After Win XP SP2 Upgrade, T41 USB 2 port runs at slow speed

[coreman]

You guys have me wondering...

Could this be the same sort of issue as the DMA to PIO fallback "feature" in Windows?
http://users.bigpond.net.au/ninjaduck/i ... /udma_fix/

Interesting read (thankfully I still have UDMA function!) and as I understand, there are fail safes written into the USB drivers that throttle them back to 1.1 to prevent complete failure but don't know the conditions that cause the throttle down.

It could very well be something in the registry that is causing this problem...certainly when I updated to SP2, the registry was modified. I am unwilling to go back to SP1 though simply because I want the security updates...

[LosBigeros]

Hello everyone! I'm newbe on this forum, but i have the same problem with usb2.0 working as 1.1
Yesterday i read this topic and i was hopeful that suggestions to change the driver for that unsigned will change sometching in my t40 but i dont even have that driver, so i was trying to change the driver for this one what is in allocation:
windows/system32/ReinstallBackups/number xxxx/driver files/
and what i get is that my non powererd external hdd (ibm 15GB, 5400rpm) working fine with usb2.0 i mean the transfer of data is around 18GB/sec - it working using by Intel(R) 8280 1DB/DBM USB Enhanced Host Controller - 24CD
Problem still is with my external powered dvdrw plugged into exactly in the same USB port - then dvdrw working with another controller: Intel(R) 8280 1DB/DBM USB Universal Controller - 24C4.
I dont understand what is going on 'cause change the USB ports betwen two of them give me nothing at all. Still hdd is using USB2.0 and DVDRW USB 1.1 otherwise two controller working with exactly the same single USB port? 20minutes ago i plugged dvdrw and wow!! there was no [censored] annoying message, "this device could perform faster if attached to a USB 2.0" popped up. So i thought lets burn some DVD, after 4% proggres DVDRW stops, popup shown again and everything was back to "normal" as it was before - USB1.1 Sic!!
Here is list of my devices:
Intel(R) 8280 1DB/DBM USB Universal Controller - 24C2 (dated 2001-07-01, version 5.1.2600.2180)
Intel(R) 8280 1DB/DBM USB Universal Controller - 24C4 (dated 2001-07-01, version 5.1.2600.2180)
Intel(R) 8280 1DB/DBM USB Universal Controller - 24C7 (dated 2001-07-01, version 5.1.2600.2180)
Intel(R) 8280 1DB/DBM USB Enhanced Host Controller - 24CD (dated 2002-06-01, version 5.1.2600.0)
USB Root Hub (dated 2001-07-01, version 5.1.2600.2180)
USB Root Hub (dated 2001-07-01, version 5.1.2600.2180)
USB Root Hub (dated 2001-07-01, version 5.1.2600.2180)

Operating system is Windows XP Pro SP2 - USB problem becomes after some windows security update i think, cause i have had SP2 a long time before and with my Ex HDD and Pendrive everything was ok - USB2.0.
So the question is: Is there any chance to push the DVDRW to useing Enhanced Host Controller? You Guys are very cleaver, maybe someone have the answer?

--

Regards
Losbigeros

[GomJabbar]

I would suggest that you try using a different, preferably new, USB cable. Make sure the cable is rated USB 2.0 HIGH SPEED. It is also helps if the cable is short.

[LosBigeros]

Ofcourse i was trying change the wires - no resulsts:( There are short approx 1m and new (dvdrw - rated USB2.0 high speed) so...
Thx for that suggestion.

[lautamas]

After wondering around almost for 1 month now. I decided that this is hardware issue. Well, at least for sure it's not a software issue. Why?
1. I changed my HD using another HD from another working T40. Yet, the downgraded USB speed message kept appearing.
2. I put my HD (from the bad USB T40) to another T40 machine...and it works FINE....no problem at all.

From those 2 above, I concluded that my HD has nothing to do with the USB port.

