owners of asus m2a-vm or any other 690G/SB600 - USB speed

papakoo · Post by **papakoo** » Fri Aug 31, 2007 7:36 am

Just build one mob asus M2A-vm and complete disappointment!

Every usb device connected is working at half speed than on asus pundit older 6150nvidia chipset! (same proccesor a64 X2 4200)

For example one usb stick (kingston mini fun 2GB, tested with HDTach) on the old pc gives a speed of 21MB/s and with this new mobo only 10.4MB/s!
External HDD on "old" pc gives 26MB/s and with this ati/amd 690G chipset scores only 13.5MB/s!

Help! Is my mobo faulty or this chipset is so bad? Searching net and nothing found! On reviews reading last week this asus was over scored MSI 690G and it was about 20-28MB/s.

Anyone with this or any other 690G/SB600 chipset based mobo can report speed on usb ?

noee · Post by **noee** » Fri Aug 31, 2007 6:54 pm

When I get the Biostar TA690G back from the RMA, I'll test it out. I lost a SATA channel (two ports went to permanent PIO mode) and a new board should be here shortly.

I do recall, however, that my external USB 2.0 drives were screaming fast, using both a HDD enclosure as well as the little multi-adapter from Bytecc.

papakoo · Post by **papakoo** » Sat Sep 01, 2007 9:13 am

So many people were talking about this chipset! Where are you people???!

Nobody uses usb ports?

I use usb ports to transfer many many GB of data and i'm going to send this trash mobo back! One of my systems (3 years old) with sempron 2800 754 socket and an MSI mobo (no it's not an exotic mobo, it is one with onboard graphics too, very cheap) with a VIA south bridge gives at the same kingston flash 24MB/sec and external HDD 28MB/s! Better performance than 1year old asus pundit 6150chipset. Newer M2A-VM only 10MB/s? Is ASUS kidding??>!!!$#^&^&

(thank you noee)

thejamppa · Post by **thejamppa** » Sat Sep 01, 2007 1:18 pm

It seems that board in question has some other problems too. One retailer in this little town tried to put Silent 8600GT in that board no booting at all. It booted well in other boards. he tried two that boards and it did not booted. 7600gs silent booted no problem and all Ati's booted no problem.

So far this is first time I've heard these kinds of problems would be associated the chipset. I think its Asus' fault this time. Bad patch or poor mobo design in this particular case or there is just something really wrong in that board and chipset combo?

I haven't heard any complains in MSI's or Biostar's mobo's with 690G so far except individual monday samples as much as in anyother mobo's.

have you tried to RMA it?

papakoo · Post by **papakoo** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 9:50 am

Hello, is anybody here???
3 days asking someone with this OR ANY other 690G/SB600 to make a test speed on usb...

dhanson865 · Post by **dhanson865** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 10:45 am

OK, I have a M2A-VM and have access to 50+ PCs at work. I am downloading HD-tach now.

Ok, I have it. Are you doing quick bench 8mb or long bench 32mb? Are you going as far as unplugging the network cable and disabling the swap file or is a random test good enough for you?

qviri · Post by **qviri** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 10:50 am

Comparison between: recently built system with M2A-VM and 3600+ and IBM X31 laptop.

http://qviri.net/misc/hdtune/x31-usb-ki ... er.2.0.png
http://qviri.net/misc/hdtune/m2a-usb-ki ... er.2.0.png

I don't have any faster USB drives, sorry. Unless you were interested in the performance of an iPod shuffle?

papakoo · Post by **papakoo** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 11:44 am

dhanson865 wrote:OK, I have a M2A-VM and have access to 50+ PCs at work. I am downloading HD-tach now.

