specs in my sig first. ( Everything is working smooth as pie ). Next, here is the issue, not a big issue, just a issue.

My computer does not come with USB 2.0, it comes with what i believe is 1.0 or 1.1( not really sure ) and i have a external HD 500GB my Book edition. So i bought a USB 2.0 PCI card to add to my PCI slot( i have 4 PCI slots ). So i have a Visiontek 2400HD in one slot, a Sound Blaster in the other, and i had the PCI 2.0 card in the other one. So anyways, everything works fine with everything in my computer, yes even with 90watts.

So for about 2 years now, i had the External HD hook up to one of the USB 2.0 slots, i thought everything was fine. My overall system was running fine and fast, game performance is important to me, because i game alot and i have over 400 pc games. I did notice that game performance was dragging a bit, here and there, and alot of games tend to struggle, didn't pay it no mind, i just figure it was my 600mhz holding me back, and maybe my card. or cards.

Now this is the interesting part

So anyways, just recently i unhook the external HD from the USB 2.0 PCI card, because i had to check something and i notice my system running about 60% faster, everything was moving fast, so i tested out about 2 games which ran pretty bad before, and WOW my performance went up about 60%.

Those 2 games which i had trouble with, ran almost perfectly, with no slowdown or anything. Its like my rig got a Super power boost.

So this is when i finally understood what bottlenecking was and for some reason " The External HD was bottlenecking my computer in the PCI 2.0 USB Card "

So at this point i am like WOW, but i had to put the 500GB external HD somewhere because i wanted to use it. So now i have the external HD hook up to the back of my tower in one of the USB slots. Only thing its 1.1 speed, or 1.0 speed. I am still bottleneck free, and the HD runs just fine and my system is faster. So thats the good news.

The bad news, not too bad , but kinda of a nag.

Well the HD is running about 30% slower then it was when its hook up to the PCI 2.0 card. So i lose speed from the external HD, but gain about 60% performance in gaming and my system when its hook up to the back of my tower in one of the 1.1 USB slots. So what is more important? LOL i plan to keep it in the back of my tower of course :)

Question, possible work around

But i was curious is there any way to keep the HD in the PCI 2.0 slot and find a way to get around the bottlenecking?

I read that there might be a conflict to why it becomes bottleneck, maybe lack of resources, ?????????

What do you guys think, do you think it becomes bottleneck because the PSU just can't handle that one thing?

I mean, as i said everything is working fine. Could it be that, that the 500GB Is too much when hook up to the PCI 2.0 card?

And how come it works just fine in 1.0 or 1.1 speed, with no bottlenecking, but becomes bottleneck when hook up to 2.0 speed?

Thanks :)

[+allan MVC]

I'm sorry to post something that doesn't help your problem, but I just want to comment on something if I may. Neither the tone of your first sentence nor the length of your post are conducive to receiving assistance. The idea is to make people want to help you, not to insult them before they have the opportunity to do so. And while I can't speak for anyone else, I know it's easier for me to read a brief description of a problem than a long one.

Please do not take this post the wrong way - my intent is not to offend you but to point out why some members may choose not to respond and to suggest a way to avoid a similar situation in the future.

Edited January 4, 2009 by allan

[Buzz99]

Read carefully :

Get a new rig.

[shihchiun]

I'm sorry to post something that doesn't help your problem, but I just want to comment on something if I may. Neither the tone of your first sentence nor the length of your post are conducive to receiving assistance. The idea is to make people want to help you, not to insult them before they have the opportunity to do so. And while I can't speak for anyone else, I know it's easier for me to read a brief description of a problem than a long one.

Please do not take this post the wrong way - my intent is not to offend you but to point out why some members may choose not to respond and to suggest a way to avoid a similar situation in the future.

+1

Anyway, no, it's not the PSU. The hard drive is externally powered and the internal USB card draws a negligible amount of power. When there's not enough power things just stop working properly, they don't slow down.

Now, as for this "bottlenecking" - USB is quite CPU-intensive. On a slower system such as yours, you're going to notice it. I don't know why it would happen only with the PCI card, but that could be an explanation.

[U2K Tha Greate$t]

I'm sorry to post something that doesn't help your problem, but I just want to comment on something if I may. Neither the tone of your first sentence nor the length of your post are conducive to receiving assistance. The idea is to make people want to help you, not to insult them before they have the opportunity to do so. And while I can't speak for anyone else, I know it's easier for me to read a brief description of a problem than a long one.

Please do not take this post the wrong way - my intent is not to offend you but to point out why some members may choose not to respond and to suggest a way to avoid a similar situation in the future.

