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USB 3.2 vs USB 2.0


rsinger

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I got a new laptop, an MSI Crosshair 15. When I plugged a Roland Quad-Capture into the USB 3.2 gen 1 port the QC didn't like it. It's fine in the USB 2.0 port and that's no problem. I'm curious if anyone knows what the problem is using some USB 2.0 devices with 3.2 ports?

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That's interesting. Not many manufacturers are stepping up to USB 3; I wonder if they're they testing for compatibility? The QC is an old IF so, I'm not surprised there are compatibility problems.

Edited by rsinger
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I have an old Focusrite Scarlett 2i4 which causes absolute havoc if I connect it via USB 3.0 - I get blue screens and crashes all over the place. It took me ages to realise this was the issue. However on USB 2.0 - rock solid.

If and when I upgrade my laptop (five years old), I reckon I'll have to upgrade the interface as well.

Andy

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It's a bit funny that.

My pc have a couple of Usb3 connectors. I bought another external HD and together with that a Usb3 hub.

Connected the Usb3 hub to the Usb3 connector on the pc. Connected two external HD to the hub and they showed up in the file explorer.

The day after, restarted pc, it was only showing one HD. No matter what i do it would end with only one HD showing.

Thinking the hub was buggy i switched it out for an old Usb2 hub connected to the same Usb3 connector on the pc . And now it's working. I see both HD's and they are still there after restart.

I checked the info about the HD's and found out they was not Usb3 as i thought but Usb2.

The mystical thing is > Why did the Usb3 hub accept one HD but not two? 🤔

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15 hours ago, rsinger said:

I got a new laptop, an MSI Crosshair 15. When I plugged a Roland Quad-Capture into the USB 3.2 gen 1 port the QC didn't like it. It's fine in the USB 2.0 port and that's no problem. I'm curious if anyone knows what the problem is using some USB 2.0 devices with 3.2 ports?

Often times, USB 3.2 (gen2) ports are via 3rd-party controllers (not Intel).

Many older Audio and MIDI devices have problems with 3rd-party controllers.

 

The positive news is that there's no advantage to connecting to USB 3.2 (no performance benefit).

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I set the laptop up in my home studio and the Boss SY-1000 works fine with the USB 3.2 gen 1 port (SY-1000 is USB 2). The MOTU MIDI express XT works with it as well. I noticed that the USB 2 spec has a couple revisions, it may be that some older units have problems due to the revs.

Edited by rsinger
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On my Asus P8B75V motherboard, my 1st gen Scarlett 18i20 works far better using the USB 3.0 ports than on the USB 2.0 ports, but I suspect his is more to do with what other devices are using the same IRQ as the USB 2.0 port, rather than a USB 2.0 / USB 3.0 thing.

Looking at the IRQ assignment in Windows Device Manager, it looks like all USB 2.0 ports are going through the same IRQ (23) - so my trackball, keyboard, USB wifi adapter & USB midi devices will all be serviced by the same IRQ.

The USB 3.0 port however, has it's own dedicated IRQ.

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4 hours ago, satyabrata satapathy said:

The Type-C ports on laptops r usb c only, right? 

I'm not sure what you mean. Type-C is a connector, there are also Type-A, Type-B, Mini-USB, Micro-USB, and so on. Normally the USB standard will be specified as well. My laptop says - 1 x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type C. I got an adapter for mine but haven't used it yet. I use a MOTU M4 with my DAW - it has a USB-C port, but it's USB 2.0.

m4_rear.png

Under specs it says -

Computer I/O - 1 x USB-C (compatible with USB Type A) 2.0 audio class compliant

 

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Virtually all USB audio interfaces that connect via USB-C port are actually USB-2 devices.

There's no performance advantage connecting via USB-C.

 

A USB-C port doesn't mean that a machine has Thunderbolt.

If you don't specifically see the lightning-bolt icon next to the port, it's USB-C (USB only).

If you see the lightning-bolt icon, the port is Thunderbolt 3 or Thunderbolt 4.

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  • 1 month later...

i have a Zoom UAC8 USB 3 interface - well it's supposed to be USB3 - plug it into a USB 3.2 - havoc and unusable.

I had an old USB3 PCi card - it was a good make (sorry cant remember name) - i put that in and the interface worked OK - i did try it in the USB 2 and that was mostly fine as well.

Was not desperately impressed with all of this to be honest, so went back to my Firewire Interface - perfect. i will not be changing for a while!!

Nigel

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

This is an interesting article about IRQ sharing in versions of Windows after 7. You can easily find out which devices are sharing IRQ's using Device Manager:

https://maxedtech.com/show-devices-by-irq-in-windows/

You can also change some of them to using message-signaled interrupts, which is a newer modelI've done some playing around with MSI Utility and really, saw no perceptible difference on the system where I tried it. Maybe I'll try it on my new system that is having no problems and see if I can break it:

https://forums.guru3d.com/threads/windows-line-based-vs-message-signaled-based-interrupts-msi-tool.378044/

With old-device-on-new-USB port issues, I suspect that it may have something to do with the newer port supplying data at a faster rate than the client device can handle. There may be less engineering attention given to the port's ability to fall back, and of course, USB 2 devices made prior to the adoption of USB 3 might not be as good at communicating that they need the port to fall back. It's just a guess due to having read so many reports of older USB 2.0 devices only starting to work once the person plugged them into an old hub.

For audio, I'm a Firewire guy. I like my asynchronous streaming of data for audio streams.

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On 5/3/2022 at 11:19 AM, Kurre said:

It's a bit funny that.

My pc have a couple of Usb3 connectors. I bought another external HD and together with that a Usb3 hub.

Connected the Usb3 hub to the Usb3 connector on the pc. Connected two external HD to the hub and they showed up in the file explorer.

The day after, restarted pc, it was only showing one HD. No matter what i do it would end with only one HD showing.

Thinking the hub was buggy i switched it out for an old Usb2 hub connected to the same Usb3 connector on the pc . And now it's working. I see both HD's and they are still there after restart.

I checked the info about the HD's and found out they was not Usb3 as i thought but Usb2.

The mystical thing is > Why did the Usb3 hub accept one HD but not two? 🤔

The hd's are ssd's and it wasn't stable on the usb2 hub either. It seems that 2 usb ssd's can't use the same usb connection even if you use a hub with extra power. I changed my usb connections so the keyboard and mouse used the usb hub and moved the ssd's to its own usb contact. One at the front and one at the back. They seem to play nice now and several weeks have gone without a problem.

The usb cable they use has the blue contact which should mean that they are usb3. NOW googling "Transcend StoreJet" confirms that on Pricerunner. On the homepage of transcend ssd's it isn't that obvious. Which is why i thought it had to be usb2 that was the problem with usb3 hub.

But you don't give up. You keep trying different things until it works.

I'm a bit proud of my tenacity. I recently got the Streamdeck (15) to work on my win8.1.

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