Anyone got the story on win98se usb2.0 and scanners

[KevinR]

Was looking at some good older scanners and noticed something odd in the specs.

One brand says - will run at usb1.1 on win98 and usb2.0 on win2000 onwards.

Another says - will run at usb2.0 on factory-installed-win98 and on win2000 onwards. Other win98 at usb1.1

There appears to be a driver/patch issue. Clearly factory installs may have extra patch/hotfixes.

I would have hoped that as I have the motherboard drivers for usb2.0 and usb2.0 ports then a device would use it as 2.0. These descriptions imply that there are other issues.

Has anyone any experience of this?

[Mijzelf]

I have no experience, but I don't think it matters much. An A4 paper is about 87 square inch. When you scan that on 300 DPI, it is 7.8 megapixel. Let's say you need 6 bytes for a pixel (3 * 16 bits), that makes 47 MB. USB 1.1 takes about 47 seconds to transfer that. I don't think there are much home scanners which can do this scan in less than 47 seconds. Mine doesn't.

[PassingBy]

Hmmm .....

Was looking at some good older scanners and noticed something odd in the specs.

One brand says - will run at usb1.1 on win98 and usb2.0 on win2000 onwards.

Another says - will run at usb2.0 on factory-installed-win98 and on win2000 onwards. Other win98 at usb1.1

.....

IMO, the above statements are correct ... I presumed that when the (old) scanners came about there was no usb 2.0 support working properly on windows 98.

To get proper usb 2.0 working requires correct drivers to be installed. There's currently two ways that I know of to install usb 2.0 drivers for windows 98. First would be through chipset vendor drivers. Second is by installing NUSB.

Current usb 2.0 drivers can work on both windows 98 gold (may require minor patch) and second edition (natively). Once usb 2.0 drivers are installed and working then most (if not all) usb devices can detect and use the required usb speed (if at all).

Rgds

[KevinR]

...

To get proper usb 2.0 working requires correct drivers to be installed. There's currently two ways that I know of to install usb 2.0 drivers for windows 98. First would be through chipset vendor drivers. Second is by installing NUSB.

Current usb 2.0 drivers can work on both windows 98 gold (may require minor patch) and second edition (natively). Once usb 2.0 drivers are installed and working then most (if not all) usb devices can detect and use the required usb speed (if at all).

Rgds

That's what I'd have expected too. Motherboard chipset vendor drivers would give usb2.0 - at least on 98SE. BUT the scanner specifications get all twitchy about usb2.0 on 98. Its weird.

eg.

USB 1.1 Microsoft® Windows® 98SE/Me/2000 Professional/ XP Home Edition/ XP Professional/ XP Professional x64 Edition

(Pre-installed model or upgrade of Windows® 98/Me/2000 Professional pre-installed model)

Mac OS® X 10.2.8 or later

USB 2.0 Microsoft® Windows® 2000 Professional/XP Home Edition/XP Professional/ XP Professional x64 Edition *

(Pre-installed model or upgrade of Windows® 2000 Professional pre-installed model)

Mac OS® X 10.2.8 or later

* USB 2 Host Driver by Microsoft is required"

USB1.1 Microsoft® Windows® 98SE / Me / 2000 Professional / XP Home Edition / XP Professional (pre-installed model or upgrade of Windows® 98 / Me / 2000 professional pre-installed model) Mac OS® X 10.2.7 or later

USB 2.0 Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition / XP Professional / 2000 Professional* (pre-installed model or upgrade of Windows® 2000 Professional pre-installed model) Mac OS® X 10.2.7 or later

*USB 2.0 Host Driver by Microsoft is required

They seem to think if the machine ever had win98 on it (without it being wiped by a full install) then you will only get USB1.1. Its freeky or they have encountered weird problems. That's why I asked.