USB 2 system behaves as if it's USB 1.1

[Dumb_Question]

Due to a suggestion by BC_Programmer I appear to have discovered the cause of the problem, and the simple, if inconvenient, solution follows directly from this.  (I didn't have do anything remotely difficult or that was likely to be irreversible, thankfully)

Forgetting DaveLembke's advice, having connected my PS/2mouse and keyboard, I started uninstalling the USB drivers, this time including the seemingly PCI ones.  When I uninstalled the one that corresponded to my wireless kb/mouse, I couldn't do anything more apart from power down because I found that PS/2 kb/mouse were not working  .

OK, so finally when I rebooted again, the computer went through the process of reinstalling the USB hardware and drivers.  I now connected a flash drive to the USB, it had to reinstall it, but there was no "This device can perform faster....etc" message  I ejected and tried it again with the same result !

Now the Device Manager looked like figure ScrSh_HWM_USB_S5160UK_PS2_010314.JPG (attached).  As a reminder, this is very similar to Dev Mngr of my a405.uk (attached), which had the same PS/2 mouse/kb (a405uk_DevMgr_USBcontrollers_270214.JPG), and importantly has the device 82801DB/DBM USB 2.0 Enhanced Host Controller 24CD displayed, whereas with the USB wireless mouse/kb in the S5160UK this Enhanced controller is not found (ScrSh_HWM_USB.JPG) (attached)

I am sure I don't understand it; my USB kb/mouse is a PCLINE PCL-K350,  and a quick look around did not say anything its USB 2.0 or USB1.1 capability or compatibility.

This a bit inconvenient because I have one set of PS/2 stuff, ad the wireless/USB mouse/kb was much easier to use.

Dumb_Question
1.March.2014
Compaq Presario S5160UK DT261A under XP/SP3
Motherboard - MSI MS-6577 v2.1
 

[recovering disk space, attachment deleted by admin]

[Dumb_Question]

Thanks Geek, to reinstall the OS using another drive was my last resort, I had already started that process. 
But there were some other things I had to try first....

As my wireless USB kb/mouse were bought considerably after the computer, I'd be surprised if that was a USB1.1 sub-system, but stranger things have happened. Also, I don't know if it is coincidental that the PCI connected USB Controllers in Dev Mngr have gone away.  Would my PCI modem still work for example ? (not that I see myself using it)

Dumb_Question
1.March.2014
Compaq Presario S5160UK DT261A under XP/SP3
Motherboard - MSI MS-6577 v2.1

[Geek-9pm]

Some devices are called 'PCI ' even when they are not in a PCI slot.

(1) Short for Peripheral Component Interconnect, a local bus standard developed by Intel Corporation. Most modern PCs include a PCI bus in addition to a more general ISA expansion bus. PCI is also used on some versions of the Macintosh computer. PCI is a 64-bit bus, though it is usually implemented as a 32-bit bus. It can run at clock speeds of 33 or 66 MHz. At 32 bits and 33 MHz, it yields a throughput rate of 133 MBps. Although it was developed by Intel, PCI is not tied to any particular family of microprocessors. ..

http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/P/PCI.html
From the above, it is a set of standards and does not mean the device is actually plugged into a slot.

[BC_Programmer]

Here is my theory on why the keyboard/mouse may be affecting it.

"USB Legacy" settings. These settings, when enabled, will let you use the (USB) keyboard during boot-up to manipulate the BIOS. The setting essentially serves as an "adapter" that will make the USB keyboard cause the same interrupts as a standard keyboard, whereas normally the interrupts triggered would be the USB device interrupts that won't be handled by anything. (essentially the BIOS sets up a handler for those interrupts and translates keyboard-class device input to keyboard interrupts).

Now the problem (again, just a theory) could be that in doing so it locks the root hub to operate only in USB 1.1 mode.

To better explain this we really have three "modes" of USB. There is Low-speed (1.5MBit/s, Full Speed(12Mbit/s), and high-speed (480 Mbit/s) 1.1 had Low-speed and Full Speed, and High-speed was added by 2.0.

Thus a keyboard or mouse, which will undoubtedly use the 1.5MBit/s Low speed bus, will operate the same on any USB hub. What I'm thinking is that if the USB legacy option is enabled it may, at least for that machine, somehow prevent the USB 2.0 driver from initializing properly, since the BUS is already being used for the keyboard; so the 480 Mbit transfer speed is unavailable.

That's just a spit-balled theory though so I don't know how true it is. I can say for certain that keyboards/mice almost always use the 1.5Mbit low speed option, however.

Also, I don't know if it is coincidental that the PCI connected USB Controllers in Dev Mngr have gone away.

They haven't gone away, they have been properly identified. the "PCI Class USB 2.0 Enhanced Host Controller" is basically Window's Device identification being able to determine that it is attached via PCI and appears to be a USB 2.0 host controller, but for whatever reason not being able to find out much else about it. In the "fixed" screenshot, that same device is now properly identified as a Intel USB 2.0 Enhanced host controller.

My suggestion at this point would be to see if there is a "Legacy USB" option, and see if disabling it will allow you to use the system with the USB keyboard/mouse without forcing everything to work at Full Speed (USB 1.1).

[Dumb_Question]

->BC_Programmer

Your hypothesis sounds very plausible.  There is one part of it that does not fit though.  When I was looking in the BIOS set up for an option for 'set USB mode to 2.0', which apparently is present in some BIOS set-ups, I did see a 'USB Legacy' option.  This was one of the first things I tried.  To remind people of a section in my long and unmemorable first post in this thread:

...I have looked in BIOS setup, and I did not find anything about USB except legacy, set to auto/enable/disable.  I tried all of these without any change.....

