Does anyone have any ideas as to a cheap PCI(or ISA, but that's extremely unlikely) USB 2.0 card? I'm looking at giving one of my old machines a makeover to allow it to play music accross 5.1 from my iPod. Thoughts?

come on...nobody knows?

bump

Take a look at my HCL Entries, I put all the details in there a while back for the one I use.

Edit: Oh, "USB Card" not "USB Card Reader", by goof. never mind.

care to help, me out? there are a bunch of entries for USB 2.0, and I'm not really even sure where to start.

For my old Ubuntu box I went to my favorite local computer shop and bought a "AP USB 2.0 (6 Port) PCI Card" for $17 (in Canada). It gives you 4 ports in back and 2 inside the case.

The sticker on the card says, "ALI 6 Port USB".

It was autodetected with no problems and works great!

What about a Belkin F5U005? I can get it on clearance at Staples for $6.50

It's USB1.1 only and only 2 ports, but should probably work fine.

Are you sure it's only USB1.1? I could have sworn it was 2.0...maybe that's the reason it's on clearance

http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProdu...oduct_Id=20725

I don't see one word mentioning 2.0, but I do see this:
If it was 2.0, it would definitely be mentioned, I think.

EDIT: Did a little more reading and I'm sure now. It's definitely USB 1.1

Here's the pertinent quote: USB2.0 would be 480Mbits/sec

ok...thanks. That's helpful, I won't buy that one. Does anyone have any other suggestions?

For me I use an Adaptec USB controller. Worked out of the box with the ehci-hcd module.

Brian1

Yes. Any computer store will be able to sell you a USB2.0 PCI card. They're as common as dirt. And they're not expensive.

Phone ahead if you're worried about their inventory and ask if they have any in stock and how much.

but will the USB2.0 card function w/ linux? my understanding of it is, is that USB 2.0 cards that have a working linux driver are pretty scarce. Am I wrong?

There is only one standard 2.0 USB module that I know of. It is ehci-hcd. Usb controllers version 1.0-1.1 use either ohci-hcd or uhci-hcd. I myself have never seen a usb controller come with a Linux driver. I could be wrong. Agreed not all 2.0 controllers work. I have seen one from SIIG that worked with some kernels and not with other kernels. Thats my only really confused experience with a USB controller.

Brian1

Not sure about that. If you like, you can send me the cash (with taxes and shipping) and I'll mail ya a known-good usb2.0 card, same as the one I have. I'd have to let you know the exact amount.

I've only tried it on Ubuntu and PCLinuxOS, but detection/driver was not an issue with either distro. Both worked without doing anything. Totally automatic. And, since I have both an external USB hard drive and a OCZ dual channel USB2.0 stick, I know the card is doing 2.0. When I plug either storage device into the front USB1.1 sockets on the machine, they're horribly slow. Plug em into the card and they're very very fast.