Reformatted 5 year old PC using the original installation disk. Currently have all Windoze Updates and Office Updates. System works perfectly except that the machine constantly tells me "Device would perform better if connected to USB 2" I had always believed "USB 2.0" was built into XP, what happened to it? In the event it must be reinstalled, where do I find it? _________________________ Embrace paranoia, they ARE out to get you!

WinXP with SP1 or higher SUPPORTS USB 2.0. You must have hardware that is USB 2.0 capable though. A 5 year old computer may or may not have that capablility. At any rate to get the USB working properly after a Windows installation you need to also install the Motherboard chipset drivers and possibly graphic, sound, LAN and others. These drivers should be available from the MBoard manufacturer's site or in the case of a GAteway from Gateway.

Thanks O, Computer was originally 2.0 compatable, I have apparently forgotten to reinstall the chipset drivers. _________________________ Embrace paranoia, they ARE out to get you!

Oops - there were no answers when I started this post - too slow again! USB 2.0 SUPPORT is built in XP if it has SP1 or SP2 updates. The drivers are built into Windows if that applies. However, your mboard is old enough it may not have any USB 2.0 controllers on it, OR it may have two types of controllers and some ports that are USB 2.0, which is backwards compatible with USB 1.x devices, and some ports that are USB 1.x only. If you connect a device that is USB 2.0 compatible into a USB 1.x only port, you may get messages "Device would perform better if connected to USB 2" or similar - that message appears because the device is capable of using USB 2.0 but it isn't presently using it. If you re-loaded the original Gateway software installation, that would include having the information Windows needs about whether the mboard has USB 2.0 support or not. If you reloaded Windows from a regular XP CD, it does not have that information, and you must load the drivers for the main chipset and possibly other drivers for the mboard in order for Windows to find the USB 2.0 controllers if they are present. If you load drivers from the web, brand name system builders and mboard makers often DO NOT have the main chipset drivers listed in the downloads for your model - in that case you must go to the maker of the main chipset's web site, get the drivers, and load them. You may also need to load other drivers available on the Gateway site for your model. You can run most USB 2.0 devices in USB 1.x ports or USB 1.x mode no problem, but the USB 1.x maximum data transfer speed is much slower. If you find that to be a problem and you have no USB 2.0 controllers, get yourself a PCI USB 2.0 card if this is a desktop computer (2 to 5 ports), or if this is a laptop, if you have a PCMCIA slot free, get a PCMCIA (Cardslot) USB 2.0 controller with 2 or 4 ports. If you DO have USB 2.0 controllers on the mboard, they can be set to run in two modes - the mode is specified in your bios settings - one mode allows much faster data transfer speeds than the other.