WinXP desktop only has USB 1.1, need USB2.0 to capture?

[damianiscool]

I was lucky enough to inherit my cousin's old Sony Vaio PC running Windows XP from 2002 (this thing is awesome!) and have began setting it up for capture using VirtualDub, HuffYUV, and my Pinnacle 510-USB.

However, I'm getting no preview, but I believe it's because my new/old machine only has USB 1.1 ports, as I am getting the following error:

A Pinnacle Systems USB2.0 HighSpeed only device has been plugged into a USB 1.1 port on this computer. For correct operation the device must always be connected to a USB 2.0 port on the computer

Given that I am just asking for two things:

1. Confirmation. I am thinking what I should do is get a PCI USB 2.0 card for this machine, but idk if there's a certain brand or whatever I should go with to increase quality. I know a PCI-E cards and usb3.0 cards should be avoided but is this one on amazon good enough? https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-...260666294&th=1 How do I know if my machine has enough PCI lanes to support this anyway? Last, will this fix my issue or is there something else I should try first?

2. Is my computer good enough for capture? I've included below all the info on it I can. I'm assuming it's fine, it's the only computer I have from that era.

SPECS:
Sony Vaio PCV-7752
Windows XP Professional Version 2002 Service Pack 2
Intel Pentium 4 CPU 2.00Ghz
480MB RAM

Thanks!

P.S. Please give me some grace, I was born in 1998, so computers this old are not my forte

[ge0dude]

I've been doing a lot of research on what old hardware is capable. LordSmurf knows much better than I do so hopefully he chimes in.

The card looks perfect, I would pull the trigger on that, startech.com is brand I trust for pc cards. You could probably save $5 or 10 by going with a cheaper brand, but that card looks perfect. The drivers are included on the CD.

As far as the CPU goes, 2.00Ghz is a little low. It should get you by, but you'll just have to give it a try to see if you get dropped frames. You'll have to kill all other programs and processes and turn off all sounds etc. It's a single core CPU so it has no extra resources to give, the smallest hiccup can caused dropped frames.

The Ram could use an upgrade, but you should be able to max that out for $15 or so buying a set on ebay. I would suggest 1gb ram minimum. Verify the ram works with the motherboard before buying.

One other option for you: A CPU upgrade is cheap. Verify with your motherboard model which processors it supports, and the fastest or second fastest CPU shouldn't cost you more than $10. Buy some name brand thermal paste as well to go with it. Any Pentium 4 over 3Ghz would probably get the job done well I would imagine. Much better stability than a 2.0Ghz P4 for capture.

This information is a culmination of my experience + research. LS surely has more hands on experience with capturing on P4 Machines, maybe he will grace us with his presence.

Good luck!

[damianiscool]

Thank you, that helped so much! I will wait a bit for LS to maybe offer his opinion too, but if you have any recommendations on where I can find info on my motherboard and its compatible components I’d love to know! Otherwise I’ll just use google

[lordsmurf]

Your setup is too old to be viable.

My first capture desktop was a customized Compaq, with 1.8 Ghz Intel and 1 GB of RDRAM, using ATI AIW MPEG capture. Back then, a single lossless file filled at entire drive. I upgraded to a 2.8 Ghz CPU, added a Promise for 2x SATA drives, and that system worked well for another 10 years. It never actually stopped working, and I sold it around 2013.

Sony was never high-end for desktops. I don't think a PCI>USB 2.0 card will be viable, though you can try.

And it probably maxes out at 2.0 Ghz, no upgrade option. My Compaq CPU upgrade used a special "Willamette to Northwood mount" (423>478), as shown here, which gave access to the 2.8 Ghz max Northwood speed available. That custom chip wasn't viable for all boards.

RAM below 1 GB is simply not enough.

Realistically, I'd never try that old of a desktop to an external USB2 capture card. The USB2 cards really came of age at the same time (late 00s) that multi-core CPUs did. Your system is from about 2002/2003, the era of PCI and AGP capture cards.

[damianiscool]

Uggh, that's a bummer. Okay, one last try.

