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incompatibility of Pulsar and other CW boards with USB is pretty well known - lots of posts on this board. I for one simply disabled USB entirely in mobo settings.

However, I'd still love to use the Tascam 428 controller I bought beofre I knew how much trouble it would be alongside my CW boards. Lots of other good USB stuff I like to try as well.

Anybody using USB with either/both of V3 and W2K/XP? Are the infamous USB problems just a Win9X or Pulsar V2 thing that goes away with these new upgrade options?

Thanks for any tips!!!

Okay let me give you some information here.

On an Intel i815 motherboard with NO audio cards installed, only an eMagic AMT8 connected via USB with just keyboards on (K5000S, Virus, etc), the AMT8 would lock up -- K5ks sends active sensing. Power cycling the AMT8 would give another 30-40 seconds of working MIDI, and then another lockup. Remember, this is with NOTHING but an AGP graphics card, and the AMT8 connected in the machine, and this is on the i815 chipset -- the best as far as USB goes. (Latest AMT8 drivers, this was about 3 months ago, etc etc).

Solution? Connect the AMT8 via serial.

Now, I just think there are a lot of variables to getting USB working properly -- regardless of Pulsar. For the various versions of Windows 95/98/98SE/ME, there are a myriad of USB patches and fixes which must be installed to even get USB functioning properly. With my mother's digital USB camera, the computer won't shut down, if the camera is connected via USB.

On ancient (at least architecturally ) chipsets like the BX, VIA *133 (all of em), and AMD7xx chipsets, the USB does use the PCI bus. On more modern chipsets (i815, i845, i850, KT266*, etc), this is handled differently, and USB is more safe to use here.

I had the CUSL2, and my keyboard AND my mouse are both USB, and I have never had a problem. But I of course, have all the USB patches installed, and I have the i815 chipset.

Basically, USB v1.xx is still weak in lots of situations, even without Pulsar installed. Newer Windows (XP), along with newer chipsets (as mentioned) are fixing this problem -- and within a year, we will probably have USB 2.0 ports on our motherboards which will easily be able to handle 16 audio channels in, and out of your computer...

As always, Sub, most informative. You da man.

However, still in a quandry. Will W2k or XP allow my Tascam 428 thru USB co-exist with my CW boards on my CUSL2 (i815, right?). Hate to thing I need a new motherboard already! Never get it past my wife, having just sprung for new Event monitors!!