3. I have tried the 'driver dance' over and over. The result came out zero.

4. This is my 2nd MB changed in the last 2 months. The first one lasted only 1 week.

From point 4 above, I am still wondering whether this might have something do with the wrong driver installed and caused instability in the USB chip controller. Thus, in long run, it will burn on out the chip.

Any idea?

P.S. I am still waiting for another board replacement next week.
Before, changing the MB, I think I will reformat the whole Windows XP so I can make sure that the device driver from my current Windows XP doesnt mess with the USB port.

[GomJabbar]

You might be interested in reading the following regarding standard and non-standard power draws from USB devices. It seems that this could be the cause of some of the problems reported here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_2.0#Power_supply

[coreman]

After wondering around almost for 1 month now. I decided that this is hardware issue. Well, at least for sure it's not a software issue. Why?
1. I changed my HD using another HD from another working T40. Yet, the downgraded USB speed message kept appearing.
2. I put my HD (from the bad USB T40) to another T40 machine...and it works FINE....no problem at all.

From those 2 above, I concluded that my HD has nothing to do with the USB port.

3. I have tried the 'driver dance' over and over. The result came out zero.

4. This is my 2nd MB changed in the last 2 months. The first one lasted only 1 week.

From point 4 above, I am still wondering whether this might have something do with the wrong driver installed and caused instability in the USB chip controller. Thus, in long run, it will burn on out the chip.

Any idea?

1. HD has zero to do with USB speed, the ports are controlled by the drivers and chipsets.

2. "Driver Dance" doesn't always work for me either...what I have to do is install the USB2 driver first, connect the device and see if I get "THE message"...if I do, then I uninstall the USB2 and reinstall the proper USB 2.0 driver and try again. Sometimes I will still get "THE message" and have to do it a second time. Occasionally I will reboot between the USB2 and USB 2.0 driver installations but I've never failed to get the port running again at USB 2.0 speeds, albeit temporarily.

I am very, very convinced this is a software/driver issue and not hardware...having said this, a completely clean install with the next motherboard is probably a very good idea...at least you'll clean out the registry.

[lautamas]

Quote:
1. HD has zero to do with USB speed, the ports are controlled by the drivers and chipsets.


I agree that HD has nothing to do with USB Speed.


What I did was trying to proof my theory that it's hardware problem NOT software/driver problem.
Please understand that we have 6 T40 here in the office. one of them (happens to be mine) has this USB problem. The rest 5 is fine. What I did was Harddisk swap...nothing to do with reformatiing...SIMPLY A HARDDISK SWAP...

Now, I put my HD (including the whole OS and Driver) into their T40 and boot up. I plug-in a USB 2.0 and there was no message, nothing at all...the USB 2.0 was running 2.0 for sure. So, from this, I conclude that the settings and device driver installed in my HD is OK..


2nd:
I put another HD from another system (also with the whole Windows XP and device driver. Note that I DO NOT reinstall any of this Windows XP..I simply SWAP the HD, no reformatiing was involved) into my T40 (that has bad UDB 2.0 connection)....and boom...the message just appeared again....


Conclusion...it's not Software related...it's HD related. Basically, my MB is screwed.

Well, that's the temporary conclusion I can get from the experiment above. Let's see if maybe 2-3 months from now, I'll come back to this forum and say the otherwise.

[frankie66]

H/W vs S/W?
perhaps there should be a vote.

My vote is S/W.

Why?

Because if it was hardware it would have happened 3 years ago when these machines first came out, dust or nor no dust hardware does not work ok for 3 years and then suddenly start failing like this. That said I do also think the bug is on the chipset which Intel have now left behind. If you get a new MB with the old chip it will have the bug and will fail. A new MB with the newer chips will be ok.

The other thing that has not in my mind be explained properly is the reduced speed. Hardware breaks!.... it doesn't reduce speed, the speed reduction is done by software that thinks it needs to slow down. Nad hardware doesn't suddenly fix itself when drivers are changed.

The biggest problem is that Intel will never look into this and IBM/Lenovo will just go down the road of MB replacement as a solution.