According to the manual, my machine has the SiS 650 chipset, which has the following chips available:
https://www.cpu-upgrade.com/mb-SiS_(chipsets)/650.html

Looks like I could upgrade it to the RK80532PC060512 chip which runs at 2.5 GHz (already found one on ebay for $30) AND there are 4 Northwood CPU's that are compatible. (Which would be the best option?)

Additionally, according to the manual I can upgrade the RAM to a total of 1.5 GB.

Last, I can also use an external HDD or SSD to capture to.

Given this new info, is this still a dead end not worth pursuing?
Thanks a bunch!

[ge0dude]

For $30 you can buy a mini pc (30-50) like a lenovo thinkcentre tiny or dell optiplex micro. I think the Pinnacle 510 works on most builds of Windows, including 11. If you have another PC you may be able to just use that, if you need to get a new PC, $30-50 should get you a small HP, Dell, or Lenovo. Decide which operating system you want to use, then that will help you decide which model you choose (just make sure the motherboard has Chipset drivers for the particular OS) Any Windows OS besides 11 you'll want to keep offline. I think windows XP is awesome for running older software, so I think it's a great opportunity to run XP, but that's just me. Archive.org is full of tons of old software you can use.

[lordsmurf]

@damianiscool, you'd be investing at least $50-100 into those upgrades, and a better CPU/motherboard would be a wiser use of that $50-100.

You can sometimes locate CPU/motherboard/RAM/cooler kits on eBay, if you're trying for cheap (not best, maybe not even non-PITA decent), though even a lackluster kit would be better than your current setup.

If this is for a USB Pinnacle, I see zero reason to use anything older than 2015, which is already now a 10-year-old setup.

For that matter, since now discussing mini PC, even a used 2020s model with Win11 exists. Those get far more tricky than a good mid/late 2010s desktop, but I'd much rather mess with a used 2020s mini PC than a 2000s P4 IDE setup.

Essentially, almost anything will be better than your old P4 IDE desktop, for video capture.

[damianiscool]

WHOA, okay this boggles my mind. I've been reading this forum for the better part of the last year and I thought anything Win11 was strongly advised against, especially from you, LS.

I even tried my cousin's Lenovo Thinkpad X1 running Win11 and that was a total crapshoot. I got VDub, the Pinnacle driver, HuffYUV and crossbar thing all set up. However, no matter what I tried, every time I got a real image to appear (coming from the camcorder, not a black sceen) in the preview pane, the entire OS would crash with a Page Fault error coming from the Pinnacle driver - marvinavs64.

That said, in this case, could I make my thinkpad work? Or would it be better to get one of these micro PC's? I would love to use my Win10 setup, but it's at home, 650 miles away

[lordsmurf]

Well, I'm not "suggesting" Win11, but it's a "least worst" (or "lesser of evils") approach.

- WinXP P4 IDE USB1 box is worse than Win11 modern hardware (probably) for USB Pinnacle.
- WinXP/7 SATA2 USB2/3 box is better than Win11 "latest and greatest" hardware

I live in a world of shades of gray, not B&W.

With these specific Pinnacles, I've made Win11 mini PCs work, as have others (taken offline, de-"phone homed", etc). Noting that "work" isn't the same as "best" or even "suggested". For that, certain Win7 laptops and WinXP desktops are the choice.

Lenovo is bottom-barrel now-Chinese "name brand" computers (and overpriced at that), so I'm not at all surprised you ran into issues. For some brands/hardware, driver conflicts are "a feature not a bug".

Personally, I'd seek out some specific Dells, but know that adapters are required to put it into a "real case", with "real fans", using a "real power supply". The Dell proprietary stuff is awful, hot loud boxes. Certain Dell boards can be adapted quite nicely to Micro ATX cases. (See Harbin Repairs for those models and adapters.) But it will take funds and time to build.

[vwestlife]

Dazzle was able to do DVD-quality video over USB 1.1 on an early 2000s Pentium III because they put a hardware MPEG2 encoder chip in the capture device: USB video capture in 2002: Dazzle DCS 200

If you'd like to have the DCS 200 to play around with, just let me know and I'll send it to you.