USB2 card

I have a G4 Quicksilver desktop with built-in USB1 interface. I want to upgrade to USB2. I presume this is possible by installing a PCI card in one of the spare slots, but I need confirmation of this from someone. Also, are there any particular caveats I should know about, and is the installation going to be complicated?
Thanks in advance.

Yes a USB2 PCI card is the way to go. Have a look at Ebay and see if you can find a Hong Kong seller names local338. Have used him before and the USB2 card in my FW800, which from memory has the NEC chip set, works like a dream.

If you are thinking of using USB2 for an external drive, go Firewire. USB2 is okay for cameras etc, but respsonse times on a Mac for other peripherals are not that good.

Thanks Harry. I was waiting so long for some response that I decided to go for it anyway, and went down to a local supplier. He sold me a Dynamode card for 9 quid which I just plugged in, and hey presto - no problem.
I'm a bit disappointed with the result however. I've been using it to download pics from my digital camera and the download time isn't much different from the USB1 port. I was led to believe USB2 was up to 10 times faster!

It may be that the camera is a USB 1 device, so you will not see any improvement, I have a similar cheap USB 2 card from Maplin and the USB 2 external attached is nice and fast

Did the card come with drivers on a CD at all?

Dynamode's website states for Windows PeeCees only.

The drivers on the CD seem to be for pre-XP versions of Windows only unfortunately.
So it might be the memory card in the camera that's working at USB1 speeds?

harryb2448 said:

Did the card come with drivers on a CD at all?

Dynamode's website states for Windows PeeCees only.

Click to expand...

No - I bought it from Maplin (radio Shack in the USA)

Just put it in and it workes. Firewire would be faster I think but I dont have a problem with it

A 1 gig read off the drive (single MP4 file) takes roughly a minute

Here is what I see in System Prifiler

USB High-Speed Bus:

Host Controller Location: Expansion Slot
Host Controller Driver: AppleUSBEHCI
PCI Device ID: 0x3104
PCI Revision ID: 0x0065
PCI Vendor ID: 0x1106
Bus Number: 0x53

Click to expand...

I bought a Belkin at Best Buy. 4 External and 1 Internal USB 2.0 Ports. Had the Mac OSX symbol on the packaging. Just plugged it in and it works perfectly.

rhowell go to 'About this Mac'>'More Ino'>' PCI Cards' and see what is recorded. First Entry should Show USBEHC and further down then read Type USB Enhanced Host Controller. Driver Installed: Yes.

If it is not showing that you have no driver for the card. Drivers come as standard in X.3 Panther and above so the card is not Apple compatible if this does not appear.