USB 2.0 and LAN Card conflict?

[balltom]

I need a computer geek!

Interesting problem that happens to my computer recently.

I crashed my C:\ drive and had to buy a new one and rebuild the OS (XP Pro). No specific problem here. I also took this poortunity to reorganize my PCI slots and disks and buy a new SATA card (good stuff these SATA disks BTW). My machine had a SCSI card and disks and some USB external drives too...
But recently, I discovered that my web server (another machine) drives that I access remotely through my LAN are VERY SLOW. And this only when my external USB disk is on.

When the external disk is off, the LAN (remote drive/machine) behave as usual. As soon as I turn the USB drive on, it is slow again. But I meam, extra slow (for ex, a copy of a folder that would take 20 secondes usually, will take 90 minutes... if you believe it will one day finish).

Before this, my previous LAN card was embedded in the SCSI card and was not creating any problem with the USB one.

Any ideas? :confused:
I plan to change the USB 2.0 and LAN card from their current slots (IRQ conflicts?). Or even put another LAN card.

Any one ever had this kind of problems?
Ideas welcome.
Cheers.

[craigt56]

What I believe happened is the drivers between you new system of the old system are crossed up. Trouble Shooting you whole LAN to find what drivers need updating can turn into a longterm project. USB connections are slow. The quick solution is get rid of the external drive and install another internal drive. Hard Drives are very cheap now so a 100 gig drive wouldn't break you.

The other guess I have is the slow external drive may be on the verge of crashing. Slow performance is a warning sign of a crash.

Hopefully something here will help...

[sage45]

If you are using a USB Hard Drive, I would ensure that your OS is not attempting to pirate some of he USB Drive Space as a portion of the swap file...

As for the IRQ conflict, in most of todays systems this is no longer regarded as a problem as most of todays hardware can soft set itself depended upon the settings in your BIOS and OS... However, that could be another possibility... If you feel this might be, I would check the card(s), BIOS and OS settings...

HTH,

-sage-

P.S. -- USB is not slow...

[craigt56]

Here's some more interesting stuff:

www.techonline.com/community/ed_resource/feature_article/20426

[balltom]

Wow you guys are really awsome and I really appreciate your comments. :thumbsup:

In fact this is what I did:
I battled a little bit trying to swap the cards on the diferent PCI slots and update drivers. Even tried another network card (old from 97...) that I had. Nothing worked well. Still the same wierd behavior: with the external USB drive on, the LAN speed is 100 time less than with the drive off. And this regardless if you communicate with the USB drive BTW. Really these 2 guys don't like each others. Period.

At the end I decided to put back my old SCSI card that had my initial LAN card on it. After all, it worked before.

It worked great...... :D

Interestingly, the LAN card that I was trying to make work (Kingston) was simply... desabled... when the SCIS card came on. Well, I guess no one like this card in my machine. So I removed it, desabled the SCSI part of the SCSI card and kept the LAN piece. And everyone seems fat and happy in my machine. :cool:

Ok, may be one day I will have to get rid of this old (5 years) HP Kayak worksation (dual 733 CPU DRAM, etc). But it is an animal as a server. So why?

One last thing, about my usage of USB 2.0 external drives:
I use these external drives as backup devices. I backup all the data I have on my network machines and my server on it every week (110+Go) and then I shut it down and put it in a safe place at home. I found this was the best way to protect my data from issues on the server (HW or fire) or viruses, as well as it is very convenient to back up and restore (much more than DVD ROM or tapes).
With this method, I never lost any critical data in the past 2 years even if I broke 2 C:\ drives and got one machine burned after a storm (UPS is good too here... I learned my lesson here too). And I agree with the article in reference above, USB 2.0 is pretty fast. Better than EDI in fact...

Take care guys and thanks again. :thumbsup:
Tom

[craigt56]

Continued success and good fortune to you... :thumbsup: