PCMCIA card causing system freeze

The USB sockets on my laptop broke, and so I bought a 4-port USB 2.0 PCMCIA card. However, the OS (Windows XP Home) becomes prone to freezing when I attempt to use a USB wifi adaptor through the card.
The card uses the NEC upd720100 chipset; I have tried 2 different USB adaptors (1 with a Zydas chipset, 1 with a Ralink RT73 chipset), both of which worked with my original USB sockets. So it seems that the card is at fault. Any help with getting it to work would be much appreciated.

 

Hi lordchaos welcome to MG.

This sounds like a driver issue to me... did you get the right driver for it when you installed it?


Q

 

It's using the drivers windows installed automatically:
NEC PCI to USB Open Host Controller
NEC PCI to USB Open Host Controller
Standard Enhanced PCI to USB Host Controller

The device came with a driver for the enhanced controller, but it was only meant for windows 98/ME, which I found out after installing it - it made the card work even less well than the standard one.

 

Hmm? Try uninstalling all your USB drivers And reboot your computer, this will cause them all to be reinstalled, I think you might have conflicting drivers installed.

(disconnect any USB devices before doing so)


Q

 

I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling multiple times, with no improvement. I found some XP drivers for the chipset on driverguide.com (the 2.1 and 2.1.6 versions) which I attempted to install, but I get this error:

"Cannot Install this Hardware

There was a problem installing this hardware:
Standard Enhanced PCI to USB Host Controller

An error occurred during the installation of this device

The name is already in use as either a service name or a service display name."

 

Hi 'chaos, im almost certain this is something to do with the drivers....

Install and run this app --> http://drivers.softpedia.com/get/Other-DRIVERS-TOOLS/Others/Double-Driver-Tool-10.shtml

It will give you a visual of all the drivers installed, post the reasults.

Also when you removed the drivers, did you uninstall and then reboot straight away?

Q

 

Uh, I attempted to post earlier, but it said it was awaiting mod approval - was I supposed to attach the list? It's attached to this post, anyway.
Yes, I uninstalled then rebooted immediately when removing the drivers.
In this list the wifi adaptors' drivers are listed a lot; I think this is because every now and then it thinks it needs to count them as a new wireless connection - I think it's up to "Wireless Network Connection 32" now. There is a similar issue with the LAN, which I think is up to "Wired Network Connection 5" now. This behaviour is a little irritating, but hasn't prevented it from working in the past.

 

Did the list come through ok for you, ~Q~? If so, did analysis of it reveal any solutions? Thanks.

 

Still not having any luck with this - I would try installing those drivers I found, but since the "service or service display name is already in use" it won't let me. Can anyone help me?

 

NEC USB cards are usually fine on stock Windows drivers; I'd suggest that the card + WiFi adapter are drawing more power than the laptop can handle (most USB cards have a 5v input socket).

 

I tried using the wifi adaptor through a powered usb hub, and it seems to work happily now.
How can I get the laptop to supply more power, so I can use it on the move? The card is supposedly able to supply up to 2 amps, but wifi is only supposed to use ~0.5 amps. isn't it?