Ok, I have it. Are you doing quick bench 8mb or long bench 32mb? Are you going as far as unplugging the network cable and disabling the swap file or is a random test good enough for you?

anything would give the same result

papakoo · Post by **papakoo** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 11:46 am

qviri wrote:Comparison between: recently built system with M2A-VM and 3600+ and IBM X31 laptop.

http://qviri.net/misc/hdtune/x31-usb-ki ... er.2.0.png
http://qviri.net/misc/hdtune/m2a-usb-ki ... er.2.0.png

I don't have any faster USB drives, sorry. Unless you were interested in the performance of an iPod shuffle?

thanks for the effort, yes it is a slow flash disk. The test must be done with a faster device. Thanks anyway!

dhanson865 · Post by **dhanson865** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 5:59 pm

There is a stack of random flash drives on my desk at work, I'll try it when I get a chance and bring the fastest one home to test with the M2A-VM.

qviri · Post by **qviri** » Tue Sep 04, 2007 10:02 am

Okay, I got my Samsung MP0603H hooked up to a cheap IDE-USB converter:

laptop: http://qviri.net/misc/hdtune/x31-usb-sa ... p0603h.png
M2A-VM: http://qviri.net/misc/hdtune/m2a-usb-sa ... p0603h.png

So in short it seems that my M2A-VM's USB port works correctly. For what it's worth, I am using the ports on the motherboard directly. Are you as well? Maybe you just have a dud mobo?

papakoo · Post by **papakoo** » Wed Sep 05, 2007 12:29 pm

qviri wrote:Okay, I got my Samsung MP0603H hooked up to a cheap IDE-USB converter:

laptop: http://qviri.net/misc/hdtune/x31-usb-sa ... p0603h.png
M2A-VM: http://qviri.net/misc/hdtune/m2a-usb-sa ... p0603h.png

So in short it seems that my M2A-VM's USB port works correctly. For what it's worth, I am using the ports on the motherboard directly. Are you as well? Maybe you just have a dud mobo?

Yes your test looks ok.

Of course i use the ports directly, and nothing else connected, only the test device! I have tried 4 different external HDDs hitachi deskstar 500GB, maxtor 500GB etc etc and i get a fixed 9,5 to 10 MB/s. The same disks are giving 24 to 28MB/sec on 2 other mobos.
And i did tried ALL the bios updates - old and new ones- all the sb600 drivers from asus AND amd site, and YES, i replaced the mobo, i got one new M2A-VM HDMI this time and the results are the same!!! All bios checked again etc.

dhanson865 · Post by **dhanson865** » Thu Sep 06, 2007 3:18 pm

OK, I did my tests:

random P4 at work with a Sandisk Titanium

Max Burst about 89 MB/s
Avg Read about 45 MB/s

M2A-VM with the same Sandisk Titanium
Max Burst about 18 MB/s
Avg Read about 17MB/s

Caveats:

The work PC had different antivirus, different drivers of all types, different applications running in the foreground.

For all I know it is an antivirus issue or a HD tach issue. Sure the benchmark is lower, but why?

papakoo · Post by **papakoo** » Fri Sep 07, 2007 3:50 am

It's not antivirus issue or a hdtach issue. The systems i'm testing are with exactly same software, even 2 of them (asus pundit nvidia 6150 / m2a-vm hdmi) tested also swapping the OS hdd.
Also disabled just now the antivirus.
It is not hdtach issue because the real speeds working on file transfer from-to external HDD or flash usb was exactly the same with hdtach's results.

I strongly believe that is a hardware issue on SB600 south bridge! Rubbish chipset! check this about SB450 (previous version of SB600)

"However, we found an Achilles heel in our initial testing; namely, sub-par UBS 2.0 performance on the ATI SB450 South Bridge"
http://www.anandtech.com/printarticle.aspx?i=2562

there SB450 had a speed of 120Mbits/sec on USB (15MB/sec) and Nforce4 had 281Mbits/sec (35MB/s)

Other:
"The Achilles Heel of the SB400 South Bridge strikes again, unfortunately. SB450 USB 2.0 performance is still lacking when compared to its rivals', and Sapphire suffers as a result. ATI informs us that it intends to resolve the USB 2.0 'issue' in the next iteration of IXP South Bridges. We certainly hope so. Pure performance, which thus far has been good, is only one facet of the motherboard decision-making process."
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/09/06 ... page4.html

from another forum
"If you aren't using an external hard drive or many usb items the SB 450 is fine."

