Okay, now I have a question about something I know about. Or at least, I think I do…
Recently, someone was telling me that their scanner manufacturer told them that they needed to verify that their USB ports are enabled in BIOS. I asked them “Why? I know your computer, I’ve worked on it before, and I can tell you that the only aspect of USB that is controlled by your system BIOS is legacy support, which is for something totally different. On your system (Pentium III, Microsoft Windows 98SE, 440BX-not that that has anything to do with this) the USB ports are totally supported by the OS, so using USBview would be the best way to make sure it’s all working. Doing anything in BIOS is totally useless.”
So the next day I talk to someone at work about this and they say that sometimes you have to enable legacy support or USBview won’t work.
Now, I think that is bullshit. I have always thought that USB support had nothing to do with the BIOS on many newer systems (by newer I am stretching the term, I mean in the last year) that are running Phoenix BIOS.
So, I just want to know what you other tech geeks know. Is there some hidden quirk that I have never heard of that messes up regular USB function if legacy is disabled, or was that person talking out their ass, like I think they were?
I do know that when the bios supports the USB port for mouse or keyboards, I can use my USB mouse with software that only works with serial or PS2 mice otherwise. It doesn’t hurt performance to leave it on. Once windows 98 or above loads, you should have USB support reguardless.
This probably is the answer to some other thread asking about having a USB keyboard but it did not work until the OS loads and therefore he could not go into safe mode before the OS loads. Enabling BIOS support for USB probably resolves this as the keyboard would work before the OS loads.
Right, exactly, that’s what I’m talking about. See, the legacy USB support in BIOS is for USB keyboards and mice and stuff like that. It has nothing to do whatsoever with other USB devices like scanners and stuff like that.
I just wanted to see if anyone else had any ideas as to why someone who otherwise seems to have their shit together would tell me that you need to enable legacy USB support in the BIOS in order to make a scanner work.
I have “turned off” the USB ports via the BIOS in some systems (2-3 years old) and recovered the IRQ, and the USB port no longer shows up in the control panel system device listing. I have not had any reason to do this in my own systems which have 1-2 year old motherboards and do list USB enable/disable toggles in the BIOS setup.
Are you are saying that the latest BIOSes enable/disable USB port toggles don’t really control the USB (except for legacy support)and they are fixed “on” in OS. Just offhand I’d doubt that you are right (you may be). I’d check it out just for kicks but it would be too much of a pain in the tail to re-initialize all the USB junk ( 6 devices) hanging off my system.
Given that I know you can kill the USB ports in slightly older systems (circa Pentium 233-64 meg RAM etc Packard Bell) the asking of the question by the scanner manuf. is both reasonable and prudent.