If a peripheral advert (e.g. printer) says USB2, does it mean:

- Can buy USB2 cable and will then work.

- Can buy USB2 cable and some sort of computer card inserted into tower that will recognise said cable.

- Will work on USB1, but would be faster on USB2

- Will only work if USB2 available.

- Are USB2 cables compatible with all operating systems, e.g. Win98, WinMe and WinXP or just XP or Vista?

Sorry if numpty

Many thanks

Mo

Generally a USB2 device requires a USB2 port to connect to. In the early days of the standard some would be backwards compatible but with reduced efficiency (memory sticks generally still are) but many printers and scanners (and other high throughput devices) just won't work now. If your machine lacks USB2 ports, you can add them quite easily via a PCI card.

The cable isn't really that important to be honest, and most places charge an absolute fortune for them. If you didn't get one with the device then pick up a simple one from an online shop and don't even think about buying one from a high street store unless you want to mortgage a kidney

Thanks, Interphase. Will have saved me lots of time head-scratching when it didn't work.

Mo

My venerable home PC (behold!)

runs an array of USB 2.0 devices (external HDD, wireless LAN adaptor, Bluetooth, external CD-ROM, webcam, memory card reader), even though it's only got USB 1.1 PCI cards built-in. Sure it's slow, but I've never actually had any hardware compatibility issues. In fact, the only thing I've bought for it that hasn't worked was a USB 2.0 PCMCIA card that I tried installing to speed things up a bit... (Don't ask about the PCMCIA bit... :P )

Uploading the 2GB of photos I took on honeymoon was an overnight job, though

PS: Interphase is right though, if you have a sensible PC (i.e. with a tower or pedestal), then you'll just be able to pop the cover and stick a USB2.0 PCI card in, and unless it's even older than mine, you'll be on your way!

Mostly I just get whinges about it being able to run faster if I had USB2.0 capability. I wasn't even aware there was any difference in the cables - I've certainly never seen one that was marked as USB2.0 :confused:

USB2 cables have a higher degree of shielding, but most reasonable quality USB1.1 cables will run USB2 fine over short ish runs.

It's virtually impossible to find USB cables that are not USB2 compatible pretty much, so wouldn't worry about it

Was going to say: Aren't USB2.0 cables ripe for filing in the same bin as BP Ultimate?

Depends... a usb 1.1 won't run usb 2 over a long run eg getting to the max length... but for short stuff it will do fine.

As ww said pretty much all cables are USB 2.0 anyway these days and the reason I said about 1.1 is if you have old cables hanging around.

Fairy 'nuff...

I'm trying to keep up, honest. It seems I deffo need a USB2 PCI card, but might be OK with a recent USB cable (I have a box of spare leads that would outshine a tin of spaghetti).

Thanks Peeps

Mo

USB2 is 40 times faster than USB1 (1.1) and USB 2 is backwards compatible.

As above, Its hard to get USB1 (1.1) stuff nowadays, apart from the poundland bargains.

Just to clarify - USB2 ports are backwards compatible with USB1.1 devices, but USB2 specific devices will frequently fail to work with 1.1 ports - the newer wave of multifunction printers are a good example. I'd imagine that the clock speed may become an issue for newer kit designed to handle large transfers.