Flush USB 3.0 Expresscard Adapter

[x1nick]

I have a 34mm usb3 card with no ability for external power.

My WD USB 3.0 500GB Passport is drawing more power than is given.

Can you get USB3 Y cables?

[samotnik1985]

Hi, I just registered and wanted to ask users of this AKE (especially BC398), few questsions.

1. Does anybody know what Renesas chip exactly there is? Our best guess is it is µPD720200A, but have anybody actually confirmed it by opening this card, or inspecting precisely some informations from driver?

2. Does it works under Linux, with standard xhci driver? If so what distrubition / kernel version you use, and are speeds OK?

3. Was anybody using some fast usb 3.0 SSD, HD or pendrive to test maximal possible transfer speed of this card? ANybody tested it with two devices used in the same time?

4. Was anybody was testing this card in ExpressCard 2.0 slot? It looks that this all Renesas Elelctronic chips are PCIe 2.0 compatible (and of course back-ward compatible with PCIe 1.0 used in ExpressCard 1). So, it should be possible to fully utilize 400MB of single USB 3.0 port (as 1xPCIe 2.0 = 500MB/s), and even 500MB/s for two USB 3.0 ports. However ExpressCard 2.0 computers will rather have own USB 3.0 ports, so it is useless to use 2 ports in such setup - especially that EC 2.0 port have anyway its own USB 3.0 port, which is cheeper to bypass and use than put additional chips. It would be better to have hyrbid EC 2.0 card - two ports, but first is using PCIe2.0 (using Reneasas Chip in card), and second one using internetl USB 3.0 port (from motherboard, probably also using Renesas Chip or Intel ones).

5. Does documentation says about maximal power (in mA) draw supported by this device, both when one or two ports are used? And with and without additional power cable from other USB ports?

6. Does anybody have expierience with AKE clones? As far as I know there is lots of them, just look here:
BK720A KARTA EXPRESS CARD 2 PORTY USB 3.0 NOWO?? (1776207190) - Aukcje internetowe Allegro
Karta rozszerzenie EXPRESS CARD 2x USB 3.0 ?ód? fv (1775985474) - Aukcje internetowe Allegro
KARTA EXPRESS CARD HUB 2x USB 3.0 DO LAPTOPA (1787389987) - Aukcje internetowe Allegro
KARTA EXPRESS CARD HUB 2x USB 3.0 DO LAPTOPA (1758300759) - Aukcje internetowe Allegro - wow, three different photos.
KARTA EXPRESS CARD 2 x USB 3.0 NOWO?? (1772245746) - Aukcje internetowe Allegro

Some of them have AKE logo, some not, and some have different logo. I guess there is no big difference beetween them internally, but would like know what I am buying. Have no idea what vendors are they actually.


Posting content of drivers CDrom or just pdfs somewhere could help.


Of topic question: Is anybody know if there is any expresscard 54 (preferably EC 2.0), with two eSATAp (so eSATA and USB 2.0 or better 3.0 connectors?). Or other combo which have 1 eSATA + 1 USB 3.0, or other hybrids? It would be very intersting to have.

[Fusel Wusel]

I need somebody to do me a great favour!

I have got an AKE USB 3.0 Express Card (2 Ports, BC398, Superspeed...) and tried to do a Firmwareupdate on it. But the update-file messed something up and the card now seems bricked.
So I would need someone with the same card to dump the firmware of the card and send this dump to me, so that I can try to revive my card with that firmware.
Dumping the firmware is quite simple. Download the driver/firmware-package from station-drivers.com (direct link: http://www.station-drivers.com/telec...ivers.com).exe ) and extract it. Navigate through the folders (..\firmware\uPD720200_uPD720200A_FW_Updater\). There is an executable called "W200FW35.exe". All you would have to do, is to run the following command from the command line: W200FW35.exe /srom 0 /dump firmware.mem
(You could also create a *.bat file with this line in it and doubleclick it...)

