Can you plug USB 1.1 things to USB 2.0 ports?

[robo555]

Say I have a regular USB keyboard/mouse/printer, can I plug that into a USB 2.0 port? Of course there won't be any speed increase, but will those hardware function as normal?

I know that when USB 2.0 things are plug into USB 1.1 ports, they'll run at USB 1.1 speed.

The reason I ask is that, motherboards often comes with a mixture of USB 1.1 and USB 2.0 ports. If you can plug USB 1.1 things to USB 2.0 ports, why doesn't the manufacturers just make all ports USB 2.0?

[RJ]

yes

USB 2.0 is backwards compatible.

RJ

[robo555]

So why do new motherboards have a mixture of USB 1.1 and USB 2.0 ports when they can all be USB 2.0? I assume it costs the same to make USB 2.0 ports.

[RJ]

I'm not quite sure, but I think that only a few chipsets support USB 2.0. At least I know that the new Intel chipsets (will be released shortly) will support USB2.0, so the current ones only support USB 1.1.

If a mainboard supports USB 2.0, then only via a extra USB 2.0 controller chip on the board.

This way you get both, the USB 1.1 controlled by the chipset itself and the USB 2.0 controlled by the extra controller.

For example, my mainboard has the BX chipset. BX only supports UDMA 33. My board also has a UDMA100 controller chip on it, so I have 2 UDMA33 ports and 2 UDMA 100.

I assume it's the same with USB.

RJ

[Chrisk]

If I hook up my mp3 player to a usb 2.0 port will it communicate at what speed?

[robo555]

Your MP3 player is probably USB 1.1, so it'll go at 1.1's speed

[Streams]

you're mp3 player will communicate at 12 mbps this is the max speed for USB 1.1