Help me understand USB and eventually Bluetooth as they should operate on a PC? I tried installing a USB Bluetooth adapter on my desktop PC to use little dataloggers that need it, but it’s unreliable, and a few specific things seem wrong, including USB 2.0 ports that reverted to 1.1 back when a shop reinstalled Windows.
I’ve never used Bluetooth before and don’t know what to expect, either. I’d like to understand all this better and also to fix it or make my fix more thorough and neat and traceable.
My PC is a Dell Dimension 4600 with WinXP Pro SP2. It’s almost 5 years old and all the hardware is as Dell assembled it. A couple years ago it became badly infected with some virus or malware (in spite of AdAware and SpyBot and Norton Antivirus and a hardware firewall in a router). I couldn’t fix it and took it to a shop that reinstalled Windows, but all the USB ports changed from 2.0 to 1.1. On inserting any USB device, a box would suggest choosing a USB 2.0 port instead, “Click Here” for a list of them, and clicking makes it say there are no USB 2.0 ports.
I’ve worked on this a little here and there without any success, until the other day when I got a USB 2 driver installed, apparently making the ports operate as USB 2.0 again. But I don’t understand what I’m doing, don’t trust it, and doubt it is all clean and right.
My new interest in USB on this machine stems from trying to install and use Bluetooth adapters that plug into a USB port like a thumb drive, so I could talk to the data loggers. I bought an IOGear adapter at BestBuy, but its installation program would lock up the PC before finishing. So I ordered a Belkin one from the datalogger manufacturer, who sells it as an accessory. Partway through the process, its installation program asks me to insert the adapter into the port, and I do, and its little blue light flashes, but the installation program says it isn’t there. I can Continue the installation Without Hardware, but I think the end result is that there appear to be two Bluetooth device managers, one from Belkin that either says the hardware is missing or says the software license is missing, and one that I guess was Microsoft’s. I wondered if all the difficulties trying to install and use Bluetooth were caused by the USB not being right.
I posted questions here a few days ago and astro pointed me to:
http://www.dylangreene.com/1/292-How-to-fix-USB-not-working-with-Dell-XPS-and-Windows-
This page describes a Dell quirk in which the USB 1.1 drivers are the ones automatically installed during an OS installation, which nicely fits what’s going on with this system. But following the instructions there, nothing seems to work quite right. The Drivers and Utilities CD that came with the system installs some program called DellResources, and asking it to install the Intel Chipset Drivers that supposedly include USB causes it to run an installation script that then starts another installation Wizard that eventually announces it has installed something called Intel Chipset Drivers Installer - an installation program installing another installation program, apparently. But I can’t find that it has put any .dll or .sys files into the system. An update I got off the Dell web site created a bunch of folders including c:\dell\drivers\R58201\xp which is loaded with .cat files, but very few .sys or .dll files that look like drivers to me. Trying Microsoft Update or the Help system has done too many things to remember, but none of them looked like a solution. Experimenting around with the driver update applet has mostly just let me browse around looking for drivers, but its “OK” button, which would update the driver to one I’m pointing at, is always grayed out.
Here’s an exchange the earlier thread went through before it faded away. Astro suggested “Go to Control Panel>System>Hardware>Device manager>Universal Serial Bus Controllers> right click on USB chain you wish to update and applet will pop up - Go to the Driver tab with Details-Update-Rollback-Uninstall option. Choose Update Driver-Install from location-Don’t search - You can force driver override install from this point…” However, I had to answer with the following unknown combination of “I don’t understand” and “this system won’t do that”, as follows: “Right, that’s what I do, but the Choose Location dialog has a folder tree chooser pane and two buttons, OK and Cancel. I select the folder I want it to update from, but the OK button is grayed out. I can only Cancel or continue navigating to other folders. In fact, I have never seen the OK button not be gray. And, yes, I tried clicking on it anyway. No dice.” Can anybody help me understand what is suggested and how to do it and why it might work?