I give up: My solution is a PCMCIA card, works great and is not an Intel chipset!

[LosBigeros]

aha, pcmcia card is the best solution, yesterday i was happy cause everything started working fine, pendrive and external dvdrw untill i shuted down PC, today only externall hdd is working as it should be - USB2.0. The dvdrw and pendrive only at USB1.1 sic!!! (ex hdd, pendrive and dvdrw was connected to the same one port USB one after another)
PCMCIA cards are 16 or 32bits right? Wich one to T40 i should buy?

[christopher_wolf]

You should ideally get 32bit PCMCIA, although 16bit PCMCIA is still supported on the T40.

[Sgt Raven]

You should ideally get 32bit PCMCIA, although 16bit PCMCIA is still supported on the T40.

Has anyone with a slow running USB port tried a PCMCIA 32 bit card, and does it solve the problem? I'm having problems with the Cisco PCmini card in my T40 after upgrading to SP2 so I put a Linksys PCMCIA G card in for now. If the USB PC card fixed the problem I'd use one for running full backups to a external HD.

[lautamas]

I just had my MB replaced today. I have reformatted the computer after the MB being replaced. Let's cross finger and hope everything is OK.

P.S. PCMCIA solution is a very good one for those who have expired warranty. I havent checked that out myself though.

[ajo]

Unfortunately I believe I have found some answers for the usb flipping into low speed mode.

I believe it is hardware, not software.

I found a post on a windrivers forum about this. The post was something about tapping the bottom of the T40 or T40p while connected to USB 2.0 devices at hi-speed mode.

Let me first say that I have this problem of being deprived of usb 2.0 speeds on my T40p which I bought used recently from IBM with warranty. However, my warranty was over by the time I learned what USB was and that I wanted to use it.

Anyways, on rare occasions I could get usb 2.0 speeds. I tried drivers, cleaning contacts of usb ports etc. but none really work reliably. Then I found the post about tapping the bottom of the computer, I tried tapping after I cajoled the beast into connecting at 2.0 speeds somehow, then I tapped on the bottom, and low and behold it immediately fell back to 1.0 speeds.

If I beat the computer around then try to connect, it may or maynot connect at 2.0 speeds, but every time I tap it after it is connected at 2.0 speeds it falls back to 1.0 speeds. Also after it connects at 2.0 speeds it will flip back to 1.0 speeds spontaneously after an unpredictable period of time, and in so doing the laptop loses the connection to usb drive because the switch back to usb 1.0 was not negotiated nicely with the usb hard disk.

As for speeds dropping after an sp2 upgrade that may be simply because the updated usb drivers do things differently and then the hardware flaw/failure becomes apparent.

So can anybody tell me how I get this fixed by IBM or lenovo etc. in Canada at their expense b/c it is their faulty manufacturing problem. Not long ago I left my job with a large tech multinational and I know they have an accomodations budget for this type of thing and IBM is 5-10x the size the company I worked for so if anyone has advice on getting this done, please feel free to comment.

Thank you,
John

[lautamas]

Just want to give you guys an update on this one. I finally got the MB replaced on Jan 17 (mentioned on above post). Since then, the computer was formatted and got a clean windows xp sp2. I dont even bother doing to INF update altough it's available.

So far, the USB works fine.

By the way, to prevent the previous incident, I am now using the USB HUB with external power adaptor just for precaution not to burn the USB controller anymore...so far so good...

[AmirTheSeventh]

This not a hardware problem for all people, here is why:

The problem started when i updated the BIOS after installing SP2 and it worked 1.1 for about 6 month, then for the first time i decided to reintalled the OS using the recovery CD, I did it and USB started to work 2.0 without any problem! as soon as i installed the SP2, the USB can perform faster problem came back.

This problem is conected to the new version of BIOS and SP2

[melmo]

This has been an interesting read... I'd thought I'd contribute my experience just so there's another data point. A couple of years ago I had a T41, I did the SP2 install and bam, the USB ports stopped working at high speed. Since it was a company machine, I sent it back to the IT group and swapped it for a T42.

