Review of a PCI-E USB card

September 20, 2016

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815124117

No. I didn't buy it from Newegg. I bought it from Canada Computers

http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=48_19_903&item_id=065746

I included both links so you can see the information because Canada Computers shows nothing.

So basically I connect a mouse and keyboard to the back of my computer. The mobo has 3 USB 2.0 ports so left me with 1 left. I am planning to connect a External Bray (read/write) drive that I had long ago (Still uses a Mini USB lol)

So the device. It allows to use the free PCI E x1 from my mobo that I have no idea what I will use it for. A graphics card? no. Wifi adapter? I already have it. So adding extra USB is the way to go.

The box comes with what describes online. A DVD installation driver, the product itself, a molex to sata cable converter for additional power (measured at approx 6 inches long) and a low profile bracket for small computers.

I already have a molex cable so I did not need any adapter, besides all my SATA ports have been used.

Also the installation disc is a mini cd. It is a nice way. At first I thought they didn't include any driver for me and I have to manually search for it.

No sorry no picture for a CD. But I can tell you that it is small.

So here goes the main important part.

Not sure if my weird case has anything to do but the card itself did not align well with the case. At least I manage to secure it with some screws outside with the bracket.

So it has 1 internal ports (facing inside of the case) and 3 other external ports shown on the picture. Powering with a molex cable in case you need it.

I did a crazy job with this. So I really didn't think there could be any use for internal USB port so I decided to plug in my USB hub. Yes I plugged (basically) a hub into a hub. Oh. And that USB hub is also powered too. So a powered usb hub connecting to a powered usb hub...

So this picture clearly shows how unaligned the card is and how I manage to remove the "thing that covers bracket so that nothing gets inside"

oh god I can even see dust inside.

The upper thingy is GPU and the lower one is a wireless adapter (wifi and bluetooth).

Now for the moment we have been waiting for. Is it working.

Driver installation was straight forward. Read the manual, press the eject button on your computer, put the disc in, push the disc tray back. Do as manual says, which is

Went to the directory, You have to open My Computer (or Computer or whatever it is called). Open the disc drive and go to the location above and run the setup file.

Should take less than a minute.

There were no prompt for restarting the computer but I still did it anyway.

So then I went to device manager to check if everything is alright. There is a yellow exclamation mark near Etron USB 3.0 eXtensible Host Controller (which is what this device called). I did not panic. I update the driver by right click > update driver and done, the exclamation mark is GONE!

Well. Everybody can do that. But did it work??

I still restarted my pc once again just to be sure. And then a popup appears. One of your device was not recognised! Now I was bit worried.

Well turns out that it was the same problem with my exact same mobo USB port. I don't want to bring the entire pc to warranty (it's a pre built that I also did a review on it, link at the end)

The keyboard was not working. So now...

I plugged into the usb hub that I mentioned above (which connects to this card).

The keyboard is blue back-lit. After connecting the light was gone and it was not repsonding to anything. Bummer.

No. I am just having bad luck with devices. It is known for some time that that particular USB hub is faulty. Only 2 out of 4 ports were functioning. Well, I reconnect to another port.

Yes it is working!

The sad part is I don't have any USB 3.0 devices laying around to test out its speed. Only a USB 3.0 hub.

Speed test of my USB 2.0 flash drive. This is the result of my 3.0 front panel port