I have plugged in an external HDD, but it seems rather slow. I have both USB 2.0 and 1.1. controllers on the main board (ASUS).

How can I find out which ports support which version of USB?

Thanks.

The command "dmesg" from a terminal window should tell you, or, if not, "lspci" (I'll have to check).

What you could always do is plug the HDD into the different ports to see which ones are the faster ones, and those are the USB 2.0 ports!

Cheers,

-jk

Ps. Welcome to LQ!

In theory all of your ports should be able to use both modes. The two different controllers should be on the same chip (the southbridge if memory serves) and each port can be handled by the controller that matches your device. I personally use firewire 800 for my external hdds, but that is just a personal preference...

Hope it helps,

Tox.

The drive should be capable of both modes but not the port.
ochi & uhci modules are USB 1.1, ehci is USB 2.0
The motherboard manual should indicate which port is what type.
Post the model number of the motherboard.

Asus A7V8X (basic model without RAID or WiFi)

It's got me baffled because the board has 4 pre-installed ports, plus an add-on PCI card with 2 more ports. Now it says these additional ports on the PCI card are USB 2.0, but they are definitely not running at that speed.

Anyway, can anyone give some advice on how best to use the available ports. The HDD needs 2.0 of course, but the mouse does not. What about printer and scanner?

lspci says:

0000:00:10.0 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 80)
0000:00:10.1 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 80)
0000:00:10.2 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 80)
0000:00:10.3 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB 2.0 (rev 82)


Btw, I'm really liking the external HDD, so I'm considering getting a Firewire 800 card, and a new enclosure. As of which Linux Kernel is FW 800 stable?


Thanks.

Check the output of lsmod to see if the ehci module is loading.
Only the disk drive really needs USB 2.