Very slow transfer speeds while using pci based USB expansion card

quicky008

Technomancer
I had an old 4 port pci Usb expansion card lying around that i recently installed on one of my computers in order to supplement the quantity of available usb ports in it.The box in which the card was contained states that it supports USB 2.0.Despite being rather old,the card was detected in windows 10 and was installed without a hitch;however when i attempted to connect a pen drive to one of its ports and copy some data from it to my HDD,the transfer speeds were pathetically slow-in the region of 700kb/s-1MB/s and therefore it was practically unusable! I tried a variety of pen drives but the results were still the same.Also when i tried to copy some data from my hdd to pen drive the speeds i got were even slower.

The usb ports that are built into my motherboard usually give much higher transfer speeds that vary from 10-20 MB/s,but i don't understand why this card gives such slow speeds even though its supposed to be usb 2.0 compliant.On checking device manager i found that it has been detected as "ULI usb 2.0 enhanced host controller"(check screenshot).Can anyone tell me why is it providing such slow speeds-is it a limitation of the card itself or is something else causing this issue?
 

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patkim

Cyborg Agent
Did it come with any additional drivers for Windows just in case?

One thing you can try is boot with Live Linux DVD and check if it is getting detected. Do not go for system rescue kind of Linux CDs go for latest Ubuntu or Linux Mint etc that might be able to detect it on the fly.

From another OS like Live Linux DVD check the speed. If it is satisfactory may be something needs to be further investigated with drivers on Windows.
 
OP
quicky008

quicky008

Technomancer
the card is really old-i purchased it back in 2005/2006 to compensate for the lack of sufficient usb ports on the pc i had back then.It had been lying unused for the last 8-10 years.It might have come with a driver disc but i don't think i have it anymore-besides those drivers are likely to be very outdated and therefore incompatible with newer OSes.
 

topgear

Super Moderator
Staff member
Remove the card, try to find the model and manufacturer of the original chip maker on the card. Try to find drivers by the chipset model + manufacturer or if you don't want to remove it then get the Hardware ids of the card from device manager ? Also make sure if the card needs any additional power through molex or any other sort of power connector.
 
OP
quicky008

quicky008

Technomancer
Thanks topgear,i have since removed this card and installed a new one(an Enter 4+1 port usb 2.0 expansion card) as its replacement.This new card gives significantly better read/write speeds than the one i had earlier-I got avg write speeds of around 8 MB/s while trying to copy some data to a pen drive.

So it seems the older card was either faulty or was probably an usb 1/1.1 card that was falsely marketed as a usb 2.0 device-that's the reason it failed to give proper read/write speeds while accessing any removable storage device.Also i did check that card but couldn't find any auxillary power connectors on it-so we can discount the theory that it was not functioning properly as it was not receiving adequate power.
 
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