Strangely enough, the T41 I'm typing on right now (personal machine) has SP2 installed, and I haven't had any USB issues.

This problem is conected to the new version of BIOS and SP2

[AmirTheSeventh]

Strangely enough, the T41 I'm typing on right now (personal machine) has SP2 installed, and I haven't had any USB issues.

Thank you for the post, can you please tell us what is your personal machine BIOS version? to find out press F1 during the boot and the version numbers will be right on the main page of IBM BIOS.

Thanks in Advance

[cozzykim]

I've also had this problem with my T41p.

If I plug in my multi card reader, about 4 out of 5 attempts I get the "this device will perform faster" message, if I unplug and re-plug eventually the message doesn't appear and the transfers are at full speed.

Interestingly my Compaq Presario media center machine also exhibits this problem with some but not all of its USB ports.

Both machines have SP2 and the T41 has the latest but one bios (I can't be bothered to update it at the mo')

The T41 also has PCLinuxOS on the hidden partition and I've never had the USB problem in Linux.

My feeling is that the drivers are over enthusiastic when falling back to USB1.1 speeds, I suspect that dirty port connections, cable impedance, power consumption, internal pin/plug resistance all play their part to nudge the driver into fallback mode.

I'm a hardware (diagnostic) engineer so I'm not familiar with the USB2 protocols but, as it is a very high throughput serial link, I guess the slightest contact resistance etc. will degrade the data enough to convince the driver to slow down?

This might explain why the ports show the intermittent behaviour experienced by many people.

Try plugging and unplugging the device several times until the message goes away

Unless y'all think differently of course

Regards

Kim

[AmirTheSeventh]

Just noticed that this topic viewed nearly 12000 times, it must be a widespread problem.

[melmo]

The BIOS version is 3.31.

Thank you for the post, can you please tell us what is your personal machine BIOS version? to find out press F1 during the boot and the version numbers will be right on the main page of IBM BIOS.

Thanks in Advance

[coreman]

Just thought I would post an update on my situation...back in March my mobo died because of the cracked solder joint problem with GPU so I had to replace it.

From Aug 2006 to March 2007, I was always able to do the "driver dance" to get USB2 speeds when needed but it was never a permanent fix. So when mobo needed changing, I told the IT tech about it and asked that he make sure Lenovo fixes both problems.

After about a week I got my T41 back and everything worked but the USB2...and this time the "driver dance" couldn't get me USB2 speeds, nothing I did worked. Of course mobo was loaded with all of the latest drivers so I sent it back to get fixed again.

Apparently the Lenovo folks had to do something different during the 2nd mobo install to get the USB2 to work...initially it didn't work so it was a day late getting back to me.

Since that time (~6 months), everything has worked fine. I don't know BIOS version but date is 6/02/06 and I am running SP2 as well.

While the mobo change has clearly fixed the problem, I view it as actually 2.5 mobo changes to fix...it clearly was not fixed with the first simple mobo change. Since it took a lot more effort I remain convinced that there is a software conflict at the base of this problem.

As noted in the first post of this thread, my problem began exactly with upgrade to SP2 and the other housecleaning I did on that fateful day...if it was a hardware problem, it was incredibly bad luck that it failed exactly when I did the SP2 updating.

[AmirTheSeventh]

I'm going to swap my laptop HDD with a 40Gb one and install Vista Ultimate on it to see if anything changes under vista; will let you know the result

[AmirTheSeventh]

After the fresh Vista installation, USB 2.0 only worked about 30 sec., then automatically disconnected and connected (took 2 sec.) and the famous message "USB can perform faster" showed up

[venro]

and the famous message "USB can perform faster" showed up

My t40p showed me that a week ago and now it's the same. I'm thinking about t42, t43. They have difference bridges from t40 right ?:)

[GomJabbar]

Well, I am not sure of what design changes took place regarding USB between the T40 and T42, but we have (3) T42's in my family and none of them have had any USB issues. On my personal T42, I have used a regular wheeled USB mouse, an optical USB mouse, several USB memory keys, an AC- powered USB external DVD writer, an IBM USB external floppy drive, several of USB multifunction printers, a USB memory card reader, and a USB remote control receiver.

