[aznscrewball]

My first question is, How do you change your USBs to 2.0? I tried googling it and it says I need the Windows Update 1, and then it gave me some sites to download just the USB 2.0 driver. It looks pretty sketchy and I remember downloading a driver, but it didn't make a difference. Can all computers have USB 2.0 as long as they operate on XP? Or, maybe what I need is...How do you install a driver?

My second question is, I have an external DVD/CD burner combo I bought from Hong Kong. It works via USB, and even with Nero, it takes me 1.5 hours to burn a 4.7 gig data DVD. It says the fastest I can burn at is x8, but the DVD says it should be able to burn at x16. My friend has a build in DVD burner and it usually only takes her 30 mins to burn a data disc. And she was usuing some crappy burning program that came with the computer a long time ago. Is this potentially my burner's problem, Nero's problem, or the USB speed problem?

I know this is a lot, but Thanks to anyone who can help me!

[angelqian]

USB 2.0 is hardware, it depends on whether your computer supports it or not, but it is backwards compatible. This means that if you only have USB 1.0 ports on your computer, it will still work, just slower.

Now, your second question could be related. USB 2.0 can transfer 480 Megabytes/second (Mbps), while USB 1.1 (which is probably what you have) can only do 12 Mbps.

Now, 1x DVD burn speed is about 1.4Mbps, so 8x would be around 11.2 Mbps, the very edge of USB 1.1 speed. 16x would be 22.2 Mbps, which your USB port can't support, so maybe that's why it's not letting you run it at 16x (btw, if you somehow "force" the drive to write faster than you can send it data, you'll just end up with coasters).

I hope that makes sense.

Note, internal data transfer rates (through IDE (100Mbps) or SATA(up to 3Gbps) or whatever) are as a general rule, ALWAYS faster than anything external.

[GO!zilla]

you can overclock your usb 2.0 as well

its fun.