You know PickaxeFairy

It is obvious that something is wrong with your setup, as I said before my system is older than yours and I have used both Windows XP Home and Windows XP Pro and I have never experienced the problems you seem to be going through. Even when I used the USB V1.1 ports that came with my PC.

Again, I have five external USB drives, three made by Lacie and the other two by Gericom. All of them are plugged into USB2.0 ports, provided by 2 x 4 port USB2.0 PCI cards (similar to one displayed here: dabs.com - Best Value 4 PORT USB2 PCI CARD (US102)), and each external has it's own power supply unit, i.e. all draw their own electricity from my lead, (similar to this: Currys partmaster.co.uk - Avix 13A 6 Gang Surge Protection Extension Lead With Telephone Socket) and so does not use power from my PC.

So if your externals have their own power units then they should not slow your PC down or have slow start up problems.

I would suggest that that something is wrong and you should have your setup examined.



UK Bob

did the drive come with an install cd?

if so, then I hope you ran it...it probably enables proper data transfer settings via a driver...

also, what type of system do you have?

are you able to get into the BIOS and specify settings for your USB capability?

if so then one thing to do is to disable legacy usb support, enabling that can many times cause issues....

__________________


So Long and Thanks for All the Files
_____________________________________________

Beware of the big 3 insurance companies in Texas! Read your policies carefully (maybe you'll need a lawyer) Allstate, Farmers & State Farm are overextended and their 'coverage' is worthless...a true waste of your money Read This

Thank you ukbobboy01 for all your advice.... will give those external drives with power supply a bash....
I can certainly appreciate the benefits.


Peerless - I really appreciate your reply.... I just don't understand what BIOS Settings and Legacy USB Support means....

In terms of an install cd - what I do know is that my drive didn't come with one.... so I can't do anything in that respect....


With regard to my ridiculously slow speeds and stupid delays - a thought occurred to me....
Could this maybe be something to do with AVG perhaps and not my actual pc?
Limewire and AVG running at once - surely that's gotta make a difference to pc speed and performance....?

hmmm....well if AVG is actively scanning the files on the drive then that WILL cause bottlenecks...once the files are scanned though that should stop....

if you don't know what the BIOS is then perhaps you should Google the concept and do some reading....in a nutshell its where the hardware for your computer is controlled...if you own let's say a Dell then you will have virtually no ability to do anything in the BIOS...if its a custom build then you can control about everything..

__________________


So Long and Thanks for All the Files
_____________________________________________

Beware of the big 3 insurance companies in Texas! Read your policies carefully (maybe you'll need a lawyer) Allstate, Farmers & State Farm are overextended and their 'coverage' is worthless...a true waste of your money Read This

It's not that I've never heard of BIOS. I have. Just never really been in a situation where I've needed to find out what it was all about....

Now obviously I am

Thanks Peerless - will do the google thing

Not sure if this is of any help BIOS - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia but wikipedia is a great place to search for info.

post the specs for your machine and I will see what I can dig up or already know about it...if its an ASUS MoBo then I'm sure I can be of some assistance as I've been using those boards since the PIII days....

you should be able to find some sort of tutorial or manual for your machine that will detail how to get into your BIOS (hitting delete during the boot process is what works for my machines) and what settings are changeable...as noted with many manufactured machines you have severe limitations as to what you can do, and with machines that are custom you have a plethora of things you can do...

heck its even possible that for some reason USB2 is not enabled on your MoBo, or as I noted if USB legacy support is enabled it might be causing issues...

__________________


So Long and Thanks for All the Files
_____________________________________________

Beware of the big 3 insurance companies in Texas! Read your policies carefully (maybe you'll need a lawyer) Allstate, Farmers & State Farm are overextended and their 'coverage' is worthless...a true waste of your money Read This

Many thanks Peerless.

System details as follows:-

OS Version - Windows XP 2002
Firewall - AVG Full Edition
Ram - 2.01GHz, 768MB Of RAM
Hard Disk Space - 36.6GB
Connection - Broadband (20MB)
Limewire Version - 4.18.8
ISP - Virgin Media

Thanks too to the rest of you for your replies and continued *much appreciated* help....

Happy New Year to you all!

who made the machine?....if its a custom build, then what is the MOtherBoard..i.e. what info I am looking for is your ability to play around with USB settings

you state XP 2002....if its not of SP1 or later I'm pretty sure you are in usb1.0 mode...I believe you need to be in usb2.0 mode for full transfer abilities and such...

__________________


So Long and Thanks for All the Files
_____________________________________________

Beware of the big 3 insurance companies in Texas! Read your policies carefully (maybe you'll need a lawyer) Allstate, Farmers & State Farm are overextended and their 'coverage' is worthless...a true waste of your money Read This

Yes - it might actually help if I told you the make and model....

It's an Acer Aspire T180 Desktop with Windows XP 2002 SP3