MX7515 USB, more facts

I am still trying to make this baby deliver the USB performance it should....
One post las week talked about this mobo delivering poor power to the USB controller so it should be a HW related issue....IMO it might be true.

The facts: when I connect ONLY my external HDD it delivers like 12MB/s when tested with HDTune. If I connect my USB hub (webcam, printer, mouse) to other USB port, HDD performance goes down to 7MB/s.....if I disconnect the usb hub it goes again to 12MB/s.

I plugged the usb to power thinking it might help....nothing.

I just transfered a movie (7.5GB) from laptop to external hdd and it took like 20mins....not acceptable.

Anyone can try the same and let me (us) know??
I am really thinking of returning this lappy...but BB does not have better deals...

 

well I am sure all the usb's are on the same hub meaning that it is going to share the bandwidth thus you getting slower speeds.

 

But the external HDD is NOT connected to the hub, it's directly to usb port (back). I am not even "using" devices connected to the hub (except for mouse) when external HDD slows down.
That is why I think it may be a HW problem...just connecting something makes it fail.

 

I am talking about the internal hub for the laptop...not the one you bought seperately.

Also your external hub is still connected to the laptop's internal USB right? well it is still going to take up resources from laptops internal USB's. Just because you have an external hub doesn't make it go faster...your still running through the same medium...the laptop's internal USB's (which are mostly likely all on the same internal hub). This means it will run slow if you have multiple devices connected.

 

I agree that more devices will slower performance, but connecting a webcam or a printer w/o really using them should not cause such an effect....with 2 other laptops I get over 28MB/s with my external drive...7MB/s (or even 12MB/s) is way lower than "normal".

Optendo, I guess you own a 7510GX, do you mind testing your USB performance and post results?....great drivers site man, you saved me 1 month ago when I wiped out the recovery partition.

 

I would test it but I just sent my 7510gx out to get repaired. I think I cooked the video card playing all those games...Sucks being a traveling gamer. Anyways when I get it back I will definately test it out. What program do you us to test?

 

I used HDTune, just from the first second of testing it gives almost a constant throughput until the end of the test...the max variation is about 0.5MB/s between max and min.

I think the burst throughput is limiting performance...well, will see.

Thanks for your help.

 

On USB 2.0 my external hard drive gets miserable transfer speeds in line with what you've seen, but checking other benchmarks online it's my understanding that this is actually fairly normal. Switching to FireWire, on the other hand, results in faster transfers than I get from even my internal drive.

 

Have the 7510GX, got 13 MB/s with HD Tune using an external Toshiba 60GB 5400 rpm laptop drive.

Everest reports that fast back-to-back transactions is supported but disabled, but the ports are otherwise USB 2.0.

Just go firewire. Simple.

 

Cookie Monster, can you try the same test but also connecting other devices (such webcam, printer or something) to the extra USB ports? When more than one device is connected performance goes even worse...although the other devices are not in use while testing (just connected).
I also feel strange that performance curve is so flat from the begining until the end of the test...

All my external devices are USB2 so I won't change to Firewire now.

I've done the same test with:
Presario 2210us (ultra low budget laptop): I get 28MB/s
IBM T42 : I get 29MB/s
Maybe it's a chipset issue, how about other laptops with the same chipset from HP or Toshiba?

Thanks for your help guys, when I saw JCG1112 post regarding voltage problems I started wondering about the HW related issue.... quoting JCG112: "..I've had my 7515 for 11 days and had the usb 2.0 problem. After two phone calls to Gateway, they determined that the usb ports were not getting enough voltage..."
He actually sent it for repairs....

 

Retested Toshiba 60GB 5400 rpm external with 3 other devices: a 1GB Sony mp3 player (known to have very slow transfer rate), a Sony 128MB thumbdrive, and a Labtec USB mouse. Mp3 player was charging during the tests.

current draw:

60GB external: 500mA
128MB thumbdrive: 10mA
1GB mp3 player: 100mA
USB mouse: 100mA

ugh!

 

So your external HDD does slow down when other USB devices are connected....maybe the power/voltage issue delcared by JCG is accurate then.

Thinking to get back to BB and let them check my unit...if other units in store have the same problems maybe I will ask to replace it, not many better options in BB though.

 

By ToR - did you find the answer to your problem?

just curious

 

Nope...I talked to BB people and they would have send the laptop to GW for repairs (if they find something wrong....) and it would be 3 weeks w/o my laptop...no good.
I will just leave it as it is until something else force me to send it (not good anyway).
The best thing to solve the performance issue is just buy a PCMCIA USB2 card and connect the high performance devices there....it's just 10-15USD at eBay. As my performace problem affects DVD ripping and HDD backups i will start changing to Firewire instead of USB....it's way better for video/music.
I will receive shortly the external Firewire enclosure for my DVD burner (plextor 716a)...will post firewire results then.