Anyway i thing that i'll keep this trash because i got very tired testing and i think that any of rs690G/sb600 is giving the same about results. I prefer 690G because of the "theater mode" in catalyst center. I use lcd 19''monitor and a full HD television to watch the videos in another room and this "theater mode" is something nvidia cant give until now.

thejamppa · Post by **thejamppa** » Fri Sep 07, 2007 4:52 am

I wonder if this is Just problem with Asus, since I am really looking into changing my whining M2N-E into MSI K9AG Neo2-Digital which uses Ati 690G + Ati SB600 chipsets.

qviri · Post by **qviri** » Fri Sep 07, 2007 4:56 am

papakoo wrote:I strongly believe that is a hardware issue on SB600 south bridge! Rubbish chipset!

And yet my board works at 20 MB/s while yours cannot exceed 10 MB/s. What is the cause of this variability? Since you had the board replaced and still got the same result, it must be something else that's behind this.

The configuration of my machine is as follows:

Asus M2A-VM non-HDMI
AMD X2 3600+
cheapo no-name "300 W" ATX 1.3 20-pin PSU
single 1 GB stick of Crucial DDR2
one IDE WD 160 GB drive
one SATA Samsung 250 GB drive
one IDE Samsung optical drive
one PCI card: Motorola 802.11g
onboard Ethernet interface is not used
three USB devices - keyboard, mouse, and power for speakers
fresh installation of XP SP2
no antivirus, no firewall (heh)

papakoo · Post by **papakoo** » Fri Sep 07, 2007 5:37 am

qviri wrote:
papakoo wrote:I strongly believe that is a hardware issue on SB600 south bridge! Rubbish chipset!
And yet my board works at 20 MB/s while yours cannot exceed 10 MB/s. What is the cause of this variability? Since you had the board replaced and still got the same result, it must be something else that's behind this.

The configuration of my machine is as follows:

Asus M2A-VM non-HDMI
AMD X2 3600+
cheapo no-name "300 W" ATX 1.3 20-pin PSU
single 1 GB stick of Crucial DDR2
one IDE WD 160 GB drive
one SATA Samsung 250 GB drive
one IDE Samsung optical drive
one PCI card: Motorola 802.11g
onboard Ethernet interface is not used
three USB devices - keyboard, mouse, and power for speakers
fresh installation of XP SP2
no antivirus, no firewall (heh)

I have thought of everything. I had these m2a-vm boards tested just on a table . I even put it last night in a tower to get all 6 mobo's holes well grounded. I was hopping that might be this but no luck! Seeing your results made my thinking that is some strange factor. I have noticed some days ago that if while testing or tranfering files throu usb, if i connect one other device, tests are giving some peaks taking performance from 10 to 18MB/s. One last thought might be your power for speakers. Maybe if there is a current flow throu usb, performance is going up.

Asus M2A-VM non-HDMI ->both non and Hdmi
AMD X2 3600+ -> x2 3600 brisbane and x2 4200EE
cheapo no-name "300 W" ATX 1.3 20-pin PSU ->fortron 350W
single 1 GB stick of Crucial DDR2 -> 1gb ddr2 kingston (and 2x1gb)
one IDE WD 160 GB drive -> Ide wd 200GB drive (OS windows xp pro sp2)
one SATA Samsung 250 GB drive -> sata wd 250GB (with and without)
one IDE Samsung optical drive -> nec -optiarc dvd-r IDE
one PCI card: Motorola 802.11g -> tested and with a pci card on (skystar2)
onboard Ethernet interface is not used -> tried and with onboard lan disabled/enabled and with 1394 disabled/enabled
three USB devices - keyboard, mouse, and power for speakers -> only one usb device (flash or HDD) and with maximum 6 devices: 1adsl router, 3 HDD external, 2 usb flash drives
fresh installation of XP SP2 -> old instalation and fresh one with no luck!
no antivirus, no firewall (heh) -> disabled/enabled avg antivirus

EDIT: Because i cant find now any "heavy" load device to plug-in, it's maybe easier to unplug your power for speakers from usb and do again the test.

papakoo · Post by **papakoo** » Fri Sep 07, 2007 5:55 am

thejamppa wrote:I wonder if this is Just problem with Asus, since I am really looking into changing my whining M2N-E into MSI K9AG Neo2-Digital which uses Ati 690G + Ati SB600 chipsets.

