Fitting a USB Multi-Port PCI Card to a C-Dock 2 - Is This Possible?

Gary,

Thank you for using the Dell Community Forum.
It may work it may not.
The C/Dock uses a secondary PCI bus for the expansion cards.
Some PCI expansion cards simply do not work well with secondary PCI buses.
Then only way to truly know if it will work, is either to try it, or have someone state that it has worked for them.
I would think the ports would be powered because the PCI bus would provide power for them.

Hi Karell,

Thank you for your response.

Unfortunately, this doesn't move me much further forward in the decision making process as to whether I should go ahead and buy this PCI Card. (In Great Britain it isn't possible to "Try before you buy")

Therefore, could you let me know an email address of a relevant Dell Technical Support Section that could provide me with a definitive answer please?

Many thanks,

Gary

Message Edited by garyjenkinson on 10-15-2003 10:42 PM

Message Edited by garyjenkinson on 10-15-2003 10:43 PM

Message Edited by garyjenkinson on 10-16-2003 05:28 PM

Gary,

If you would like to E-mail tech support, you can do so from here.
The problem is that Dell cannot and does not test all 3rd party products with our systems.
There are simply too many products on the market to be able to test them all with our systems. So in short, there is no available information that Dell has that can tell
you for sure whether that 3rd party product will work or not.
The only way you are going to get a definitive answer, is to:
1.Get a tech who has this APR and that card, and can tell you that it worked for them.
2.Have another customer who has this APR and that card, and can tell you that it worked for them.

Hi Karell,

Thank you for your reply.

I completely accept your point that Dell does not and cannot test for compatibility of its products with all 3rd party manufacturers.

I think I've been my own worst enenmy and provided too much detail.

To re-phrase my original query; In general terms only, is it possible to fit a USB multi-port PCI card to a C Dock 2? Does anyone know of any reason(s) why this wouldn't work in principle?

Many thanks,

Gary 

Message Edited by garyjenkinson on 10-16-2003 05:29 PM

Garyjenkinson,

To re-phrase my original query; In general terms only, is it possible to fit a USB multi-port PCI card to a C Dock 2? Does anyone know of any reason(s) why this wouldn't work in principle?
Yes, the PCI card should fit in the C/Dock II.
I do not know of any reason in theory why it should not work with the appropriate software and drivers loaded. But, we simply cannot *guarantee* that it will work.

Clark,

Is there firmware on the C/Dock to update?
No, there is no firmware update.
Is there a USB diagnostic?
There could be, but it would have to come from the USB pci card maker because you would need to test the USB
ports on the card, not the system.

Windows XP requires Service Pack1 for USB 2.0 to be fully supported.
Make sure you have installed SP1 for XP if you have not already done so.
You can also try deleting the docking profile to make sure the drivers are loaded correctly.
-Undock the system and boot it to Windows.
-Delete the docking hardware profile.
-Install Service Pack 1 for XP if you don't have it.
-Turn the system off and dock it.
-Turn the system back on while docked so XP redetects all the hardware.

If you have not already done so, you may wish to upgrade to the latest bios file to see if that helps.
Dell Latitude C400 System BIOS, A11.
You may also want to try installing the latest Dell OS updates.
Dell OS Updates, A15.

You can also try the following USB troubleshooting:
Make sure to use these steps while the system is docked.

1.How to turn off USB power management.
Right click My Computer, click Properties.
Click on the Hardware Tab, Device manager button.
Left-click the plus (+) sign next to Universal Serial Bus Controllers.
Right click USB Root Hub or USB 2.0 Root Hub, click properties.
Click the Power Management tab.
Uncheck the box for: "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power"
Click Apply and OK.
You need to perform this step for each listing of USB Root Hub or USB 2.0 Root Hub.

2.Turn off different bios devices to see if one of those devices is interfering.
Go into the system bios and try disabling some of the hardware.
Then reboot the system to see if the PCI USB 2.0 card works.
If it does, go back into the bios and enable one device at a time until you find the device that is causing the problem.
Some things you may wish to disable in the bios:
-Lan Controller set to disabled.
-Docking ethernet set to disabled.
-Docking IRQ set to optimized.
-Universal connect set to disabled.
-Infrared port set to disabled.
-Serial port set to disabled.
-Parallel mode set to disabled.
-Mini PCI status set to disabled.

