"Makes USB Fly" I recently bought and reviewed the Maxtor 120GB USB 2 Drive before I installed this card. I was happy with the drive then but it really rocks now. Under USB 1.1, it took almost an hour to copy 3GB now it takes less than 5 minutes. Installation was a breeze under XP. From SpacecoastBob, October 25, 2002
"driver complains ???" to all you people that are complaining about the drivers. all the USB 2.0 pci cards on the market are identical, they use the same drivers, made by OrangeWare. if one company doesn't have the newest version, then go the next company and use their drivers. i have a OrangeMicro card and i use Belkin drivers. Remember all the USB 2.0 PCI cards on the market right now, use NEC chipset, and they are indentical.
BOTTOM LINE From qwert, October 18, 2002
"Well put together 5-port USB2 card, drivers found lacking though!"
Adaptec spares no expense when it comes to chest-thumping about their products. Reading about this "six-port" (quotes present because only five ports are actually USEABLE at any one time, which is only mentioned in footnotes. Come on, guys, 5 useable ports are FIVE useable ports, not 6... Call it 5+1 or something, but not 6!), one gets the impression it cannot possibly have any faults whatsoever.
Uh-oh! Realiy check... :-) More on this later, but first the positive aspects.
Well, the good thing is, the card is solidly built, it is small in size which means it is unlikely to obstruct cables or airflow even in a cramped PC case, and well laid-out. Surface-mounted components are used throughout, and gives a high-quality impression. Squeezing in no less than five external USB ports is a fairly mean feat I must say. The sixth port is mounted internally, but its use is probably quite limited. The manual mentions drive-bay mounted USB hubs, and there might be such a strange beast but I've never seen one. Selecting the internal port - and hence disabling the topmost external port - is done by moving a double-size jumper block on the card that covers four pins at a time, something that cannot easily be done without unplugging all cables and removing the card from the PC. It's probably not something one does very often though, but I prefer DIP switches over jumpers; less fiddly to deal with.
The card features two root hubs, each supposedly delivering a full 480Mbit/sec bandwidth. One hub has two ports on it, the other, three ports, plus the shared internal port of course. Having one root hub per port would likely have been a terrible waste, since the PCI bus the card sits in is unable to deliver more than 133MB/sec (1064Mbit/sec) in theory and considerably less in practice. Two root hubs going at full speed will easily max out the PCI bus, even if no other traffic is going on at the same time (such as disk activity...), so nobody needs to feel cheated because of a percieved lack of root hubs. :-)
Adaptec sure did their homework on the hardware side, that's for sure. Now, about the software, and thus, the not-so-good stuff about this product...
Driver installation is quirky, to say the least. Adaptec delivers updated drivers from the web in a self-extracting winzip executable that the user has to unpack to a temporary directory (and remember the location of). This is not easy for computer illiterates, and it's not a good thing to have lots of temporary files and dirs littering the harddrive either. Driver installation instructions are delivered as PDF files and they list a number of manual steps to complete the install, all of which become a lot more difficult for beginners if one's Windows installation is not in the English language. PDFs are good if you have a printer so you can get a nice hardcopy to refer to during the install, bad if you have no idea how to get hold of the Acrobate reader required to view the manual...
Adaptec also asks the user to mess around in the Device Manager to install the drivers. When I see things like this, I sigh deeply and ask what's wrong with a nice, clean, single file Installshield package one just has to double-click to run like we're used to see video drivers and such delivered in nowdays?
Well, quirky or not, the installation works, at least. I had no trouble getting the card to function properly in WinME. Your mileage may vary regarding other OSes, especially WinXP. But "works" isn't entirely truthful. The current driver set (as of 20 nov 2001 at least) does not support isochronous transfers in USB2 mode, so devices like USB2 webcams and speakers will not function (yet) on this card. USB1.1 cameras work just fine, which I have tested myself, which is a consolation. There are also several other compatibility "gotchas" listed in the readme file, which Adaptec inconveniently fails to mention either on the outside of the package or their website. I hope they can fix this, because the reason I got the card was I want to get me a USB2 webcam some day...
Because of Adaptec's limited driver support (and poor judgement in not mention this clearly anywhere where a buyer is likely to look for it BEFORE purchasing the product), I have deducted one point from the final score. I should have been harsher perhaps because not supporting isochronous transfers is a pretty big omission, but I expect this to be remedied and thus become a moot point. After all, as far as I know, there are no USB2 webcams or such available yet so nobody will suffer because of it (I hope!).
Somewhat spotty driver support, and complicated installation procedures mars this beautiful USB2 card a bit. Fortunately, drivers can (often) be updated to provide previously missing functionality, and there seems to be nothing wrong with the basic hardware design, quite the opposite in fact. As mentioned, it is a very nicely put-together card. And five USB2 ports is five USB2 ports. No other card I know of delivers that many connectors. (Yes, I'm ignoring the sixth internal "appendix" connector.)
From Hans Bergengren, January 02, 2002
We're currently upgrading our user review system; so we won't be accepting new reviews for now. USB2connect 5100 Card Specs
Windows 98 SE, Windows ME, Windows 2000, Windows XP
Interface
PCI
Required interface revision
2.1
# of USB ports
6
# of internal USB ports
1
Independent host controller for each port?
Yes
USB host controller interface
EHCI
USB chipset
NEC PD720100
# of FireWire ports
0
Software
--
Extra?
3m USB 2.0 cable
Power source
PCI bus
Warranty
Five years
Extras Lost a USB cable? Get a replacement USB cable.
Running out of USB ports? Get an extra USB hub.
You may need a new USB card to achieve Hi-Speed USB speeds.
Confirm with our USB 2.0 FAQ if you have Hi-Speed USB on your PC.
Where to buy Adaptec USB2connect 5100 Card?