This board was on top of my list but it has NO parallel port, not even internal connector and i have one laser printer HP with parallel connector, so i went with asus. I dont think it will be better (worse would be more possible):
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=376 (look at the last one bencmark comparing asus and msi 690g)

and another msi
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=37 ... ert&pid=10 (worse this one)

thejamppa · Post by **thejamppa** » Fri Sep 07, 2007 9:54 am

Well, 4 USB's in back panel has never been enough for me, so I have Belkin's USB 2.0 card with 4+1 USB ports with realtek chipset. And my external hardrives are connected to it.

So basicly it really doesn't matter wether those USB controller in mobo works fully or not. I still plan to use Motherboard USB's for webcam, mouse, keyboard and to get root port for my USB 1.1 hub.

Edit: here is results of one 690G /SB600 USB test performance:
Benchmarks - USB Performance

OCW wrote: In this test, we take a look at the performance of the 4 integrated graphics chipsets, AMD 690G/SB600 vs SIS 771/966 vs NF 6100/410 vs ATi RS485/SB460 in its USB performance with an external HDD in Vantec enclosure connected via USB cable.

AMD SB600 scored 26MB/s, SiS 966 scored 26MB/s while NV 410 scored 19MB/s and ATi SB460 scored 16MB/s. Both southbridges from AMD and SIS are equally fast. A yr ago, we tested ICH7, it only scored 25 MB/s. The two other south bridges are really old and only performed below 20MB/s.

http://www.ocworkbench.com/2007/epox/EP ... Pro/b9.htm

It seems that in some boards things work bit better. Of course it could be related to power etc like papakoo pointed out.

papakoo · Post by **papakoo** » Fri Sep 07, 2007 12:28 pm

If we believe these reviews (not only OCW, i doubt in general some of them) SB600 is better than 460 and nvidia's 410. For my case sb600 is at 40% of nvidia 430 and at 30% of speed of one and a half year old VIA 8237R usb performance.

I cant swallow that a new mobo is working like a 5 years old would do. I cant swallow that it works at half (and more slower) speed than my 1/2 and 1 years older mobos at usb. It is something really unbelievable! I was 99% sure that it was a faulty mobo but after replacement i got angry about manufacturers! They made crap devices sometimes! It is unbelievable!

(PS. and power consumption is exaclty the same with 6150/430 chipsets, measurements dropped reviews that 690 are less power hungry than 6150/430 dual chipset!)

dhanson865 · Post by **dhanson865** » Fri Sep 07, 2007 1:11 pm

papakoo wrote:2 usb flash drives

Are you transferring files from one USB drive to another USB drive so that if there is a speed issue on the USB handling you are cutting it in half?

As to the USB load I'm using a USB mouse but PS/2 KB. My speakers and any other device I use do NOT use the USB port.

papakoo · Post by **papakoo** » Fri Sep 07, 2007 10:17 pm

dhanson865 wrote:
papakoo wrote:2 usb flash drives
Are you transferring files from one USB drive to another USB drive so that if there is a speed issue on the USB handling you are cutting it in half?

As to the USB load I'm using a USB mouse but PS/2 KB. My speakers and any other device I use do NOT use the USB port.

I DON'T trasfer files from one usb to another. From internal HDD to usb and versa.

papakoo · Post by **papakoo** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 1:53 am

I'm still waiting for all the guys with Gigabyte (GIGABYTE GA-MA69GM-S2H or GA-MA69G-S3) or MSI or BIOSTAR mobos with this chipset. NOBODY cares about usb performance on these boards? Nobody uses them for data transfer? So many people are talking for these mobos but none posted here! I don't know why, just supposing...

thejamppa · Post by **thejamppa** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 6:25 am

I just got my MSI K9AG Neo2-Digital installed. I am but busy with school. But in the end of this week, I should be able to compeare performance of this boards transfer vs. Belkins USB 2.0 PCI card with different USB.20 chipset.