I think by the time the T42's came out, the USB issues brought out in this thread were likely corrected.

That said, I have not used my USB port to charge any devices such as an iPod or PDA, and I have not used it with any USB hubs or USB external hard disk drives. It may work fine with these devices, but I have not tried it. It is known that some USB devices draw more power than the USB spec allows, so caution is in order. On a desktop PC, you can usually change out or add a USB card in the back with little expense or bother. The same cannot be said for notebook computers.

If you do have your USB port falling back to 1.1 speeds, you can get a PCMCIA USB adapter card to get back USB 2.0 speeds.

[frankie66]

I have had the message come up on one of my T42s... so I don't think it's safe to say all T42s are going to work at 2.0 speed.
Also my daughters T40 is much older (she charges her iPods etc) and she has never got the message.

[venro]

It's weard, but not all usb 2.0 devices can destroy 2.0 capability (maybe in longer time?). I can work on my creative mp3 muvotx in 2.0 (tested for 2h), but all-in-one card reader is turning 1.1 standard in about a minute.

It's my example of t40p.

Anyway I'm tired in playing with that and in a week I'm changing it to T43. Will see how it goes

[SteveS]

My vote is that this is a HW problem. I believe that lautamas’s post on Jan 12, 2007 proves this – swapping HD between machines with the problem and those without does not move the problem. Another point – this thread has gone on for a long time, yet no member or Lenovo has offered a SW solution that permanently fixes it.

I suspect that a static discharge damages the Southbridge chip which contains the USB controller. I did some work on a T41 with a totally dead USB port and with an ohmmeter, traced the USB data lines directly to the Southbridge chip. There are no buffers between them. Any ESD applied on the connector goes directly into the Southbridge – a questionable design. This could be why nothing appears on the Lenovo support site about what is a very common problem.

So why does the changing drivers temporarily fix some machines? Here is a possible reason: ESD damage is not always catastrophic. Often it damages the transistor in the IC – lowering its gain, increasing leakage current etc. USB devices determine which mode to operate in by checking the voltage that appears on the data lines during the imitation cycle that runs after a device is first plugged in. High speed devices use lower voltage. A common symptom of ESD damage in a voltage comparator is that its threshold voltage changes. Time constants are involved with the speed determination voltage transition and there is some timing involved on when this determination is made. This could explain the short term fix some members get with the “Driver Dance” – the different drivers could check the USB speed at different times. The driver dance does not work for some machines – possibly because the comparator threshold is so far off (or it is completely destroyed), that timing changes don’t change the outcome of the speed determination.

I checked this post because I am currently checking out a T41 system board that I plan to sell. I noticed that it is giving “The Message”. and I was hoping that SW would fix it. But now it looks like the board is damaged, and I really can’t sell it.

[Stargate199]

Well, if you know there is no hardware damage, and you just did a Windows install or reinstall, make sure Windows is fully updated and all thinkpad drivers are installed (use System Update to make sure you have them all). I seem to have this problem when I installed XP on my T41. I got that annoying USB 2.0 message, but after all the updates, it has gone away. If any of you still have this problem, make sure you have the following list of drivers installed for USB. Please note this is for the T41, not sure on other T4x machines.

1. Intel(R) 82801DB/DBM USB 2.0 Enhanced Host Controller - 24CD
2. Intel(R) 82801DB/DBM USB Universal Controller - 24C2
3. Intel(R) 82801DB/DBM USB Universal Controller - 24C4
4. Intel(R) 82801DB/DBM USB Universal Controller - 24C7

This information was taken directly from my device manager. I hope this helps anyone that is having problems with USB 2.0 on their T41