Anyone have USB2 working on Server 2003 on BP6?

JonathanRuss · Post by **JonathanRuss** » Mon Dec 19, 2005 5:26 pm

I've tried every combination I can think of... but my system always hangs when booting into Server 2003 if I have a USB 2.0 pci card installed.

Does anyone have a working 2003 system with a USB 2.0 PCI adapter?

Things I've tried:

I've tried various brands of USB2 PCI cards (including the Adaptec 3100 and its associated drivers).

I've tried installing the USB adapter in each of the 5 PCI slots... but as long as a USB2 card is present in one of the slots, the system hangs during OS startup.

I've tried disabling the onboard USB 1.1 ports. This actually allows me to get further in the boot process... I can get to the Server 2003 logon prompt. But then the system hangs when a user attempts to logon.

As soon as I remove the PCI adapter, everything works fine.

Any ideas?

Much thanks in advance!
-Jonathan

davd_bob · Post by **davd_bob** » Mon Dec 19, 2005 11:06 pm

Welcome to your first posting since joining.

What are on earth are you doing with a BP6 that warrants Server 03'?

Sounds like it might be a secruity issue. If memory serves Server 03' is designed to check obvious points of attack...

JonathanRuss · Post by **JonathanRuss** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 1:40 am

What on earth are you doing with a BP6 that warrants Server 03'?

Yeah, I know... seems like underkill, huh?

Well, its certainly not serving any mission critical purposes!

The truth is, a couple of months ago I realized my BP6 had basically become a large paperweight. And since I've had a copy of Server 2003 sitting around unopened for a couple of years, I decided to put both to good use. As such, I threw in a second NIC and set up the machine as a Remote Access Server so I can now access my home network from anywhere via an L2TP VPN connection.

While I was at it, I also set it up as a print and file server, which comes in really handy. But it would be nice to speed up communication with the printer (as well as add an external USB hard drive... at faster than USB 1.1 speeds). Hence my quest for USB2 on the BP6.

But I'm thinking I'll give up on this quest unless someone out there can confirm that its indeed an achievable goal... I've already wasted about 30 hours of my life playing with BIOS settings, PCI cards, hardware profiles, boot logging, etc.

Other than the USB2 issue, my BP6 lives on in perpetuity... or at least until it dies.

hyperspace · Post by **hyperspace** » Thu Dec 22, 2005 9:17 pm

JonathanRuss wrote: ...The truth is, a couple of months ago I realized my BP6 had basically become a large paperweight. And since I've had a copy of Server 2003 sitting around unopened for a couple of years, I decided to put both to good use. As such, I threw in a second NIC and set up the machine as a Remote Access Server so I can now access my home network from anywhere via an L2TP VPN connection.

While I was at it, I also set it up as a print and file server, which comes in really handy. But it would be nice to speed up communication with the printer (as well as add an external USB hard drive... at faster than USB 1.1 speeds). Hence my quest for USB2 on the BP6.

But I'm thinking I'll give up on this quest unless someone out there can confirm that its indeed an achievable goal... I've already wasted about 30 hours of my life playing with BIOS settings, PCI cards, hardware profiles, boot logging, etc.

Other than the USB2 issue, my BP6 lives on in perpetuity... or at least until it dies.

Xcellent! Welcome to BP6.Com, JonathanRuss !

It may be a PCI 2.1 verses PCI 2.2 compatibility issue. I'll have to check but it seems like others have had some problems with PCI cards that are designed to be 2.1/2.2 compatible. Of the cards you tried, do you know if any were only PCI 2.1?

JonathanRuss · Post by **JonathanRuss** » Fri Dec 23, 2005 12:32 am

hyperspace wrote:It may be a PCI 2.1 verses PCI 2.2 compatibility issue. I'll have to check but it seems like others have had some problems with PCI cards that are designed to be 2.1/2.2 compatible. Of the cards you tried, do you know if any were only PCI 2.1?

I tried an Adaptec USB2Connect 2000 and a 3100. As far as I can tell, both of these only claim to support 2.0... I don't see anything about 2.1 or 2.2.

Many others in the forums seem to have had success with the 3100, but I'm guessing they were running XP rather than Server.

I've pretty much determined that the external USB2 drive was a pipe dream for this system. I caved this last week and bought another 80GB ATA drive. That will give me the extra storage I need for a while.

KliK · Post by **KliK** » Fri Jan 13, 2006 7:37 pm

the PCI USB adapters are tricky to have on BP6 board...that was mentioned earlier, so sniff around more and you'll find it...i have to go to bed now, it's 2AM here...good luck in your search here...

did you try the ALi PCI USB 2.0 3+1 port, i use that on BP& system...also on the box there is some U-163, might be the chipset or sthg else...works fine on WinXP, might work on Win2003 server also!