USB 2.0 PCI card problem

[anng]

I have a HP Pavilion 8495 which came with Windows 98. Three years ago I upgraded to Windows XP. I recently added a USB 2.0 card as the computer had only two USB 1 ports on the motherboard and I wanted to run a DVD writer on a USB 2.0 port. When I plug in the DVD writer it tells me that it could run faster on an enhanced port and indentifies an enhanced port running with 6 ports available. I am plugged into the USB 2.0 card when this happens. The USB 2.0 card that I installed was a Koutech Model IO-PU221 which has two ports on the card and pins to connect internal USB ports. I don't use the pins. I have uninstalled and reinstalled this card several times. I disabled Legacy USB Support in the BIOS (suggested on the HP site). I noticed that my BIOS is not the latest but am unsure if I want to update as my operating system is now Windows XP not Windows 98 and I'm not sure how the update would work with another OS. I'm not sure it matters seeing the PCI contains the needed info in any case. I would give you a screen print of the device manager but I haven't used screen print since I was using DOS years ago and it doesn't seem to work when I push the screen print key on the keyboard. What combination of keys will do a screen print. I have forgotten.

[glc]

If you could, please just list what's under USB in device manager - and also anything under Other Devices - and anything in device manager that's yellow or red flagged.

To print screen, press the print screen key - then open Paint and paste from the clipboard. Crop it and save as a .jpg if you can - otherwise save as a .bmp and use something like Irfanview to resize and save as a .jpg. If it's under 100kb, you can upload it as an attachment, we prefer that instead of posting it as an inline image.

[anng]

I used an external drive that I can easily turn off and on to show you the problem rather than the DVD writer drive. Attached are two device manager screen prints and the message I get when I attach the hard drive.

[glc]

The ALi controllers are probably your card - and the drivers are not fully installed. The "standard enhanced" should say ALi 2.0 or something like that instead.

As a note, I've had very poor luck using USB 2.0 cards based on the ALi chipset, I fight constant battles with this on a particular customer's laptop - been through several PCMCIA USB 2.0 cards - and this is with XP which is a LOT easier to work with than 98 when it comes to USB. The only stable and reliable USB 2.0 I've worked with is the native USB 2.0 on Intel chipset motherboards.

[anng]

I have tried forcing the AVI enhanced driver by updating the driver and forcing it to choose the AVI enhanced driver (which it will not do by choice) but then it makes a new set of Universal Serial Bus controllers in the device manager and it doesn't recognize the existing port or the other AVI drivers as being in that list. By the way, the computer now has Windows XP installed although it wasn't recommended by HP to do so. It is Windows XP that is choosing the standard enhanced driver over the AVI enhanced driver.

[anng]

I wanted to edit my last post but didn't see how. In any case I have decided to have one last try at getting this usb 2 card to work for me. I want to uninstall all the usb ports and reinstall only the usb ports on the usb 2 card (in other words I want to suppress the installation of the usb 1 ports on the motherboard. Is this possible? - it always seems to automaticly install these. Can I stop Windows XP from installing?

[glc]

Nope - not unless you can turn them off in the bios.

[anng]

Thanks - I may try doing that assumming that this will not inhibit the installation of USB in general. I know my BIOS are not the latest but after the installation of Windows XP - which was much faster than Windows 98 when I originally installed but with all the updates probably is nolonger - I could no longer update the BIOS. My son has indicated that if I use my old Windows XP startup disk I should be able to flash the BIOS and I may try that but am a little afraid of messing things up and making it unusable and it actually is my husband's computer rather than mine. I have been unable to get the help from HP to tell me what is contained on the undated BIOS so I am unsure whether it would do me any good in any case. In affect the help phone from HP does not seem to know anymore about it than is on the site - which is nothing other than the download. The download is an executable and I don't want to start something unless I am sure I can stop it. It may, however, have more information contained in it before it installs.

If I have indicated any action here that worries you please let me know your concerns. In any case thanks for your help.