Hair pull time .Ditched my Virgin BB on cost grounds on retirement. decided to get a pay as you go dongle ,which works ok on the old ( ye ancient running win2k) laptop .Tells me its running at 7.2M, which is about where virgin got on the 10M service at 1/3 of the cost .

problem is that whilst my main Pc will accept flash drives and copes with scanner and printers on USB, along with a USB mouse ( on win2k/xp pro and 7 ultimate ) the mobile T mobile partially installs on any OS , but the PC then locks up.

PC is a few years old -AMD 2800( socket A) Duron with 2M ram ( homebrew).Only thing I can think of is that somehow the supplies to the ports have been damaged and are current limiting.Had a similar problem earlier with a 4 port non powered splitter..Havent yet tried a self powered USB hub.

Anyone suggest another cause as I dont really want to spend too much time on line with the laptop as security for win 2k is a bit sparse .

What OS is your main computer running? I would doubt that the ports themselves have become damaged, although of course anything is possible. More likely so, I would say it is a driver issue. I have seen issues in the past with USB chipset drivers on certain motherboard/chipset combinations. What motherboard is your offending computer running on?

I would certainly suggest trying to get hold of a self powered USB hub if you can, which will eliminate power as an issue and it may help as the device will be running off a new USB root hub.

Also, I wouldn't worry *too* much about security. If you stay safe online and use a decent browser, watch what you click etc, then 2000 will be OK. There are probably plenty of Windows 2000 Servers out there still running fine. EDIT: The main thing with security especially considering your are accessing the Internet directly through your USB dongle and instead not behind a router which likely operates NAT/SPI etc, is that you have a reputable firewall installed and active

Edited 16 October, 201114 yr by George512

( can't remember the make -was the only socket A replacement I could get when last one went in smoke due to PSU fault, as socket A was obselescent)

main pc runs

Win 7 ult /xp pro /win2k.Same on all OS.

MOBO is K7S41GX - seem to remember chipset is SIS based

Browser on laptop is latest firefox version with most up to date firewall version of Zone alarm that win 2k will tolerate .Only used for browsing for Briscoda /similar .Any firewall intrusion attempts get blocked unless I know what they are /recognise site .

MOBO is K7S41GX - seem to remember chipset is SIS based

Honestly, that could well be your problem. I had a K7S5A which I think was a similar era to yours (think mine was a Duron 2000). ECS' quality control wasn't up to much in those days, I couldn't use PCI video cards at the time in it without the PCI bus being transformed from a peripheral interconnection into a white noise generator because it provided more ports than it actually had bandwidth for and everything went to pot under any kind of load. Again, that was an ECS board with an SiS chipset (which have always been cheap but ropey IMO).

I would go with George's suggestion of a powered hub, or if you're feeling a little bit more extreme, a PCI USB controller card which would come with a different chipset and not SiS. Dongles don't need that much power so the 500mA straight out of a PCI USB card should be fine and again it'd be on a new root hub. Not sure how much they are these days though.

Honestly, that could well be your problem. I had a K7S5A which I think was a similar era to yours (think mine was a Duron 2000). ECS' quality control wasn't up to much in those days, I couldn't use PCI video cards at the time in it without the PCI bus being transformed from a peripheral interconnection into a white noise generator because it provided more ports than it actually had bandwidth for and everything went to pot under any kind of load. Again, that was an ECS board with an SiS chipset (which have always been cheap but ropey IMO).

I would go with George's suggestion of a powered hub, or if you're feeling a little bit more extreme, a PCI USB controller card which would come with a different chipset and not SiS. Dongles don't need that much power so the 500mA straight out of a PCI USB card should be fine and again it'd be on a new root hub. Not sure how much they are these days though.

Completly off topic but I had forgotten just how many problems I had with a Duron 1300 and a K7S5A! DDR and PC133 support on the same board was a great idea, but never really executed properly. Having said that, I don't think I'd be where I am today without having to try and sort the problems out from that board...

I doubt the dongle officially supports Win2000, so that may be your problem, rather than the USB ports or mobo. i have found similar problems with wireless mice on older operating systems (WinME ), with the port polling causing the machine to slow to a crawl or lock up. I installed XP SP2 and the things worked fine.

(They were old Duron 650 boards donated by a friend)

Just thought I'd point out that the K7S41GX is not an ECS board, it's an Asrock if I remember correctly. Back in my sysadmin days for a local council, I actually used this board extensively for Socket 462 builds... very nice and reliable board actually!

But in 2011, I would certainly look at replacing it, or at least trying a new hub.

And yes, I think it was a SiS chipset

Oops, you're right, I just saw the model number and the fact it was an SiS-based AMD board and just assumed it was an evolution/devolution of the K7S5A piece of junk that I used to own!

I doubt the dongle officially supports Win2000, so that may be your problem, rather than the USB ports or mobo. i have found similar problems with wireless mice on older operating systems (WinME ), with the port polling causing the machine to slow to a crawl or lock up. I installed XP SP2 and the things worked fine.

