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I'm completely new to Ubuntu. I've installed Xubuntu 11 on an old machine quite successfully and plugged a wireless dongle into one of its on board USB1.1 ports, giving me wireless internet without too much trouble.

I've now bought a USB 2.0 PCI card and installed it, hoping that it would be picked up automatically on boot and I could connect via USB2.0. Unfortunately I think it's not being recognised.

I have the following outputs from lsusb and lspci:

lsusb

Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 003 Device 002: ID 050d:705a Belkin Components F5D7050 Wireless G Adapter v3000 [Ralink RT2573]
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub

sudo lspci -v

00:0e.0 USB Controller: NEC Corporation USB (rev 43) (prog-if 10 [OHCI])
    Subsystem: NEC Corporation Hama USB 2.0 CardBus
    Flags: medium devsel, IRQ 11
    Memory at ed000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
    Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 2

00:0e.1 USB Controller: NEC Corporation USB (rev 43) (prog-if 10 [OHCI])
    Subsystem: NEC Corporation Hama USB 2.0 CardBus
    Flags: medium devsel, IRQ 11
    Memory at ec800000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
    Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 2

00:0e.2 USB Controller: NEC Corporation USB 2.0 (rev 04) (prog-if 20 [EHCI])
    Subsystem: NEC Corporation USB 2.0
    Flags: medium devsel, IRQ 9
    Memory at ec000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256]
    Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 2

Can anyone please suggest how I can overcome this problem? Automatic detect/configure tools would be best, but I'm prepared to edit config files if necessary. A Google on 'linux + install new hardware' wasn't too illuminating, I apologize if this has been asked before.

Update

Doing a dmesg | grep ehci, gives a 'startup error -19' entry and 'USB bus 1 deregistered'. Googling for the 1st error gives lots of hits all related to problems with USB 2.0 and the kernel in 10.10. maybe it's still a kernel problem with 11.04

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  • As a side note, there are some boards in which specific PCI slots can be disabled on BIOS. Its a good idea to check that first. I spent some hours thinking my board was not being properly recognized.
    – lepe
    Aug 31, 2014 at 13:00

3 Answers 3

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Your latest update looks interesting "Doing a dmesg | grep ehci, gives a 'startup error -19' entry and 'USB bus 1 deregistered'. " - I had a similar issue when adding PCI cards.

I found a couple of issues - I had ran out of IRQs - i.e. I had added too many cards - I pulled all cards that could use multiple IRQs e.g. firewire and these sort of error messages in dmesg stopped.

I also had to turn off USB Legacy Support in the BIOS.

Hope this helps.

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  • I think it's something to do with IRQs too. I thought I'd tried legacy off in the Bios, but I'm going to try again to make sure
    – NickT
    Jun 15, 2011 at 16:26
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From your second listing log, it looks like your USB 2.0 was properly detected. It says

  "USB Controller: NEC Corporation USB 2.0 (rev 04) (prog-if 20 [EHCI])"

That sounds good to me. Have you tried connecting something simple as a USB disk on it ? Usually, USB 2.0 extra cards are picked up automatically, and you will not necessarily get a big notification saying "New Hardware detected" as you would under Windows.

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  • I've tried it with a memory stick, a flatbed scanner and the wireless dongle with no luck. Sometimes if I start with a device plugged into the new 2.0 card, the lsusb just hangs, even CTRL z won't get it out.
    – NickT
    Jun 15, 2011 at 13:13
  • in that case sounds like the card is bad or not installed correctly. Reseat it.
    – Broam
    Jun 15, 2011 at 15:14
  • @Broam - the card is physically installed OK, it's detected as a PCI device. It's just not registered by the O/S as a USB device. See my update
    – NickT
    Jun 15, 2011 at 15:34
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I don't really like answering my own questions, but as it's now fixed, I'll state what I did.

I moved the card from PCI slot 3 to slot 4. That's it - I've no idea why it worked but it did

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  • by moving from slot 3 to 4 you have changed the IRQs given to your card. I suspect you may have fixed this issue for this card, but one of your other cards may start to give you an issue (as per my answer) - anyway good luck.
    – fossfreedom ♦
    Jun 15, 2011 at 20:40
  • @fossfreedom - I'm sure you're right, even though the bios had 'auto' for the IRQ on all the cards. As the other cards are an old dial up modem and a sound card that both came with the original (windows ME) machine, neither of which I use, I don't care much if they are bust. Thanks for your help though. I'm just glad I've got a usable Linux box now for less than £20 (wireless dongle, 512MB RAM and the USB2.0 card). It's great being a cheapskate! Lots to learn though.
    – NickT
    Jun 15, 2011 at 21:02
  • I'd pull the modem. If it isn't useful to you, it's hogging resources. Normally I wouldn't care, but you've been having issues - get rid of extraneous stuff.
    – Broam
    Jun 22, 2011 at 16:17

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