What is Legacy USB Support?

Question

I own a Dimension 4400 which i purchased in Dec/Jan 2001/2002. It has 4 USB ports and I assume that they're 2.0.   I have an external hard drive, but when I turn it on, Windows tells me that I don't have any Hi Speed USB ports on my computer. In my BIOS, it says that Legacy USB Support is enabled. If i disable it, will I be able to attain Hi Speed instead of legacy 1.1 'Full Speed'? Or are the ports on a Dimension 4400 incapable of Hi Speed data transfer rates?

Majestic · Accepted Answer

The Legacy USB Support option only provides support of the USB ports during boot up and for other activities when the operating system isn't fully loaded.  Otherwise the USB ports are inactive until Windows loads the necessary drivers.  This option has no effect on whether the USB ports are version 1.1 or 2.0.    I suspect the problem you are running into is that your system is only USB 1.1 and not the higher speed USB 2.0.  for a Dell Knowledge Base article that will explain how to check to see if your system is USB 2.0 compliant.

Bigbio2002 · Answer

Thanks. I was thinking that the option for Legacy USB support reverted the ports on my computer to USB 1.1 speeds (for seemingly obvious 'legacy support'). I don't have a USB keyboard or anything else like that, so the setting doesn't matter. It turns out I only have USB 1.1 ports unfortunately, so I'll have to get an add-in card in the future.

Majestic · Answer

'I was thinking that the option for Legacy USB support reverted the ports on my computer to USB 1.1 speeds (for seemingly obvious 'legacy support'). '   After USB 2.0 became the standard that maybe why Dell renamed this BIOS option to USB Emulation to avoid the same confusion.

Locked Topics – Desktops General

Was this post helpful?