Read carefully :

Get a new rig.

" I repeat , please read carefully. I say this, because i notice people have a habit of not reading and refusing to answer the question directly. "

Hey Allan You see why i said to read carefully, because people like Buzz99 is just like alot of other folks , instead of answering the question, they say things like that, that really bothers me, because it has nothing to do with the subject. Thats why i said for people to read carefully, i didn't say that to be unkind, i said that to clear up some confusion and ignorance and buzz99 just prove my point once again. by ignoring the question and only reading what he wants to read and say nonsense.

Anyways :)

+1

Anyway, no, it's not the PSU. The hard drive is externally powered and the internal USB card draws a negligible amount of power. When there's not enough power things just stop working properly, they don't slow down.

Now, as for this "bottlenecking" - USB is quite CPU-intensive. On a slower system such as yours, you're going to notice it. I don't know why it would happen only with the PCI card, but that could be an explanation.

Thanks for the information. Yea it only happens when i plug it into the pci card for some reason. I am just going to buy a larger internal HD that will help.

peace :) But everything is working great, no more bottlenecking or anything on my rig no more, i just have to leave the external HD in the 1.1 usb slot and lose about 30% of speed for that drive, but its not that bad. Only a slight delay when loading up and games tend to take about an extra 20 seconds to load. But once its loaded, everything is very smooth.

[zivan56]

Does the USB PCI card have it's own dedicated IRQ? Is it sharing one? Have you tried moving it to another PCI slot?

If you buy a drive bigger than 137.4 GB, make sure your motherboards IDE controller supports LBA48. Otherwise, it will not work properly, or it will just be limited to 137.4 GB.

[+allan MVC]

" I repeat , please read carefully. I say this, because i notice people have a habit of not reading and refusing to answer the question directly. "

Hey Allan You see why i said to read carefully, because people like Buzz99 is just like alot of other folks , instead of answering the question, they say things like that, that really bothers me, because it has nothing to do with the subject. Thats why i said for people to read carefully, i didn't say that to be unkind, i said that to clear up some confusion and ignorance and buzz99 just prove my point once again. by ignoring the question and only reading what he wants to read and say nonsense.

I don't want to make this a long conversation or a confrontational situation, but you need to understand this is a public forum and people come here trying to help. Some posts will be more helpful than others, but nobody is getting paid to help, and certainly nobody has to pay to receive help - so you take what you get - know what I mean? It's the same for everyone. Just post your question and hope for the best - be grateful of the posts that help and ignore the rest ;).

Okay, I'll stop now :)

[U2K Tha Greate$t]

Does the USB PCI card have it's own dedicated IRQ? Is it sharing one? Have you tried moving it to another PCI slot?

I don't know or understand what you mean about IRQ? Can you explain it, and also i could try moving it into another PCI slot and see what happens.

I put my sound card in the same slot as the USB card was in, and it works just fine.

However, I have no issues with the USB card, if you must know. Because i added both of my USB controllers to it. My system only seems to be bottleneck when add the 500GB to the USB card. The 500GB + USB PCI card = Major major bottleneck. Anything else in the Card, no bottleneck.

If you buy a drive bigger than 137.4 GB, make sure your motherboards IDE controller supports LBA48. Otherwise, it will not work properly, or it will just be limited to 137.4 GB.

My Internal and external HD works just fine. I only seem to have a issue when i plug the external into the pci card. It may be a conflict going on.

I do want to point out something, when i plug in the USB 2.0 card, in device manager, there are like 3 devices name USB 2.0. Is that a problem?

[zivan56]

I don't know or understand what you mean about IRQ? Can you explain it, and also i could try moving it into another PCI slot and see what happens.

I put my sound card in the same slot as the USB card was in, and it works just fine.

IRQ is a signal used to "interrupt" the CPU when the device has something to send. When more than one device use a single IRQ and are very active, it causes the computer to slow down significantly...since it has to communicate with both devices that share it. This causes other system component to get less access and in turn slows them down as well. I guess the easiest way to change it is to put your USB card in another PCI slot (there are other ways, but it's really complicated). You wouldn't have a problem with the device now working, but it will just slow them down. The best way to see if the USB is sharing an irq, is to use a program like aida32.

However, I have no issues with the USB card, if you must know. Because i added both of my USB controllers to it. My system only seems to be bottleneck when add the 500GB to the USB card. The 500GB + USB PCI card = Major major bottleneck. Anything else in the Card, no bottleneck.

Yes, this is probably because the USB driver polls each device, and the USB card in turn generates an interrupt when it has to communicate with the driver. So this is probably causing the slowdown.