(They were old Duron 650 boards donated by a friend)

GG - PRESENTLY REPLYING ON AN OLD THINKPAD 600E running win 2k ( using the dongle in question)- it will run ( more like crawl) XP PRO BUT thats not the laptops fault .The problem is on my home brew AMD PC - WIN7 ULT gets so far and locks up .XP Pro sort of sees the ongle and gives up .Win2k oes similar( main PC runs WIN7 ULT/XP PRO/WIN2K an for nostalgia Win 98 FE-to format stuff in DOS /run some old programms) . So the problem is not OS but PC - possibly a driver conflict . What makes me think it's port related is that at one time I had all the non power depenant devices fed via a 4 port splitter port(-things like printers /printer scanner) . It also fed my usb flash drives till one day it gave up and only powered the devices with an internal supply .It would not power my usb mouse .

On the topic of old programs -I'm tempted to get out my old 66mhz dx PC and install win 95 so I can play with Norton 4.5 on odgy HDD/Floppies & retrieve ata .Problem is that I can't find key .

Sorry, I got confused and thought it was only Win2000 you were having problems with. If it happening on all OS installs, and you have had previous USB problems, it might be the PSU, have you considered trying a newer one, the 5v line may be dying, under-volting or just generally unable to cope with demand. Another, cheaper, option is a pci expansion card fitted with several USB ports, as they should get their power from the pci power rail and not the boards usb one. A 233Mhz ThinkPad ?? XP should run on that without any problem, although it could do with more RAM if you only have the original 64MB installed. try downloading and installing TinyXP, and use one of the smaller install options that remove much of the bloat from XP pro. I remember installing XP on a Amd K6-II 333 with 64MB and it was faster than the previous Win98SE install, although upgrading to 128MB made it even faster. I later upped that to a MASSIVE 256Mb and oc'd it to 450Mhz!!

Thanks GG- trying to get my hands on a self powered USB hub to see if that cures problems .I'm tending to think that as it's only the greedier usb items that cause problems ,might be down to lack of power .

From menory PSU is 500w an I'm only running te MB and a 64k Gforce grafics card. Might try removing graphics and using on board graphics to see if that oes anything .

Know thw MB is old, but the setup is fast enough for me -runs all my software ok an it's a socket A board ,meaning that that to replace means a new CPU ,fresh install which means downloading win7/XP updates on a PAYG dongle with 1GB a month .Apart from that ,max speed on te dongle is 7.2M

Laptop is an old IBM Thinkpad 600e with 192 memory running at 500k - will take xp pro ,but it needs a zimmer frame to work .

Hmm, what make is your PSU? 500W really is ample for the task so I doubt it's that. You could easily run that set up on a 350W actually.

My money would be on the motherboard.

Come to think of it, have you had a look in the BIOS (be careful!) and tried changing some of the USB specific settings? E.g. legacy mode, etc. Try some different combinations and see what happens... it's a long shot but I know I recently fixed a USB problem on a £1500 server just by switching a USB setting in the BIOS.

But like I say, my bet will be on the motherboard.

Cheap psu's rarely give the power claimed, read the tests over at Toms hardware reviews. Some unbranded jobs were giving up at less than 50% of rated power (one exploded!!), they were also surging and spiking voltages everywhere. Also remember that the 500w rating is the TOTAL power, each voltage has its own specific limit. My mothers PC blew 3 cpu's in 18 months before we tracked it down to a faulty psu, MESH had changed the HDD twice (FFS WHY!!??) AND the mobo; the only up side was that they ran out of the same spec chip and had to give her a free upgrade; that was 10 years ago, and the PC is still working today. I had a similar problem with a pc falling over at random that was cured with a better psu and another that wouldnt boot after a cpu upgrade until a new psu was fitted. Dropping out the gfx card is unlikely to work, as it draws on the +12v rail and not the +5v rail. After the above experiences, I only buy psu's from manufacturers with a good reputation, EarthWatts and Corsair are my psu's of choice right now.

I know they don't. Hence why my first few words were asking what make it was.

But you're right in your other points without a doubt... A substandard or faulty PSU is a really massive pain in the behind. I never scrimp on PSUs on builds, because it's just such a core component. Currently using a Corsair TX850 v2 in my i7 build and agree on the quality of corsair stuff.

Sorry George, I wasnt having a go at you, I missed reading you post and was replying to VWD's post immediately above yours. The internet is pretty slow out here at times, so I dont update the page very often while I am reading it or writing a reply.

Update -asked T mobile shop if dongle is win 7 compatable -they say it is ,but Win 7 can't see it .Shut down Windows defender and Avast -still no go .Tried it on win2k - not really on .So back to old XP PRO .Set to and uninstalled the LAN ,and all other USB 'Y items( such as Bluetooth ) .Shut down Zone alarm and Avast .Ran CCleaner on both files an registry entries.Removed all USB connections and used mouse on mouse port .

