January 28, 2025

USB on my current windows machine

The machine I use for mineral photography and stacking is no powerhouse. It is a PC running Windows 10. The motherboard is an ASUS P8Z68-V Pro/Gen3. It was decent back in 2013 when I put this machine together. The CPU is an Intel i7-3770K which has 4 real cores, but has 8 schedulable CPU.

It has 4 USB-3.0 ports and 12 USB-2.0 ports.

Half of the ports are available from connectors on the motherboard intended to have cables from the front of the case connected to them. There are 3 blue connectors labeled 7-8, 9-10, and 11-12. These are the USB 2.0 connectors and I have my front panel plugged into USB 7-8, so my front connectors are USB 2.0.

The internal connector for USB 3.0 is entirely different and at this time my case has no connector that would plug into it. It has more pins (not surprisingly) and at a higher density. I may have the appropriate connector someplace in a box of parts.

The back has 6 USB 2.0 ports and 2 USB-3.0 ports. The USB-3.0 ports are easy to find, they are under the ethernet cable and are blue. The four at the top of the case and the two next to those are all USB-2.0

I should plug my camera into the USB 3.0 ports.

The USB 2.0 ports are handled by the Intel Z68 chipset.
The USB 3.0 ports are handled by an ASMedia USB 3.0 controller.

Feedback? Questions? Drop me a line!

Tom's Computer Info / tom@mmto.org