USB devices don't work in win98SE

[peterb1985]

I'm troubleshooting a windows 98SE pc. The owner has installed a USB 2.0 PCI card into the pc so that they can use an external cdrw drive.

I checked that the driver for the card was installed and connected the cdrw drive to the pc. The pc doesn't detect the drive through the usb 2.0 card, i then tried the drive in the old usb ports on the motherboard and still it didn't work.

I connected the drive to another pc in both usb 2.0 and usb 1.1 and both detect the drive.

I then removed the usb 2.0 card from the pc and tried connecting the drive to the old usb ports on the motherboard (thinking it might be a conflict) this also didn't work. So i put the card back.

I checked the device manager to look for conflicts or problems with devices and couldn't find any except for a sound card device which can't find a spare irq on the system (its says it wants to use irq7 which is lpt1?), i don't think this is related.

THE QUESTION - can usb or plug-n-play be disabled in windows 98 if so how and could that be the problem? The usb support is enabled on the motherboard.

Could the motherboard have some sort of fault in it?


Any input greatfull!

 

[satrow]

What are the specs of your PC, and what entries are in Device Manager for USB devices? Do you have a Via chipset? What chipset is on the USB2 card?

Andy.

 

[peterb1985]

Yes Its a VIA chipset

Machine: Packard Bell
Pentium 3 533Mhz
Via ApolloPro (133Mhz) Chipset
96Mb Ram
13Gb Hard Drive
32Mb Graphics AGP

USB Card: NEC

USB Controllers:
NEC PCI to USB Enhanced Host Controller
NEC USB Open Host Controller
NEC USB Open Host Controller
USB Root Hub
USB Root Hub
USB Root Hub
VIA Tech 3038 PCI to USB Universal Host Controller

 

[satrow]

I think you should go to this page to begin your troubleshooting

http://www.usbman.com/win98seusbguide.htm

Good luck and post back here with any queries or anomalies.

Andy.