My Internal and external HD works just fine. I only seem to have a issue when i plug the external into the pci card. It may be a conflict going on.

I do want to point out something, when i plug in the USB 2.0 card, in device manager, there are like 3 devices name USB 2.0. Is that a problem?

USB does not have the LBA48 issue, it is a problem with IDE controllers that are on older hardware. So if you buy a 500GB internal drive (you posted that you wanted to buy an internal one), you might not be able to use it internally.

No, the 3 devices is fine.

[U2K Tha Greate$t]

Yea i would like to buy a 60GB Internal HD to replace my 10GB. :) Maybe 80GB.

Anyways, i download that program, here it is , the info:

http://www.filecram.com/files/INFO3.jpg

I don't see my external HD , unless i am missing something. But there you go, maybe you can figure it out :)

thanks

[zivan56]

I think I see what the issue is now. The problem is the PCI video card, especially when playing games, completely saturates the PCI bus (uses it 100%). So whenever another PCI device is in use, it will delay the data going to your video card (i.e when drive is plugged in and used by Windows). However, you won't really notice it with other devices, but a video card uses such a large amount of bandwidth that it is immediately noticeable. This is basically why they invented an AGP slot...to have a separate, higher speed bus, dedicated to graphics only.

I would say there is not much you can do except remove the external hard drive while playing.

You can get a really cheap motherboard and CPU combo for around $50 USD, which will give you a really good performance boost:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16813135060

I would say that the system is quite old, and you will probably need to upgrade. You will probably pay a premium for an IDE hard drive, so it's probably not worth investing into that computer.

[U2K Tha Greate$t]

I think I see what the issue is now. The problem is the PCI video card, especially when playing games, completely saturates the PCI bus (uses it 100%). So whenever another PCI device is in use, it will delay the data going to your video card (i.e when drive is plugged in and used by Windows).

I understand what you are saying, however i have my sound card in place, thats not a problem, even when i add a 3rd PCI Card, the USB 2.0 PCI card thats not the problem either and everything is working just fine. Right now, i have my visiontek 2400hd, and my sound blaster in 2 of my pci slots, and my computer is not bottleneck at all.

I would say there is not much you can do except remove the external hard drive while playing.

No, my external HD is hook up, to the back of my tower, in the 1.1 USB port, and my computer is bottleneck free and everything is running smooth. The problem only shows up, if i plug in my internal HD to my USB 2.0 PCI card. But i can leave it in the back of the tower, 1.1 port and everything is fine.

That delay is due to the 1.1 speed, so playing a game for example, will take a extra 4 mins to load up, but once its loaded up, the game is running fine.

I understand what you are saying, i guess you can agree that the 500GB is too much strain hook up to the PCI 2.0 card. Thats what it seems to be , i was trying to figure out a way around it lol. Oh well, the slight delay/1.1 speed is fine, just have to wait like a extra 4 mins or so for the game to load, well depending on what game. Like crysis warhead, it use to take about 6 - 7 mins to load into game, now its 10 mins. But once fully loaded, the game plays just fine.

You can get a really cheap motherboard and CPU combo for around $50 USD, which will give you a really good performance boost:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16813135060

I would say that the system is quite old, and you will probably need to upgrade. You will probably pay a premium for an IDE hard drive, so it's probably not worth investing into that computer.

Oh no no, i am buying my secondary rig soon, for the newer newer games/apps, etc. I am buying a intel pentium dual core 2.4ghz, so no worries. My pentium III is my main rig , so i will have 2 desktop computers.

Thanks for all the help. I guess plugging the external HD in the usb 2.0 card is my limit. But as i said, its cool in 1.1 , just a tad slower, no biggie.

[+BudMan MVC]

I am buying a intel pentium dual core 2.4ghz, so no worries.

I would do a cost analysis vs a quadcore - I think you will find that the quads are a better deal.

[Buzz99]

First I have read your post entirely. I've been around for a long time and I always do read post entirely. My answer was a way tell you that you just don't need to point out those "read carefully" s**t. Members who want to answer generaly read post entirely. No need to emphasys on that. The answers you got made proof that whoever wants to answer read posts entirely. And by the what do you expect from a pentium III, 600MHz, with 512Mb of RAM ? PCs have limits don't you know ?

[zivan56]

Yeah, USB 1.1 is only 1.5 MB/s while USB 2.0 is 60MB/s. That's why it is noticeable only when plugged into the USB 2.0 card. The sounds card, which is receiving a standard 2 channel PCM stream is probably maxed out at 1 MB/s. The PCI bus provides 133MB/s...which the video card uses most of. So you do have a major bottleneck, which is currently the video card. The reason it works in the other port is because USB 1.1 uses so little bandwidth, that you can't really notice the difference. So yes, if you can handle 1.1 speeds (I personally would go crazy waiting for files to copy), then it's just best to leave the computer as-is for now.

