Help me with this USB/PCI madness [do not read if you hate boring things]

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I'm really tempted to buy a computer, but my friend has given me an old PC (Pentium II I think) that I could just get a screen, mouse and keyboard for and be away. BUT it doesn't have USB ports. And I've got my lovely new digital camera and it needs one. Is it possible to add USB to an old PC? Is it easy? Are there any performance issues?

― N., Tuesday, 13 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

hardware should be easy - you can get usb pci cards, the ones that plug in the back. see dabs.com here:

http://www.dabs.com/products/prod-search.asp?action=search&tid=523&ob=price

beware, usb is not supported in win95 or nt4

andy

― koogydelbbog, Tuesday, 13 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

beware, usb is not supported in win95 or nt4

I hesitate to disagree with Andy on an IT related topic but I believe late W95 systems (OSR2) do support USB.

― David, Tuesday, 13 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

They did try to tack USB support into a late service pack for Win95, but it doesn't work well at all. (SHOCKER)

― Dan Perry, Tuesday, 13 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

We have a W95 PC at work & the scanner works fine on the USB port

― David, Tuesday, 13 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Is it a PII processor? If so, then my problem must have been the inability to properly install a Windows component. (SHOCKER 2: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO)

― Dan Perry, Tuesday, 13 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Thanks Andy et al. Think it has Win 98 on it so that should be OK. From that DABS list, could I just choose any of them? What's USB 2.0?

― N., Tuesday, 13 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Any of the PCI ones. USB 2.0 is USB but much much faster (so you can hook up external CD recorders, hard disks etc). You can still plug normal USB stuff in, but they work at their normal speed. I think you need the latest version of Windows XP for it though.

― Graham, Tuesday, 13 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

So you mean I couldn't hook up a CD-R drive without Win XP and USB 2.0?

― N., Tuesday, 13 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

[I'm sure this isn't what you mean, but I'd like to know exactly what I *am* going to be missing out on if I don't get a brand new machine]

― N., Tuesday, 13 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

ive got w95 and usb works fine

― bc, Tuesday, 13 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

No, I have a normal USB CD recorder, and it would work with Windows 98, but you're limited to 4x speed (20 minutes for a full 80 minute CD), whereas USB 2.0 stuff can do it at up to 40x (2 minutes).

― Graham, Tuesday, 13 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

i'd stick with usb (rather than usb2) - as with all these things the hardware is only half of the story and if you don't have the relevant software to support it then you're stuffed anyway.

usb cdroms work with win98 and 4x is ok (20 minutes for something that you couldn't physically do five years ago, that's not bad). your camera will be fine.

people don't need 2GHz P4s - the 733 p3 on my desk spends 99% of it's time waiting for me to type something. the 433 Celeron at home does everything it needs to. ok, it took an entire weekend to compile kde2 but hey...

andy

― koogydelbbog, Wednesday, 14 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

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