How to add USB 2.0 to your computer

So your computer is pretty old and you’re such with the horribly slow USB 1.1 system. USB drives and external hard drive transfer rates are painfully slow on 1.1! Well have no fear because you can upgrade to USB 2.0 extremely easily in virtually any computer. By the way, these instructions are specifically for PCs, not laptops.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

1. 
   PCI Slots

   First, you need to check if there's a PCI slot open in your computer. Don’t be afraid of doing a little computer technician type work because it’s really quite simple. You can either look at the metal slots on the back of your case or open it up and find the slots near the bottom of the motherboard. They're usually white and look like the attached picture. If you have at least one unused one, you can fit a USB 2.0 controller into it.

2. Now you need to get your hands on a PCI USB 2.0 controller. It goes by different names but a “controller” or “card” is the same thing. It’s simply a PCI card that gets inserted into one of those slots on your motherboard and puts usually 2 to 4 USB ports on the back of your computer. To buy one, you can go to any electronics or computer store and they should have one. To get the best price, you should buy one online though. Just make sure you’re getting one from a respectable brand name or at least one that has mostly positive customer reviews.

3. Once you’ve got a card, shut off your computer, remove the power cable from the back, then open up your case and remove one of the placeholder metal strips inline with whatever PCI port you’re using. Then slide the card in gently and make sure the metal edge is snug against the rectangular hole in the back of the case with no gaps. If it’s misaligned, it probably won’t slide down all the way or look correct from the outside of your case so lift it up and try again.

4. Once the PCI card is inserted, hook your computer back up to the power cord and turn it on. Now wait for the computer to log in and show a balloon in the bottom right saying it found new hardware and is attempting to install a driver for it. Any Windows computer should have a massive driver database built into it that will find and install a driver for a USB 2.0 controller card. If it’s a relatively new card though, a matching driver may not be found. It helps greatly to be connected to the internet so that Windows can search for a driver in Microsoft’s even more massive driver database online. If it asks you for permission to search online, choose to allow it to do so.

5. In the extremely unlikely case that a driver cannot be found given those methods, insert the driver CD that came with the USB 2.0 card. The instructions may say to insert the CD first but who knows when the CD was burned. It could have been years ago. It’s likely an out of date driver compared to ones that are found online so it’s likely the latest and best driver is located online. But if none can be found online, there’s always the one located on the CD to fall back on. Unfortunately, the instructions for how to install the driver from the CD differs from disc to disc but one major way is to insert it and see if an autorun program launches with a button that says “install driver” or something like that. Otherwise, you can use the windows screen that pops up after it fails to find a driver and click “back” a few times then click on install from specific location. Make sure the option to search CDs and other removable media is checked and it will search the CD for the correct driver automatically.

6. Now that the driver for the card is installed, you’re all set to start using it. Plug in any USB device that requires fast data transfer like a flash drive and see the noticeable improvement.

Tips & Warnings

• If reaching behind your computer to connect devices is inconvenient, you can get 1-3 foot USB extension cables and double sided foam tape it to the top of the computer case and connect the other end to a new 2.0 rear port.

[Elizabethknows]

on 9/19/2009 awesome info I know some people have some trouble with the USb thing. 5*