If you already have SP1 for XP installed, XP has a problem with USB 2.0 drivers, so the following article may also
help you find a solution.
INFO: Availability of USB 2.0 Support in Windows XP SP1 View products that this article applies to.
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Question:
How do I delete my Docked profile?

Answer:

Win2000 and XP.
First you must undock the system.
Then boot the system to Windows.
Right click on My Computer, click on properties.
Click on the Hardware tab.
Click the Hardware Profile button.
You may have two or more docking profiles listed.
Profile 1 (Current), Profile 2, or Docking Profile...
You need to delete the Docking Profile or Profile 2, whichever one is not current.
Click on the appropriate profile, then click Delete, and YES.
Reboot the system.
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I recently picked-up a Belkin 5 port USB 2.0 PCI card,  and it works great in my C-Dock II with my C840.  I also have a Belkin 3 port Firewire card in the docking station too.  I can connect my external USB HD to the docking station and it will even power the drive from the USB port on the card.  I now have my DVD +/- R/RW drive and an 80GB hard drive connected to the firewire card,  and I have my portable 40GB HD that can plug into the USB 2.0 card.  I am quite happy with my system's performance.

Now,  my next test is to see if I can access the cards from a DOS boot floppy... 

Me also, I installed a Belkin 5 port USB 2.0 PCI card and a Belkin 3 port FiWi card in my C-Dock II with my C840.  I've connected two external powered hard disks to 2 FiWi ports of one PCI card, and an external powered DVD-RW to a USB 2 port of the other PCI card. In the expansion bay of the dock there is also a hard disk.  Everything works fine.

But ...

When I reboot my laptop both the FiWi hard disks on my PCI card are gone !  When I shut down the laptop and the dock, after booting up the disks are back ...
I case after the reboot my disks are gone, when I disconnect and reconnect them they come back and everything is OK.
To me it seems that the PCI card is not scanned for hardware in case of a 'warm' reboot.

Enyone knows how to fix this problem ?

Configuration : C840 BIOS A13, C-Dock II, WinXP

It seems like alot of people have had problems with USB pci cards in their C/Dock II Expansion Stations, so I'll share my experiences with everyone to hopefully help out someone.

I have a Dell Latitude C600 with a A23 bios running Windows XP with SP2 and latest Dell OS updates with a C/Dock II expansion station.

At first a bought a generic USB pci card that had a VIA 6212L chipset and I had similar problems to what other users have had: Windows would recognise the usb card and load the drivers fine, but when I went to use the ports, XP would say "Device not recognised, blah, blah, blah".

I drove myself nuts for a few hours trying to figure out the problem, and at one stage I got an MP3 player working through the ports for a short amount of time, so I then thought that it might be the chipset not working with the station properly.

So after a little while of testing out different USB pci cards with my docking station and laptop in various pc stores, I found one that worked beautifully.

It was this card: http://www.swann.com.au/show_item.php?item=17

Its a 4+1 card with an NEC D720100AGM chipset.

So I've come to the conclusion that the C/Dock is a little picky about the chipset's in pci cards, and that the VIA 6212L Chipset definitely doesn't work from my experiences.

So what I'd suggest is:

1. Try to find a USB pci card with an NEC D720100AGM chipset.

2. Even better, take your laptop and docking station (with a USB 2.0 device and maybe a screwdriver) around to pc stores and test it in the stores. If the store won't do it, they're not worthy of your business, so just find one that will test it out.
(P.S. You'll find with a little bit of flattery and kindness, most salespeople will jump over themselves to help you).

If you happen to find another USB pci card with a different chipset that works beautifully, please post back what the chipset is, so other people can too enjoy the pleasures of DVD burning in 8mins!

(P.S. I'm still getting the message at startup that says "Strike the F1 key to continue, F2 to run the setup utility" after the card was installed, but I'm pretty sure that it has something to do with the profiles, so I'll fix it up when I get time and post the results).

(P.P.S. Moderators, I'm going to post this same post in similar threads to help out the greatest amount of people, I hope this isn't against the rules, and if it is, I hope you'll allow it in the interest of community).