BIOS question

[ShallowHal]

I upgraded my old computer with Win 2000 and now it won't recognize the USB ports. It's an old Intel motherboard (SE440BX-2) and I'm wondering if updating the BIOS will solve the problem. Any suggestions would be helpful.

thanks

 

[Willoughbyva]

Have you installed drivers for your chipset?

 

[redbeard1]

Did you do an upgrade over the top of 98, or did you install fresh?

A bios upgrade wouldn't help, though making sure it is turned on in the bios would.

 

[ShallowHal]

I did a complete intall over 98. I've tried to enable the ports but 2000 can't find a driver.

 

[redbeard1]

Intel USB drivers are built into win2k. It sounds like something is sharing the usb resources, which is confusing win2k, making it not able to see the usb properly.

With an intel bios, it doesn't display the resource list in the second post screen, like other motherboard makers, so it is harder to discern what is going on. You might try checking in the bios to see if you can tell the usb to use a specific interupt. You might also remove all the cards except video, and disable any onboard devices, and then try booting into windows and doing a add new hardware search.

 

[ShallowHal]

I appreciate the reply. Win2k is telling me that it can't find drivers for the USB port. You mentioned that it could be confused. I'm still wondering if the older motherboard coupled with the newer technology would be better off with a BIOS upgrade. I wouldn't ask if I didn't trust your opinion but why won't that help? Thanks again for your time.

 

[redbeard1]

A bios upgrade is meant to enable new features or repair odd bugs that have come to their attention. New cpu's and bigger hard drive capacities are the most common reasons to do a bios update. Usb has been around since old pentium boards, that had 430VX chipsets, so it would be doubtful that a flash would change anything related to usb in a more modern board like you have. It generally doesn't hurt to do a bios upgrade, though whenever you do, you take the risk of something odd happening, causing your board to go dead from a bad flash.

Some other hardware issue is causing the usb problem.