Now it sees dongle in System as a USB item .The internet manager loads and tried to connecr before locking up . Tried again with USB MOUSE -SAME .

Loaded system in safe mode -internet manager loads and runs .Firefox comes up ,but obviously can't find any net .

So - my assumption ( know that'sdangerous to assume ) is that it's driver ( or something the good folks at Microsoft often overlook -an update fooking things up -something I've ha before -used to like Photoraw from office 2000 ,till some update ,just after xp1 upate cause it to crash)

Any other thoughts woul be welcome .

And GG-know the feeling - it's like the drop from the 2.8G PC to this titchy Laptop ,wich used to hit the giddy heights if 4MB on a 10 MB wirelss connection

Another update - found that in Win 7 ,the device was not shown on evice manager and there was a folder in Prog files ,but no installed prog .With dongle out ,removed folder ,and uninstalle the onboard LAN plus removed all USB devices. .Another odd one - as the USB ports are on the rear of the tower ,I use a cable to plug in memory sticks etc .No problems with memory sticks -so I thought the same with this dongle .Plugging the dongle into the cable got nothing .Yet when olugge direct into PC , it installed .Only problem is now that I get the connect screen ,it starts to connect and then PC locks up .

Sorry about the delay, had my own crisis, woke up to a black screen and an error message on Friday (Thursday evening UK time). It took me 2 days to find the programs I needed (blame the GFWoC), then an hour to fix it!!!

I had a thought about the driver software, it may not be, but I had something similar a few years back with an orange dongle my sister had.

The software instructions said install the dongle before the software, but doing this locked the system up, you had to install the software BEFORE inserting the dongle; so just wondered if you have tried doing it the other way round to whatever the instructions say. (I also came across this with a netgear dongle, although in their case the paper documents said one way, and the .pdf help files said the other!!)

The other thing is possible OS damage from a previous viral infection that has not shown up until now. This came to mind because after cleaning up my system today, I found the crash was caused by a virus trying to install and crashing mid infection, leaving some of my .dll files as damaged or no longer recognised by the system.

It might be worth going over to Bleeping Computer - Computer Help and Discussion

Install software seems to be in memory in stick - wiped all signs of stick from win 7 ,re installed software from seperate memory stick( with windows firewall+ defender off) . Device is now seen ,connect screen comes up ,tries to connect and system locks .XP pRO /wIN 2K same result .Trying not to re install as Win 7 needs a few on line drivers and there's a download limit on stick .Can't see anything in system management ,but not really sure how to read it .Tried malwarebytes/superantispyware -system clean .

Ok, back to square one.........

What other programs are running in the back ground??

Try turning off AV and fire walls. If it will then connect, turn them back on one at a time and see which one causes the lock up.

If if still wont connect, start turning off any other programs until you either find the culprit or run out of programs!!!

If you run out of programs, it is either a windows or hardware driver device conflict, or a damaged .dll file..

Have you checked your BIOS settings?

You may need to enable Legacy USB devices & USB High Speed to get things working correctly.

GG-Firewalls & AV was my first port of call . Next step - pull out all USB plugs ,resort to style mouse and look for instaled Usb programs . No change -so USB mouse removed from list . Nothing else on control panel /device drivers - device seen as HUAWEI( if that rings any alarm bells with anyone) -with no problems detected .Used cccleaner to look for programs with any usb involvement . None detected-thinking solution might be to do a total re install & take PC to my son's place to get the updates on his connection .

Evening Star - bios is latest update .Legacy seems not to make any difference .

HUAWEI are a massive Chinese company that make many of the 3G and Wifi dongles used in the UK, people like Virgin, Orange and O2, etc, buy the hardware and basic software, then custom badge and name them, and mess with the software to add their own branding.

They have a good reputation for making solid kit and sell plenty of it under their own name, here in China.

I wasnt thinking of USB using programs, but everything else; sometimes you do get weird conflicts if the software is badly written.

It might be worth searching for the Huwaei site and seeing if they have a newer set of drivers.

The only other thing I can think of is a bad motherboard driver or windows update. I have a similar problem in this respect; a board that worked perfectly with a wireless pci card suddenly stopped working after a Win7 update, and the update is not one that can be removed, although in my case it didnt lock up the PC, just make the card try to connect at a totally incorrect speed, similar to a bad ZoneAlarm update from 18 - 24 months ago.

The update also killed the onboard ethernet port, although the port works perfectly under Ubuntu, and a pci ethernet card also works perfectly.

Out of desperation started to mess with settings in bios . Enabled IDE BuSMASTER SUPPORT AND HEY - in Win 7 I got to connect ,got on line got ot Yahoo ,trie Brisky , then it locked up .So - after some playing with Bios setings ,still guesing .Any suggestions