StarTech 4-Port USB 5Gbps PCIe Card, 4x Independent USB Controllers

I have an older PC with a lot of built in USB 2.0 ports. However, it does not have any USB 3.0 ports. I needed some USB 3.0 ports to connect with some external USB hard disks that I use for backups. Backups are large, so this is important. After installing this USB 3.0 card, my backups were running about 4 or 5 times faster! One very important thing about this USB 3.0 card is that processing power is not shared by the 4 ports. Each port has FULL4 USB 3.0 processing power.

I wanted a PCI USB 3.0 expansion card for my ASUS Ranger motherboard. I plug this in, and the Oculus Rift reported that all devices were USB 3.0. Perfect. No drivers were needed for this to work. Buy this card if you want smooth sailing for VR. Unfortunately its $80, but it works. But whatever, your a VR hobbyist anyways... Just consider that a early adapter cost. This card has 4 USB 3.0 ports, and each has its own dedicated controller... So you can drive a 4K Video webcam, Oculus Rift, and the 2 3.0 USB sensors you need for room scale (just plug the last one into your motherboard for USB 2.0). Worth. The following other cheapo cards that I got initially would not recognize devices as USB 3.0. They are trash. My computer would not restart without getting hung up, and I would have to unplug the USB devices to even boot past the BIOS. The yottomaster website wasn't even up for a year. And I had to download some sketchy drivers off of a Google Drive. They may be cheaper, and they may have more USB ports... But their garbage. ******AVOID THE PRODUCTS BELOW THIS LINE.****** https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01N4FM1XS/ref=oh_aui_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FPIMICA/ref=oh_aui_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I have this installed on an ASUS ROG Maximus IX running Windows 10. It seems to be working alright without installing any special drivers. I only have two issues with this board: 1. It requires a secondary power connection. I wasn't thrilled to have to run a new power cable through my rig just for this card. 2. The molex connector easily pops off the board when attaching or detaching a cable. While I was able to remount it, it could easily pop off the board and damage its connection to the board in the process, so be careful or use the sata power connection instead. The main benefit of the this card is that it uses a separate USB hub for each port, resulting it much better bandwidth and response times across devices. In that respect, it works great!

I'm using this with 3 RTL-SDR and 1 RSP-1A software defined radios and the sdrtrunk program that allows me to receive trunked digital public service radio broadcasts. The USB ports built into my motherboard could not handle the large amount of data being passed thru the ports when listening to multiple P25 and DMR trunked systems at the same time causing the program to crash. This card seems to have fixed this issue and the program no longer crashes. I plugged the card into a PCIE X4 slot to maximize dataflow. I have an older Antec tower case. Unlike other reviewers I had no physical clearance problems with the USB ports when plugging cables into the device.

I'm going to be installing my fourth of this card because the first three all failed. I'm hoping this next card does the trick because when this card works, it works incredibly well and is exactly what it's advertised to be. Having four dedicated USB controllers in a single card really helps in certain environments. Basically, what seems to happen is the controllers just burn out and stop passing data. The card will still pass power to your devices but if you try to poll the ports you end up getting errors. And my experience with three separate cards, the issues don't start until about a month or two in and then the ports die one by one over a period of another four weeks. I primarily use this card because VR comes with a lot of USB bandwidth issues with the number of devices that are required for a full body kit. Running SteamVR diagnostics shows the ports come up as "general failure". I've had this happen now with three cards in a row and it seems like there's a couple of other reviews where this has happened as well. Support has been fantastic as they typically just tend to swap the card out but since I've had so many fail now they're trying to point the finger at me (even though nothing else in my system is having even remotely similar issues.) Depending on how support continues and if the next card actually has some staying power I'll update my review.

Like many others, I purchased this card for the separate USB controllers for my Oculus Rift to hopefully cure the USB errors and crashes from overtaxing the system. Well I'm happy to report that it worked ...at a cost. I first mounted it into my PCIe x4 slot hoping it would work there and plugged all 3 sensors and the Oculus headset into it. However upon testing, PCIe X4 wasn't enough to run the Oculus headset. It kept disconnecting/crashing and reconnecting over and over. I had no choice but to try the unused PCIe x16 slot above it. In this slot everything was green and worked great. However, the trade off is it drops the graphic card's PCIe x16 slot to an X8 when anything is plugged into the PCIe slot below it, exactly where I had to put the USB card. So it works, but there is a trade off. Because it is a 4 port card, I assumed wrongly that PCIe X4 would be enough to handle it...and it may for other purposes. Sadly, Oculus headsets require much more bandwidth and is why it causes so many USB problems to begin with. I deducted a star for this and because, like many others have said, the USB slots are vertical which may cause problems with some cases getting in the way of plugging in. Why these weren't made horizontal, I can't figure out. I found that plugging in your usb's before tightening the case screw down to hold it in helps, giving you a little extra wiggle room. I first thought my case was in the way until I moved the mounted card up slightly which allowed my usb's to plug in, ...barely.