[U2K Tha Greate$t]

I would do a cost analysis vs a quadcore - I think you will find that the quads are a better deal.

I am only paying 60 dollars for it. Its a used Rig, thats why its so cheap. And besides my p3 is working so amazing, i want to continue using the Pentium line and that last line is the Intel Pentium dual core. :)

First I have read your post entirely. I've been around for a long time and I always do read post entirely. My answer was a way tell you that you just don't need to point out those "read carefully" s**t. Members who want to answer generaly read post entirely. No need to emphasys on that. The answers you got made proof that whoever wants to answer read posts entirely. And by the what do you expect from a pentium III, 600MHz, with 512Mb of RAM ? PCs have limits don't you know ?

Yea it cool man, i just got sick of hearing that all the time on another forum, so its cool. On the other forum i was on, instead of people trying to figure out what the problem could be, all i seen was upgrade that POS, get rid of that POS, upgrade, upgrade, hahaha. And the thing was, none of the problems had nothing to do directly with my cpu. Even people with high end rigs have trouble playing older games as a example, are they suppose to upgrade even higher lol, i swear that forum which i was on, will you drive you crazy lol. I am glad i left.

Anywho, its cool buzz99 :)

Yeah, USB 1.1 is only 1.5 MB/s while USB 2.0 is 60MB/s. That's why it is noticeable only when plugged into the USB 2.0 card. The sounds card, which is receiving a standard 2 channel PCM stream is probably maxed out at 1 MB/s. The PCI bus provides 133MB/s...which the video card uses most of. So you do have a major bottleneck, which is currently the video card. The reason it works in the other port is because USB 1.1 uses so little bandwidth, that you can't really notice the difference. So yes, if you can handle 1.1 speeds (I personally would go crazy waiting for files to copy), then it's just best to leave the computer as-is for now.

Yea that make sense, thanks for the info. And yes, the other day i was trying to extract a 500MB file, and man it took about 2 hours or more. It will drive you crazy, i didn't know it that was that slow, guess i was using 2.0 too long.

I plan to open up my tower and mess around with stuff, maybe place this here or there, but it just seems like you are right, 2.0 might be too much to handle if i had certain things to it, like my external hd.

peace and thanks for the help. If i manage to find a work around, i will reply back!

[U2K Tha Greate$t]

Hey guys, i found out the problem was, it is a IRQ conflict, see look here:

IRQ 09 Shared VIA USB Enhanced Host Controller

IRQ 09 Shared VIA USB Universal Host Controller

IRQ 09 Shared VIA USB Universal Host Controller

I can disable 2 of them, the Universal host, and leave the Enhanced host enable. However, the problem is with all 3 of them, IRQ 09 is sharing with the following devices:

IRQ 09 Shared Sound Blaster Audigy

IRQ 09 Shared Intel® 82801AA USB Universal Host Controller

IRQ 09 Shared Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System

IRQ 09 Shared PCI standard PCI-to-PCI bridge

IRQ 09 Shared ATI Radeon HD 2400 Series

Is there any way i can change the IRQ settings in device manager, there is a option and i remember changing them on windows98se, but is this possible on w2k.

[U2K Tha Greate$t]

Check this out, i put in my BFG 6200 OC PCI card and look at it now:

DMA 02 Undetermined Standard floppy disk controller

DMA 03 Undetermined ECP Printer Port (LPT1)

DMA 04 Undetermined Direct memory access controller

IRQ 00 Exclusive System timer

IRQ 01 Undetermined PC/AT Enhanced PS/2 Keyboard (101/102-Key)

IRQ 04 Shared Communications Port (COM1)

IRQ 06 Undetermined Standard floppy disk controller

IRQ 08 Exclusive System CMOS/real time clock

IRQ 09 Shared Sound Blaster Audigy

IRQ 09 Shared Intel® 82801AA USB Universal Host Controller

IRQ 10 Shared Intel® 82801AA SMBus Controller

IRQ 11 Shared NVIDIA GeForce 6200

IRQ 12 Undetermined Microsoft PS/2 Mouse

IRQ 13 Exclusive Numeric data processor

IRQ 14 Exclusive Primary IDE Channel

IRQ 15 Exclusive Secondary IDE Channel

HOw come with my 2400HD it shares mostly everything, but with the 6200 it does not. Is this a ati issue or something?