Eventually I tried “Uninstall” and then (I think) “Scan for Hardware Changes” on the first line of the following:
Intel(R) 82801EB USB Universal Host Controller - 24D2
Intel(R) 82801EB USB Universal Host Controller - 24D4
Intel(R) 82801EB USB Universal Host Controller - 24D7
Intel(R) 82801EB USB Universal Host Controller - 24DE
USB Printing Support
USB Root Hub
USB Root Hub
USB Root Hub
USB Root Hub
Then I right clicked on Uninstall. Then, I think I clicked on Scan for hardware changes. Sorry, it’s hard to remember all these details even with hours of writing notes - my memory peaked somewhere between paper punch tape and CPM. And something happened, and then the list looked like this:
Intel(R) 82801EB USB Universal Host Controller - 24D2
Intel(R) 82801EB USB Universal Host Controller - 24D4
Intel(R) 82801EB USB Universal Host Controller - 24D7
Intel(R) 82801EB USB Universal Host Controller - 24DE
Intel(R) 82801EB USB2 Enhanced Host Controller - 24DD
USB Printing Support
USB Root Hub
USB Root Hub
USB Root Hub
USB Root Hub
USB Root Hub
So, what changed is that there’s a new 5th line starting with “Intel” which adds a “2” after the “USB” and changes “Universal” to “Enhanced”, and there’s a new “USB Root Hub” line. When this changed, I started being able to plug in a thumb drive without getting the “Use USB2, There is no USB2” box.
In greater detail, the old version of this list shows that all the “Intel…” lines each list all these driver files in their Properties > Drivers > Details:
C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\usbhub.sys
C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\usbport.sys
C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\usbuhci.sys
C:\WINDOWS\system32\usbui.dll
and it shows that the “…Printing…” line lists:
C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\usbprint.sys
and it shows that the “USB Root Hub” lines each lists:
C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\usbd.sys
C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\usbhub.sys
Whereas, in the new list, the “…USB2…” line lists:
C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\usbehci.sys
C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\usbhub.sys
C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\usbport.sys
C:\WINDOWS\system32\hccoin.dll
C:\WINDOWS\system32\usbui.dll
The first and fourth files look like drivers that weren’t pointed to by the old list.
Searching for files with “usb” in their names produces hundreds of hits, many ending in .sys and .dll.
I also have a separate system that is pretty similar, a Dell 2350 of the same vintage but with a newer install of XP Pro on it. I have looked around on it. Its list under Universal Serial Bus controllers has one line containing “Intel[…]USB 2.0 Enhanced […]” and several “Intel[…] USB Universal[…]”. It also has a “USB Composite Device” entry, a “USB Mass Storage Device” entry, and entries like the 4600 system has. What can I look for with this system to help diagnose the 4600 system? Should I experiment with copying driver files over and trying to get the applet to let me click “OK” on them?
??? HERE ARE SOME SPECIFIC QUESTIONS if you’re up to humoring me ???
What is the list of items like “Intel(R)…” and “USB Printing Support” and “USB Root Hub” that appears in the Universal Serial Bus controllers" category under Device Manager?
Is this list the “USB driver chain” that astro refers to when he says “If I were in your shoes I’d just delete the entire USB driver chain and see what XP re-installs on reboot (remove all attached USB devices when doing this).”?
And, how would I delete it (“Delete” is not one of the options if I select and right click)?
Why are there so many devices under Universal Serial Bus controllers - they can’t be the hardware ports, right?
What’s with the automatic programs that don’t seem to work; isn’t there an easy way to update a driver, like copying and modifying files?
Is there a source anyplace for actual driver files, instead of programs that are supposed to retrieve and install them?
Is there any difference between a USB port that was originally USB2.0 and reverted to USB1.1, versus a port that was always USB1.1 in all hardware and software ways?
******** BLUETOOTH ************
I’m almost afraid to ask. I thought the USB 1.1 problem might be the whole reason the install programs for the Bluetooth adapters didn’t work, even though both adapters said they were compatible with 1.1 and 2.0. But removing and reinstalling the Belkin adapter didn’t work any better with the ports (apparently) acting as USB2.0. Where would be some other places to look for trouble, some other things to try to get them to work? I hear that some Bluetooth connection software offers ways of testing and troubleshooting connections. There seems to be so much happening that is hidden away, which would be great if it would work but is much worse when it doesn’t. Textbooks I have found on the subject explain how to design Bluetooth hardware. Are there good references that would explain what Bluetooth should look like to the end user and how to troubleshoot it?