GnatGoSplat · Post by **GnatGoSplat** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 3:57 pm

Hey papakoo, you're not alone! I downloaded HDTach and ran it on 4 machines with the same 40GB Hitachi laptop drive connected to one of those cheap USB to IDE adapters. All but the Asrock runs Vista so HDTach needed to be put in XP SP2 compatibility mode (Asrock runs XP MCE 2005). Here are my results:

Gigabyte GA-MA69G-S3H F4A BIOS (newest) 14.4MB/s
Asrock ALiveNF6G-DVI (Geforce 6150SE) 23.9MB/s
Foxconn G9657MA-8EKRS2H (G965 chipset) 35.1MB/s
IBM Thinkpad T43 laptop (915GM chipset) 33.0MB/s

Yuck, 690G is less than half the speed of the Intel chipsets. Rather disappointing. It looks like Intel chipsets in general are champions at USB performance.

dhanson865 · Post by **dhanson865** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 7:12 pm

yuck indeed, just another sign that AMD overpaid for the ATI purchase/merger.

Mats · Post by **Mats** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 7:20 pm

To all who are reading this thread and consider getting an external HD, check out this review.
Or in short, get an eSATA connection.

papakoo · Post by **papakoo** » Tue Sep 18, 2007 8:41 am

Mats wrote:To all who are reading this thread and consider getting an external HD, check out this review.
Or in short, get an eSATA connection.

I did not read the article BUT:

I DO have a e-sata enclosure (only sata disks are giving e-sata output - IDE are giving only usb2) but i also have a total of about 2GB of USB external disks. E-sata is the future but you are a bit out of topic.

papakoo · Post by **papakoo** » Tue Sep 18, 2007 9:01 am

GnatGoSplat wrote:Hey papakoo, you're not alone! I downloaded HDTach and ran it on 4 machines with the same 40GB Hitachi laptop drive connected to one of those cheap USB to IDE adapters. All but the Asrock runs Vista so HDTach needed to be put in XP SP2 compatibility mode (Asrock runs XP MCE 2005). Here are my results:

Gigabyte GA-MA69G-S3H F4A BIOS (newest) 14.4MB/s
Asrock ALiveNF6G-DVI (Geforce 6150SE) 23.9MB/s
Foxconn G9657MA-8EKRS2H (G965 chipset) 35.1MB/s
IBM Thinkpad T43 laptop (915GM chipset) 33.0MB/s

Yuck, 690G is less than half the speed of the Intel chipsets. Rather disappointing. It looks like Intel chipsets in general are champions at USB performance.

First of all THANK YOU for what I've been waiting some weeks, a report for another manufacturer!!

2-3 days ago i tested again my 6150/430 (not SE) based motherboard with only one external HDD device attached (just like i test M2A-VM HDMI-or vanilla) and i get 30.5MB/sec on 6150 and only 10MB/sec on 690G!

Again the conclusion after your tests...
690G is for the recycle bin days after purchase! Not years as expected! (Of course i'm referring on usb performance only, but it is unbelievable!! 5 years ago i had better performance!)
I'm not looking for a solution on a problem as a usb pci card. My M2A-VM has allready ALL (2) pci buses in use. And you never buy a mobo and then bying extra pci cards to correct mobo's malfunctioning basics as usb, or PS-2 mouse port, card for parallel port etc...

Thanks again GnatGoSplat

(Forgot to say that i was ATI's fan last 6 years. It is so bad that nvidia has not ATI's "theater mode" for dual display output - the only reason i went with 690G)

Mats · Post by **Mats** » Tue Sep 18, 2007 9:04 am

papakoo wrote: I did not read the article BUT:

I DO have a e-sata enclosure (only sata disks are giving e-sata output - IDE are giving only usb2) but i also have a total of about 2GB of USB external disks. E-sata is the future but you are a bit out of topic.

You just don't need an eSATA enclosure, you also need the same connection in your PC.

I'm just trying to help, and you know I didn't write this specifically to you.

Mats once more wrote:To all who are reading this thread and consider getting an external HD

Your comment is not very encouraging for people who wants to help out.

Oh and I suggest you read the article, very interesting!