Originally, before I tried all the settings, it was set to 'auto'.

It is my opinion that the system should permit simultaneous USB 1.1 and 2.0 operation, but maybe this just not possible in Hardware.

I have a wireless keyboard and a wireless mouse which connect over an RF radio link (2.4GHz ?) to the transceiver which in turn is connected to the PC by a wired USB link (i.e. both keyboard and mouse share the same transceiver). I can't remember if I installed drivers for this manually from a CD, or whether I simply connected it and it worked.  That sub-system is a PCLine PCL-K350: I couldn't find any spec for it on the internet except that it was 'USB connected' - I was unable to determine its compatibility wrt 1.1 or 2.0.  Also checked in manual (written in four languages).  If anyone reading this can determine that spec, it might help.

Dumb_Question
2.March.2014
Compaq Presario S5160UK DT261A under XP/SP3 
Motherboard - MSI MS-6577 v2.1

[BC_Programmer]

Actually, I just read back on something I Missed as well:

I measured the transfer rate from my HD to an external one for 490498944 bytes; it took 8 mins 16 secs, a transfer rate of ~7.9Mb/s, good for USB 1.1, pretty poor for USB 2.0

USB 1.1, Full Speed, tops out at 12 megabits per second. a transfer rate of 7.9 Megabytes per second is around 80 Megabits per second, which is far in excess of anything USB 1.1 is capable of, which means it is in fact operating via USB 2.0.

I don't know why you would be getting the message. However I would suspect in this case that one of the two devices (keyboard/mouse) may have a error in their implementation that is causing devices to be recognized incorrectly, but still be used properly. I was looking through the USB spec and it looks like identification commands are sent to all devices via a broadcast, and basically it says "Device 4, identify yourself!" when you plug it in.

What could be happening is that the device you had (keyboard/mouse) was responding to everything you plugged in and giving the USB driver false information to go on, that made it think the port was 1.1.

That's all I can really think of, But it makes sense, assuming I Interpreted the specifications document correctly. However so far it is clear that the devices you were using were in fact using the USB 2.0 High Speed interface since otherwise they would have topped out at less than around 1.5 megabytes a second.

[Dumb_Question]

-> BC_Programmer

I meant 1b = 1 bit, 1B = 1Byte
so by 7.9Mb/s I meant 7.9 x 1E6 bits per second (~(490498944 x 8 )/{(8 x 60 + 16) x 1E6)}
which is less than 12 megabits per second.
I realise that this is only approximate as does not include error bits, stop&start bits, etc, the time is approximate to a couple of seconds.

I apologise for not having made myself clear on this point.

Dumb_Question
2.March.2014
Compaq Presario S5160UK DT261A under XP/SP3 
Motherboard - MSI MS-6577 v2.1

[Dumb_Question]

So, a little more experimentation:

starting with the configuration shown in ScrSh_HWM_USB_S5160UK_PS2_010314.JPG,  (but without the Mass Storage Device), with only my PS/2 mouse and kb plugged in:

I connected the USB mouse/kb receiever to a USB port.  The bubbles appeared which said 'New Hardware Found' and 'Your new hardware is installed and ready to use' etc. The Device Manager now showed an additional composite device.  The wireless mouse/kb functioned properly it seemed.

I removed the PS/2 mouse and kb, there was no obvious change to DeviceManager.  I now connected a WD MyPassport external HD to a USB port.  There was no 'This device can perform faster...' message, the Device Manager changed to add 'Mass Storage Device' under the (only) USB Controllers category. 

I inspected the power tabs on the Root Hubs.  One said "one port 500 mA required, 5 ports available", another two said "Two ports available", the third said "one port 100mA required, 1 port available"   [my digests of the content of the power tabs].  From what I had seen previously, the Root Hubs with 2 ports each belong to USB 1.1, and this is consistent with the USB wireless kb/mouse being a USB 1.1 sub-system.

Now for the acid test: reboot without PS/2 mouse/kb, only the USB sub-system.  I ejected the MyPassport and restarted....the PC at this point decided it would fail to restart (another issue).  I left it switched off to try again later. Later, I turned on the PC.  After waiting for it to start up properly, I opened Device Manager, and it looked like I described it earlier, one USB 2.0 Enhanced Host Controller 24CD entry, three Universal Host Controller entries (24C2, 24C4, 24C7), the composite device entry, 3 Root Hub entries each capable of supporting 2 devices, and finally another Root Hub entry, capable of supporting 6 devices.  The second category for USB Controllers (where the PCI related entries had been) was absent. 

As a last test I connected the external HD to a USB port, and did not get the message  'This device can perform faster...'.  I have yet to measure the transfer speed, or restart n times, but it seems the problem has gone away, somehow the PC was reminded of what it should do by connecting the PS/2mouse and kb.

Dumb_Question
3.March.2014
Compaq Presario S5160UK DT261A under XP/SP3 
Motherboard - MSI MS-6577 v2.1

[Geek-9pm]

Thank you for the report. This information can be helpful later.
That fact is that you did an extensive effort to resolve an issue and found that the answers did not follow a consistent pattern.

I still think the problem goes away when you  either:
A) Use and older version of Windows.
OR
B ) Install the  PCI USB card, which has silicon from another maker.

Here is yet another resource:
http://www.usbman.com/WinME%20USB%20Guide.htm
Windows  XP   -USB Guide

A USB device that is connected to a USB 2.0 hub is not detected in Windows XP Service Pack 2, Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1, or Windows Server 2003 x64 versions