Combo PCI card -- USB works/Firewire locks XP

[dslunceford]

Using XP (SP2) and installed a generic combo PCI card w/USB2 and Firewire (see ebay item here)

XP recognizes and installs both fine. Under device manager I see both installed, working properly, with no new driver updates if just hitting "update driver."

USB ports work fine, both recognize an iPod, charge and synch. Firewire recognizes the same iPod, but soon thereafter the OS locks up. Trying to uninstall firewire via device manager and reinstall manually via add hardware in control panel also causes a lock.

Both USB and firewire properly uninstall and reinstall if I move the card to another free PCI slot, but again, once attaching a device, firewire locks the machine, forcing reboot.

Firewire under device manager shows up as "IEEE 1394 Bus host controllers" which tiers down to "VIA OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller"

The seller claims this card has previously had no returns because:

What sets our card apart from the rest on ebay and most store brands? Unlike other USB/Firewire combo cards such as OrangeMicro, VST, and BELKIN, our cards use two different onboard chipsets to operate the USB 2.0 and Firewire functions. Now what does this mean to you? Basically it means the card will not have any conflicts with itself or share bandwidth between the USB and Firewire ports. <SNIP> This one technical aspect is why we have had a ZERO return rate of these cards out of the thousands I've sold already. They run perfectly.

Ideas, or simply return?

[MacGyver]

I've heard that USB/IEEE cards based on the VIA chipset may not play well with motherboards NOT based on a VIA chipset. Can you try this in another PC?

[dslunceford]

Unfortunately no other desktop in which to easily do this (couple of laptops in the home, but don't think I'd find a place for the card )

How can I check out my MoBo info? It's an older PC, Dell Inspirion 4300, 1.6ghz P4

[dslunceford]

Unfortunately no other desktop in which to easily do this (couple of laptops in the home, but don't think I'd find a place for the card )

How can I check out my MoBo info? It's an older PC, Dell Inspirion 4300, 1.6ghz P4

Decided to try an Ali chip-based card to see if that will work better than the VIA....

[DownBeachBreeze]

http://www.usb.org/ for drivers according to chipset.