USB 2.0 is slowwwwwwww, need new motherboard or a system.


second exodous

Advanced Member
Joined
Sep 27, 2005
Messages
2,974
Location
Utah, USA
For the last year and a half I've been using eSATA, it maxes out your HD, the fastest connection. Well, something is wrong with my tower, I think it is the mother board, when I try to transfer anything it locks up no matter how I try it: eSATA, USB, firewire, um, those are it. I even installed the OS again and that didn't help. My mother board just went out of warranty also, tell me that wasn't planned.


Anyway, I've had to move some things around so I took the HDs out and put them in external enclosures and have been using my Atom PC to do it, all it has is USB 2.0. The thing is eSATA stays at a constant speed, between 40 MB/s and 80 MB/s depending on the drive I'm using, but USB never gets above like 25 MB/s and it goes clear down to 9 and then back up and then back down and then back up and you get the idea. Does USB 3.0 fluctuate this much? I think USB transfer speed is processor dependent where SATA isn't, is that where the problem is? Firewire is a pretty solid transfer rate also, don't know if that is processor dependent or not.


I'm hesitant to buy a new mother board since I don't use my main system at all anymore other than ripping media and encoding said media to .mkv files that my eee box can play. I'm sure my eee box will take hours to encode the video that takes my main system less time, maybe an half hour. I haven't even played any games on it for months, I'm not that big of a gamer anymore.


Right before this I was debating getting rid of my eee pc and trying a Panda board or wait until a Zbox AD03 came out. Right now when I rip blu-ray I can't play them on my eee box since it can't play even 720p video but both the Panda board and the zbox should be able to. Right now I use a media box to play every high quality video file on but it would be great to do that on the PC I use the most.


Now I don't know what to do, I'm lost.
 
USB 2.0 is just extremely slow. Max theoretical speed is 480Mbit/s but in practice it is always significantly slower. USB 3.0 should be closer to eSATA in speed. As I don't have any USB 3.0 devices yet, I can't comment on performance fluctuation.


If the case of your atom has room for it and it has a spare SATA port you can put in one of these to operate on eSATA speed.
 
A couple questions for ya:


What OS are you using? I have a kernel problem on my current install of Ubuntu that causes all transfers via USB to go slow as hell (has to be fixed by the kernel devs, can't do anything myself).


How many USB devices have you tried? Are they all flash-memory based? If so, what class is the flash memory?


Have you checked to see if there's an update to your BIOS? I've seen even re-flashing the same version fix weird problems like this.
 
I've used multiple versions of Linux, not all Ubuntu based, used Mandrake and Gentoo, all have this problem. I've updated the bios to no avail. I remember in the old days sometimes it helped to take out the cell battery and let the bios completely reset, maybe I'll try that.


I think I'm done with Asus for the rest of my life, this has happened to the last 3 Asus MBs I've owned, not this specific thing but they all fail shortly after the warranty runs out. That and they borked the graphics bus on the eee box model I have and they knew about it and still did it. Then there is Gigabyte MBs, I have had two, one worked for years but I gave it to a family member, don't know what happened to it and the second I gave to a fried and 8 years latter it is still running a server for him. Yeah, I'm done with Asus.


I've thought about opening up my eee box and seeing if there is a second SATA connector but I highly doubt that Asus would add a port that would never be used.


I've also thought about putting a SATA PCI card and seeing if that locks up the same way, but it is an expensive experiment, I could get an ok MB for just a little more. I feel bad for junking my MB, it is probably just a capacitor that needs replacing, but the angry Chinese tech support people want me to pay for shipping both ways and will charge at least $100 to look at it and there is no guarantee that it will be fixed, I've dealt with them before. Wish there was a computer shop that would do it for me but they always just want me to buy an entirely new MB.
 
I've used multiple versions of Linux, not all Ubuntu based, used Mandrake and Gentoo, all have this problem. I've updated the bios to no avail. I remember in the old days sometimes it helped to take out the cell battery and let the bios completely reset, maybe I'll try that.

I've seen this too. Also, disconnect the power supply from the mother board, not just unplug it from the wall.

I think I'm done with Asus for the rest of my life, this has happened to the last 3 Asus MBs I've owned, not this specific thing but they all fail shortly after the warranty runs out. That and they borked the graphics bus on the eee box model I have and they knew about it and still did it. Then there is Gigabyte MBs, I have had two, one worked for years but I gave it to a family member, don't know what happened to it and the second I gave to a fried and 8 years latter it is still running a server for him. Yeah, I'm done with Asus.

I've thought about opening up my eee box and seeing if there is a second SATA connector but I highly doubt that Asus would add a port that would never be used.

My problem isn't with Ubuntu specifically, but rather Linux in general. It's an unresolved mainline kernel issue. Can you try booting to a live Windows DVD to see if the problem persists there? I actually do not have this problem under Windows. This problem also affects my flash card reader. Disappointing, but true.


Fortunately, I too have a eSATA port, so that's what I wind up using instead of USB most of the time.


My experience with Asus has actually been pretty good. To be fair, the eee boxes are their cheapest machines. I did once have a faulty motherboard because of a capacitor issue, but they fixed it for me, no questions asked and free of charge. They even sent me a new one before they received my old one, which I thought was great customer service. The replacement board has been running linux rock-solid for years now (except that the USB performance isn't on par with Windows, which unfortunately seems to affect a decent portion of Linux users, not just Ubuntu users). I've reported the kernel issue along with lots of other users, but for some reason it goes unnoticed.


Such are the woes of we hobbyist OS users.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I've never had an Asus product go bad when it was within warranty, mine have gone bad a week to a few months out of it. When I call or e-mail they're always really strict about that, one day is too much, so they won't fix mine for free.


Also, one day my MB worked perfectly and the next it doesn't? I don't think that is the fault of Linux, something else is going on. I've even looked at the updates for Mint around the days of the failure and nothing that would affect this. It has to be hardware. I didn't know there was a such a thing as a live windows, I guess I could pirate that for a day to see if Windows has the same problem, but I don't own a copy currently and don't feel like spending $200 or whatever, might as well get a new MB for that price.


Also, moving files around on one drive, compiling on one drive, encoding video one one drive is fine. It is when I move 30GB or more to another drive or from another drive onto the main drive that it has problems. I don't get it.


There is no hurry to fix it though, might wait for a newegg sale on a good MB before I act, I'll try leaving my MB unplugged for a few days and see if that resolves it. Heck, I might just not have desktops anymore and just get a notebook, probably Apple so I can take it into a shop instead of using tech support, I dread that. . .
 
I'm not sure that I read your original post that carefully. I thought that it was your eee box that you were having problems with, but I think I see otherwise now.


It does sound like a hardware problem actually. Search Google for Hiren's CD for that live Windows disc I was talking about.
 
Well, I didn't pirate windows but I decided to unplug the power supply from the MB yesterday and it has been almost 24 hours. I think it worked, I'm moving 850GB from one of my externals to my main HD and it is on 300 GB now where before it would never get past 30 GB so it might be fixed. I'll move some stuff from my main drive on to an external next.


fixin' it old school!
 
Back
Top