Do PCI USB 2.0 Cards work with Vostro 5880?

Question

I have a Vostro 5880, and I recently tried adding additional USB ports with a PCI card. I tried 2 cards (older, previously used), and both of them behave erratically. The computer will usually fail to POST correctly if the keyboard or mouse is connected, and will just hang at the Dell logo. Once I can boot into Windows 11, the cards are properly detected and the drivers are installed, but the mouse cursor movement will stutter and plugging in a flash drive will cause it to mount incorrectly (drive shows up with no volume) and can't be safely removed. Using an onboard USB port yields in proper behavior with these devices.

I'm starting to think that the system isn't compatible with such PCI cards, granted they are very old at this point, though surprised that Windows 11 installs the drivers automatically. I don't have any USB 3 cards on hand, and would rather not buy one if possible as a 2 port USB PCIe card is like $40-$50 (last time I checked at Micro Center), compared to $10-$15 that I paid for the USB 2.0 5 port cards back in the day.

BIOS/firmware is up to date.

ejn63 · Answer

The card may not power a flash drive unless it has a connector to the system power supply.   Why not just use a powered USB hub?

redxps630 · Answer

Go into dev mgr when you install pci card. There should be no error of dev driver not found or ?/! next to it. If a driver is missing or having ?/! it could cause strange port behavior

Kflash08 · Answer

@ejn63​ These cards work just fine in older systems that I have, and none of them have a power connector on them. As for hubs, I don't have any of those either, and if I do, they are likely garbage and unreliable. Besides, a hub will only add to the mess of cables as well as consume another power outlet needed for USB powered devices. I'm trying to avoid that.

Kflash08 · Answer

@redxps630​ No errors and Device Manager says that they are all working correctly. However, it doesn't sound like a Windows problem.

Kflash08 · Answer

Popped the most problematic of the 2 cards in an old Dell OptiPlex 170L (essentially a Dimension 3000/4600) running Windows XP SP3 and had no problems with the flash drive that I was trying to use in my initial post. Mouse (same one) works fine as well.

redxps630 · Answer

Those are the times when old pc beats new model.

Perhaps the new Windows pci driver is buggy compared to xp. Really one should not expect pci backward support in this day. Dell still offers the hardware but no promise on software support. Just for test try a test ssd in 5880 install Windows 7 on it to see if makes any difference. I don’t think usb 3 or 2 PCIe card should cost 40-50 but that depends on local market

Tesla1856 · Answer

@Kflash08​ ,   1. These cards work just fine in older systems that I have, and none of them have a power connector on them. 2. As for hubs, I don't have any of those either, and if I do, they are likely garbage and unreliable. Besides, a hub will only add to the mess of cables as well as consume another power outlet needed for USB powered devices. I'm trying to avoid that. 1. I've seen this before in the field... old PCIe-x1 LPT Printer card would not work in newer Windows 10 Dell desktop. It was like the voltage the card uses from the PCIe slot or other similar nonsense.   Even though they loved that old HP laser (and she had it all to herself) we decided to ditch it and just move her to office's ethernet network print servers (which was better anyway in the long run). 2. USB-Hubs work fine and long as you get a dependable self-powered one:   https://www.dell.com/community/en/conversations/alienware-desktops/aurora-act1250-geforce-rtx-taking-up-all-three-slots/69dafa6f91c65762fb6b300a?commentId=69db17ce91c65762fb70e0de

bradthetechnut · Answer

My powered USB hub works perfect and has a high-speed charging port at the end of it.

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Do PCI USB 2.0 Cards work with Vostro 5880?

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