This would only copy the firmware of your card to the firmware.mem file (should be 32kb). Of course it is totally safe for you to do this!

Would be super nice if somebody could do this and send me the firmware file

As a note to anyone who got interested: Please do not try to update the firmware of your card with this package! Mine got messed with this.

[unknown12345]

Get the firmware here: Dropbox - firmware_md5sum_b96bffa371021de7a406e3a919531586.mem - Simplify your life
MD5: b96bffa371021de7a406e3a919531586

[Fusel Wusel]

Thank you very much! I'll try it out as soon as I am back home this evening!

[EDIT] Does not work either, I'll consider the card dead...
Nevertheless thanks for your efforts!

[Orpstide]

Hi All,

I also managed to brick my BC398 USB3.0 expresscard with firmware update tool "uPD720200_uPD720200A_FW_updater" from station drivers. Fortunately, the "upd720200a.cmd" update script is in the same zip file. By editing cfg.ini, only the last line; setting "EnableClockRequest" to 0 and by executing the upd720200a.cmd, I was able to recover again. I had to change the "/srom 0" in the "upd720200a.cmd" to 3 (option 0 tries to find the vendor id of the serial flash rom to determine the erase command sequence and the programming sequence). I first tried option 4, which erased the flash, but reprogramming did not start. I then immediately retried it with option "/srom 3", and indeed the flash was still found, erased and this time the counter for reprogramming was visible and the flash was reprogrammed. It is a bit of a gamble which flash type is used in the expresscard, but at least the tool is forgiving and allowed a restart in my case, but i guess a powerdown after erase without a succesful reprogram will brick the thing forever. Somewhere else on the web, there is a file on "W200FW23", explaining which chips belong to which option "/srom 1..5". The host driver, also downloaded from station drivers, version 2.1.25.0, sprang into action a few milliseconds after the flash update. The little renesas "start->programs->renesas->usb3->utlity" shows firmware version "4015" now and a 4Gbyte file copy now runs at the speed of my disks; 110MB. If somebody wants to try whether the edit in cfg.ini can be left out, then they are welcome to add their experiences, but i did not find it necessary to experiment more.....

In normal use, all works perfect under win7 (64bit). Under Vista (32bit) the card behaves a little bit odd. When I plug-in an usb3 disk (verbatim 750G), the disklight stays on, but the drive is not accesed/recognized by win-vista. If I then open "start->control panel->device manager->usb->Renesas Electronics USB 3.0 Host Controller; double-click, select second-tab_device-driver; button "switch off driver" and then thereafter "switch on driver", the drive is recognized and performs at twice the speed (~50MB/s, internal hdd of the old pc is the limiting factor here), compared to ordinary usb2.0 (~22MB/s). So it does work. However, this indicates something is wrong in the renesas driver with the "wake-up" in vista. So the bypass of switching the driver on/off solves the issue, but this is actually not the way I would like to use the usb3.0. So any solution for the vista issue is welcomed....and again, on win7 it works fine for me, but I bought the expresscard for my older vista PC, which has no win7 license.

[Fusel Wusel]

@Orpstide: LOL! I also tried out what you did! But it did not work.
But now as I read of your success, I thought to try it again.
Well, the card is back again! Thank you very much!!!

[tnrNHferals]

My AKE BC 398 now officially doesn't work in 3 different computers, My Win 7 Ult, my old laptop with Vista 32 and my wifes Vostro with Win 7 premium. I have tried all the fresco and renesas drivers I could find and have searched for corrupt files etc. In all 3 computors I get "windows could not install driver".

I got this card off an ebay seller and have emailed them....... any ideas ???????????

Sometimes it's just a bad card. Return & replace is what I would do.

[Krane]

Sometimes it's just a bad card. Return & replace is what I would do.

It's the (lesser) price you pay for those darn Made in China products. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't.

[yuri_pragin]

What Renesas USB host controller "USRobotics USB 3.0 Super Speed 2-Port USB ExpressCard Adapter" model 8401 uses?