Home > Consumer Reviews > IOGear 5-Port Hi-Speed USB 2.0 PCI Card GIC251U

I have windows XP and ordered this PCI card. I opened up my PC box, took out the old creative sound blaster from its PCI slot and slid in the Iogear USB 2.0 PCI card. I booted up my computer and voila! XP automatically detected the card and I have my mouse connected to one of the 4 exposed external USB ports. Its working and no problems encountered at all.

Note that there are 4 slots exposed externally, and 1 is an internal USB slot.

I bought a Compaq Presario 5410US from Amazon in 2002, as well as a Cannon digital camera and printer, probably purchases similar to those made by many Amazon customers. I suppose, therefore, that many of you have also been frustrated by the slow downloading of digital pictures speed of the old USB 1.0 port, but have been leeary of tampering with your hardware. So, was I, but this product was easy to install and has worked great, truly greatly decreasing the time it takes to download pictures (at least 10 times faster, probably much more).
BUT YOU NEED TO KNOW THIS! The fine print says, the system works with Windows XP if you have "Service Pack 1" installed. It took me a long time to figure out what that was and how to install it, but it is really simple. Do a "Google Search" on the internet to find the free site for downloading "Windows XP Service Pack 1." A warning says the download and installation might take 45 minutes with a regular slow modem and phone line connection. I have the slowest of internet connections and modems, but it only took 10 minutes to download and install the service pack 1 free upgrade. Then, you need to reboot (i.e. turn off and turn on again) your computer with this upgrade.
I couldn't find my computer manual when I needed it, but by clicking on the "Start" button on my computer and an "about your computer" link, I was able to access a diagram of the insides of my computer, showing where the extra PCI slots are. This is probably obvious to most people, they are the only empty, pretty long slots. The instructions say to just slip the USB 2.0 Card into the slot - pretty much true, but on my Compaq computer you also have to unscrew and remove a sort of metal "flap" that has served as a cover for the slot opening of the computer box, protecting the insides of the computer, until a PCI card with ports is installed. For the techno-phobic, this was a scary thing to do without explicit instructions to do so, though in hindsight, it should have been obvious.
After you have downloaded the Service Pack 1 upgrade, installed the USB 2.0 Card, and rebooted your computer, a "New Hardware Detected Wizard Window" will be shown on your screen. It says to install the new hardware CD software, if the hardware came with one. If you have Windows XP, you must download the Service Pack and NOT put the software CD in your CD drive (I tried every other combination of wrong moves). When you see the Wizard, do NOT close the wizard box and do NOT put in the software CD, just click "NEXT" and follow the simple instructions of the Wizard Windows. Within a few minutes the Wizard will have set up the computer to recognize and utilize the USB 2.0 PCI Card.
My pictures from my (wonderful, new) Cannon Digital Rebel camera now download with amazing speed, but I should mention that I use a ScanDisk 512MB ULTRA II CF card and a ScanDisk 8 in 1 USB 2.0 HI-speed Reader. Before I installed the new PCI card, even with that equipment download was extremely slow, but I do not know if it would now be so fast without those products.
Most of what I have said here would be obvious to the techno-savvy, but I lost an afternoon to making stupid mistakes because I didn't know the above, and was about to write a 1-star review, panning this product, until I figured all this out. If you follow the instructions above, you could probably go through all of these steps in half an hour and be very happy with your results! Hope this saves some of you the headaches I went through.

The card installed easily into my G4 tower, and USB devices work fine. However, the card does not support deep sleep on the Mac with OSX 10.4.2, which is not reflected in the listing or advertising. The G4 requires a hard restart every time it goes into deep sleep (fans and drives powered down) with the card installed.

Part of my continuing effort to update my Dell (Dimension 8200) was to add USB 2 connectivity. Hooked up to the USB 1 ports on the Dell were: photo printer, film scanner, flatbed scanner, PDA, Compact Flash reader, wireless mouse, wireless keyboard, flash drive and external harddrive. Needless to say, there were not enough ports, I had to plug/un-plug devices constantly and since these were USB 2 devices connected via USB 1, they were operating at a reduced speed. Considered buying an external USB hub but it would not have resolved the issue of connecting USB 2 devices to USB 1. I was finally compelled to buy a USB 2 card when I found out that USB 1 does not support Apple's IPOD.

I bought this particular unit simply because it was the best selling model here in Amazon. I chose the Amazon's re-seller, Office Depot because it listed the lowest price but after shipping and taxes it actually cost me more than if I bought from Amazon directly. So the lesson is: check the shipping cost and if there is a sales tax (if there's a store in you state, you'll be taxed) before clicking the purchase button. In hindsight, I should've just picked this up at a local Office Depot. A few people complained that they received a generic unit instead of an Iogear unit, technically I don't think it would make a difference however, it sure would bother me if a vendor did not deliver what I asked for, after all it is my decision and the vendor should respect that! Office Depot btw did deliver what was specified.

Installation was fairly easy. But if you've never opened you PC before I would recommend having someone with a little experience nearby, for moral support if anything. Luckily Dell's are known for well designed cases and allows for easy upgrades. You simply press the lever, open the case and insert the card in the first available slot and that's basically it! (fyi: on the Dell, the original usb 1 comes integrated with the motherboard) If you're running a recent version of Windows XP, the PC should recognize the new card and you're ready to go! In my case, I had to install via the CD since I have an older version of XP and never bothered with upgrades. It was still pretty simple. Also for some unknown reason I had to re-install one of the scanner's software.

I was very pleased with the increased speed of my printer and scanners. I no longer have time to make myself a cup of coffee while scanning or printing photos! Since performance was not an issue I left the wireless mouse, wireless keyboard and compact flash reader in the original USB1 slots.

Conclusion:
Most PC's older than 3 yrs come with USB 1, most peripherals manufactured in the last couple of years are USB 2, some are backwards compatible but at much slower speeds and in the case of Apple's IPOD, it won't work on USB 1 at all. For $20-25, this is an inexpensive, cost-effective computer upgrade. Especially if you've invested a substantial amount in or plan to buy peripheral equipment.

Once you get it connected, this is a great little card that will speed you through digital camera and MP3 player uploads. Mine didn't come with instructions so, I assumed correctly that you're supposed to install the software first, restart, and then shutdown. From there you can take apart the computer and install the card. My card however still did not work and I was about ready to Google away for an answer when I decided to e-mail the company instead. Someone from their tech response team quickly replied, "Try placing the card in different PCI slots on the motherboard in case there is an I/O conflict with one of your other devices." Not that I know or care what an I/O is in the first place, but I did as they recommended and voila it works like a charm.