I tried 3 other less expensive PCIE to USB cards and they all had issues with drivers, throughput, or both! This card just works and really does deliver bandwidth! It also handles multiple hubs and high power devices perfectly! 0 drop outs, 0 latency issues, instantly recognizes anything plugged in! It also has better build quality with the vertical ports - they aren't obstructed by different cases like some other cards I tried! I don't know why I bother with other brands - I always end up back with StarTech. It also has 2 standards for providing power instead of just 1 odd one (floppy power on one that I tried). I highly recommend this card!

I have been fighting with my Oculus for a week trying to get it all set up and working right, dealing with a blacklistted motherboard and errors on USB ports. This card solved all my problems. No hassle, no issues, it was great right out of the box. The only problem I had at all was that once installed, the ports on the end near the motherboard had one edge slightly behind the metal of the PC case at the edge, hiding a tiny part of the port. I am not sure if this is a design flaw of my case or the card, but I was able to push things around a bit to flex things so I could plug things in. After that point, the cables held it all in place. If you are trying to figure out which card to get to make our Oculus problems go away, it is this one.

Bought this to run a four-sensor Oculus Rift setup. Was sick of messing around with motherboard USB slots, getting 2.0 connections even on 3.0 ports, etc. - and as I hoped, this card instantly solved all that. Now getting full-speed 3.0 performance from all four sensors with no inconsistencies or problems of any kind. Pricey, but worth it if you want the best. Definitely easier and more reliable than getting a cheaper expansion card and splitting your sensors between that and the motherboard ports. TIPS: - Works plug-n-play with Windows 10 native drivers. I've heard others say the manufacturer drivers make things worse not better, so I never tried. Stick with the natives. - Make sure you have a spare x4-speed PCIe slot on your motherboard, which is the full bandwidth this card uses. Note that this is not necessarily the same as a x4-SIZE slot - check your motherboard manual to find out what speed each slot offers and whether it steals bandwidth from other slots. My MB (like many) has a bunch of x4-sized slots that only run at x1 speed, which would bottleneck this card and defeat the purpose - I had to plug it into the third x16-size slot, which runs at x4 speed. MINOR ISSUES: - Plugging USB cables into the horizontal ports is a very tight fit through the opening for the expansion slot, at least in my case (Thermaltake X5). It's not a problem for me since my Oculus sensors are permanently connected to this card, but might not be great if you plan to use this for stuff that you are plugging and unplugging regularly. - The small heatsink on my card was attached very sloppily - visibly on a bit of an angle, not straight and flush with the card. Still makes full contact with the chip underneath so there's no functional issue at all, and I may have just gotten a one-in-a-million bad draw. Was slightly disappointing for such a high-end card, but not enough so that I'd bother returning it for a replacement.

Très bon produit, depuis que je l'ai installé je n'ai plus de soucis de connexion sur mon oculus rift. Facile d'installation, bien prendre les pilotes Windows. Par contre sur le port PCI Express 4x le produit n'était pas bien reconnus. Je l'ai mis sur le PCI Express 8x (pour du 4x) et la tout à bien fonctionné. Je recommande pour ceux qui ont des problèmes avec l'oculus.

Mal diseñada en cuanto al slot y los puertos Usb. Hay que recortar el slot trasero de la caja para que permita la conexión de los buses. Los drivers para el 7 ni pa'tras, sin actualizaciones. El 8.1 la aceptó con genéricos de WU, que no regulan fino las tensiones provocando un uso máximo de 2 HDD de 2,5", ya que con un tercero, empieza el caos enumerador. No es recomendable y mucho menos por ese precio.

Ich benötigte diese Karte für den Einsatz einer Oculus Rift S. Leider musste ich feststellen, daß mein MSI Mainboard (in dem Fall ein MSI Meg x399 Creation die Karte nicht erkannt hat. Bereits auf UEFI Ebene wurde der PCIe Slot in dem die Karte verbaut war beständig als leer angegeben. Verschiedene versuche die PCI Lane Konfiguration und die PCIe-Generation über das Board einzustellen blieben fruchtlos. Die Karte wurde nicht aktiviert und hat auch nichts angeschlosseen, wie eine Maus oder Tastatur mit Strom versorgt. Die Karte selbst funktioniert tadellos bei anderen Mainboards. Getestet habe ich sie in einem etwa 6 Jahre alten Gigabyte Mainboard und einem wesentlich älteren HP Rechner, der noch mit DDR2 betrieben wurde. In beiden Fällen hat das sowohl das Bios, respektive UEFI die Karte korrekt erkannt und das jeweilige OS konnte die sie ohne Probleme verwenden. Einige Google Suchen später stellte ich fest, daß ich nicht der einzige mit dem Problem bin, und das es höchstwahrscheinlich an MSI liegt, daß die Kompatibilität nicht gegeben ist. Ich musste die Karte leider zurückgeben.

Couldn’t get all 4 ports working, randomly, only 2-3 ports were detected. Have tried re-seating the card, plugging in the data power, also tried the drivers online. Also be warned due to the vertical arrangement of the ports, your case might not fit.