[RESOLVED] Do I blame VIA or Visioneer?

Hi All-

I have a problem between my USB controller (VIA chip) and my Visioneer 3100USB scanner. The scanner will not complete a preview, TWAIN freezes with no error message and locks up my Paperport software as well. The Visioneer web site "http://support.visioneer.com/customer/" (I wish I had looked at this when the scanner was still returnable!) says "*****NOTE: - Visioneer Technical Support has not been able to reliably establish communication on computers with VIA or SIS PCI to USB Universal Host Controller*****". The VIA Technologies web site "http://www.viatech.com/drivers/" provides a "USB Filter Driver ver. 1.06" to extend the USB port compatibility to "most devices", but it didn't fix my problem.

If you detected the whiney-ness in my message, you should know that I bought the scanner and USB port card to plug it into on the same receipt, from the same salesman, then assumed that I just hadn't hooked it up properly or needed updated drivers. Of course, that doesn't mean that I'm not whiney all the time anyway...

Does anyone know the nature of the incompatibility between the VIA controller chip and the scanner, possibly with a workaround? As an alternative, are there any recommendations on cheap-but-good USB add-in cards which are demonstrated to work well with Visioneer scanners? How about a lawyer who will sue on commission to get my $39.95 back on the controller? (OK, I know that last request is a little unrealistic...)

Well, I feel better. Any advice you can give along the above lines will be greatly appreciated.

I have the same scanner model, purchased about a year ago, and had the same time consuming, stressful problems. At the time Visioneer's tech support offered such nonworking solutions such as plugging the scanner directly into an outlet, not a power strip, and reloading the software. Their website made no mention of this problem. I just recently found that they had updated their site with this new revelation. Wasn't it nice of them to email me, a registered user, or anyone else with this info?? Wishfull thinking!!! I have since bought an adon USB card that works very well--no problems at all!! It is made by Entrega Technologies and does not use the VIA chipset.