Re: Largest External HDD I Can Use With a Dimension 8200?
- From: gary <gary.nospam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 06 Mar 2006 11:11:54 GMT
Mike, that's what I did, and the Maxtor external OneTouch II is working perfectly. But as mentioned, my Soundblaster PCI card has a 1394 port on it, so was able to use THAT firewire port without having to install another PCI card.
Keep in mind that adding another PCI card to your system will draw more power. And if your system has a powerful graphics card, it may not have enough power (with the limited power supply Dell chose to instal in some of it's Dimension models, like the D-8200/8300s).
But if you're using a PCI sound card already, you can just replace it with a new Soundblaster that has a 1394 port on it. That way, you're not drawing any more power from the system, unless you need more than one firewire port.
If it is a "power" related problem, as some have speculated here, then adding another PCI card may not help. But if it is a USB controller problem (WHICH I SUSPECT IT IS, AND HOPE TO FINALLY PROVE IT UNEQUIVOCALLY) then it won't matter if you install a PCI USB hub or Firewire hub. Either will draw more power from the PC's power supply, but EITHER will solve the problem by getting your USB devices OFF the internal Dell USB Controller on the motherboard.
And you may actually get a little more speed with the USB than the Firewire. The guy that originally posted this same problem on DellTalk, resolved by installing an internal PCI USB hub, not Firewire. And his Maxtor OneTouch II worked perfectly afterward, and was nearly twice as fast as before.
As mentioned, I only went with the firewire option because my Soundblaster card already had an available 1394 firewire port on it, so all I had to buy was a 1394 firewire cable to solve the problem.
Also, Maxtor does have a software update for Windows XP systems for the OneTouch II drives. It's not posted on their web site, but if you call their tech support, they'll give you the URL so you can download it. That might help as well.
I did go ahead and buy a PCI USB 4-port hub, to install next weekend, to re-connect all my other problematic USB devices and see if that solves the problem, without drawing too much power from the system's power supply. My next computer, whether Dell or other, will have at least a 500 watt power supply, to be able to support the current batch of powerful ATI, Nvidia and Matrox graphics cards. It's something most people don't think of until they try to upgrade their systems, and start having problems due to insufficient power.
Good luck. Please post your results here when you get the firewire port installed.
Gary
================
Mike wrote:
.
I'm going to install an internal USB2.Firewire 1394 card. My PC is USB1.1.
I've read in other forums the Maxtor external HDDs can be problematic.
Mike
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