VIA USB and data corruption

[Shoot2Thrill]

I have an interesting problem with my USB devices. My computer is an AMD Athlon (Slot A) on a FIC SD11 motherboard. I am running Windows 98SE (problem also occured in Win2K). My problem is that data gets corrupted when transfered to my USB devices (Zip, MP3 player/camera). It doesn't matter if the devices are directly connected to the computer, or through my self-powered hub. I do have VIA's latest official drivers, and I do have the VIA USB filter driver installed. I have checked and unchecked 'Disable USB error detection.' My printer doesn't work via USB either (it worked on my previous system fine), so I have to use it on the parallel port. To really make things strange is that my USB Wheel Mouse Optical, plugged into my hub, works perfectly. Anybody got suggestions?

[cookin chef]

There are several possibilities.
I remember Microsoft had an update patch for users running win98se with an amd athlon processor and via southbridge chipset with usb problems. Here's the link:

http://support.microsoft.com/supp ort/kb/articles/Q240/0/75.ASP?LN=EN-US&SD=gn&FR=0&qry=usb%20problems&rnk=11&src=DHCS_M SPSS_gn_SRCH&SPR=W98SE

2nd possibility: Power, what size of P.S. do you have. Any time you have a usb device attached, it will divert power from the Power supply to run those usb devices, but some of your usb devices like your printer have a power adapter already. But you do have a lot of usb peripherals attached. That statement about you can run up to 127 usb devices at the same time is only a theory. If you have a 250 watt p.s. consider upgrading it to a 300 watt.

3rd poss.: Length of usb cable. The longer the distance of the cable to the device, the more distorted the signal. Sometimes getting a usb hub with it's own power adapter helps.

4th poss.: Get the latest software or driver patches for your usb products. For ex} go to www.iomegaware.com to get the last iomega software for your external usb zip drive. Find some newer software for your usb mouse, camera if available from the company's webpages.

5th poss:. The mb might need a bios update.
Go to www.fic.com.tw to find the latest bios update for your fic sd11 board. Be careful flashing the bios, You could end up with a dead board and needing to invest in a new bios chip or newer board.
Hope this helps.

[Shoot2Thrill]

Hmm... let me see what I have done on your check list... <IMG SRC="smilies/smile.gif" border="0">

1. I do have that patch installed from MS, but in case mine patch is an old version, I will give that a try.

2. On my power supply, I personally got rid of the old one before I went to the AMD side. I have an Enermax EG365P-VE power supply. It is a 365 watt unit.

3. I am using the Iomega cable that came with the drive, and I have plugged it into my hub and directly into the computer, and still nothing better.

4. I am using Iomega 2.8 drivers, I thought I saw 3.0 drivers listed on Windrivers, but when I took the link, Iomega's site said 2.8 was the latest. Anybody shed some light on this?

5. I have the latest bios version for my comp. I did that as soon as I got the board, and do that anytime I get a motherboard for my machines.

I really appreciate the suggestions. I usually forget to check things when I get frustrated with a problem. Any more suggestions? TIA

[cookin chef]

Refresh my memory here.
Do these Data transfer errors happen when all of your usb devices are attached or does it happen when one at a time is attached? Your usb mouse is an exception because you need to use it all the time.
My guess is maybe one of your usb devices doesn't like to coexist with the others.
Try one device attached at a time to determine if it is just one device by itself that is causing your errors, but keep your mouse attached all the time when trying these devices.
Do you have the latest amd driver patch for your amd 751 agp controller??? I know, I'm grasping at straws here.
What are the specs of your computer besides it being a classic athlon with a fic sd11 mb like the ram, hd size, vid. card, sound card nic, cd-rom etc.
If possible, use another spare hd just to test with a fresh load of win98se with all the latest drivers, patches, and latest software updates for all your usb devices and test them one at a time or all together to determine if the same thing happens.
My only other guesses are a bad usb cable, one or more of your usb devices are incompatible with each other, or an irq conflct. I know usb uses irqs that share with other devices and have very little or no conflct whatsoever. But maybe this usb situation needs its own dedicated irq. If you have PNP o/s installed in the bios set to enabled or yes, then disable or set it to no. Disable any power management or acpi functions in the bios. If you aren't using the 2 serial ports on the mb, then disable them in the bios to free up some more irqs. Set the parallel port to epp instead of ecp to free up a dma channel. Is there any devices in the single isa slot on your fic mb??? If video bios or system bios are set to enabled or cached in the bios setup, then disable them because they only enhance performance if you completely use dos. They sometimes can cause windows issues. Maybe disable the onboard usb and borrow a pci usb card just to compare results and see if anything happens differently.
I don't know what else to suggest. Good luck!

[Shoot2Thrill]

Well, I have tried change cables and even tried just with the Zip hooked up, and still the same thing happens... I have the latest AGP driver from AMD, I have tried two different processors (old 550 and my 900MHz CPUs

My computer (for now <IMG SRC="smilies/smile.gif" border="0"> )
AMD Athlon 900MHz
288Mb PC100 SDRAM
ATI Radeon 32MB DDR AGP video card
Sound Blaster Live X-Gamer
Motorola SM56K PCI Modem
Symbios SCSI controller
Microsoft Internet Keyboard (PS/2)
Microsoft Wheel Mouse Optical (PS/2 & USB)
Microsoft Sidewinder Game Pad
Maxtech 19 inch monitor
Windows 98 SE
6.4Gb Quantum UDMA 2 HDD
30Gb Western Digtal UDMA 2 HDD
Pioneer 10X IDE DVD-ROM
TEAC 8-8-32 IDE CD-RW

I have a Maxtor 10Gb I tried with a fresh load of Win98SE, and that didn't help any. I tried deselecting the Syncronization for the zip, and still nothing. I have rearranged my cards to juggle the IRQ's and you guessed it, that didn't work. My mobo only has one seriel port, and I don't use it at all. I have checked all my IRQ's, and there doesn't appear to be any conflicts. I don't have any ISA devices.
There are still some things that I will try in your list, but this is a weird problem. The bitch of it is that the damn mouse works fine!

[Joker1]

the mouse uses lower priority then other devices. something like a printer is much beefier then a mouse when it comes to usb utilization. If you connect a joystick/gamepad you'll probly find it works fine. Conenct a usb nic and your sure to have problems. Maybe its time to start looking elsewhere. Do you have anything else that might be putting alot of load on the pci bus? (SBlive, Raid controller, Pci video, capture card, etc etc)

[Lips2001Ad]

Hi there, you do have rather a srange problem don't you. I know this is probabley not much use to you but It fixed a simular problem thatv I had with my socket 370 via 133 based mb usb. I am running a beta of Win XP and it has options to change the amount of bandwith you can allocate to the usb ports and devices. I sugest that you look for a patch or hack to allow you to do the same in Win9x.