Flush USB 3.0 Expresscard Adapter

Am I missing something? I can't figure out WHICH one to use... The most recent one, I suppose?

 

I answered you in the other thread.

 

Thanks, Man!

 

thanks man~

 

For what it's worth, here's my experience so far with this 'flush-fitting' Expresscard/34 single-port USB3.0 adapter

DealExtreme: $18.20 34/54MM Express to USB 3.0 Card for Notebook

I received the AKE Expresscard34 USB 3.0 ordered from the DealExtreme. It took about 2 weeks to arrive (to Canada from US) but that was over the Xmas period. It arrived in a generic expresscard adapter box which had check boxes for; USB 2.0, ESata...but no USB3.0. Still it looked like the picture...

Also in the box was a mini CD - you know the ones about 3" diameter. That was no good for the slot-load optical drive on my Dell, but no worries I have another lappie I could copy the CD contents to a flash drive on.

No documentation whatsoever with the card - just the card and the CD. On the CD we have 6 directories (working from memory here) two of which have 'USB3' in their title. What do I install? Do I need the other folders? Dunno. Do I install the drivers 1st? Do I need to reboot? Do I need to plug in the card while the machine is powered down? Lots of questions and no answers. I looked in vain for any main 'readme' instructions on the CD.

So I forged ahead and installed the installations from the 2 folders with 'USB3' in the title. Then I plugged in the card while the machine was still running. The card is not quite flush - sticks out about 4~5mm when fully in. To eject you push it in again and let go, then it pops out about 1cm and can be pulled out. More on this 'feature' later.

After sticking in the card for the 1st time, I got a pop up saying something like "installing drivers"...then "...driver installation failed-X!" or some such. Windows (7 64-bit) kept making the "dadum!" sound it makes when you plug in say a flash drive and it's ready..."dadum".."dadum"...and so on. I unplugged the card and plugged in again . When I plugged in again no "dadum" at all and no message from windows.

So, I left it in and rebooted. No message from windows on startup about new hardware being installed and ready to use, as I was hoping. So, I plugged in my new Iomega USB3.0 2.5" portable drive and...the light came on and it started humming. A good sign I thought. I had a look in Windows Hardware Manager and SystemInfo (SIW.exe) but couldn't find anything refering to USB3.0.

I copied a file (blu-ray ISO about 40GB) to the drive and windows transfer speed settled down to around 76MB/s. Definitely better than USB2.0! Success! Copying another file of similar size about halfway through the drive just disappeared as if it had been unplugged...but it hadn't. I tried again, but about halfway through I pushed the card in to make sure it was in properly, which of course ejected it when I let go! Doh! This hung my laptop completely. So force a power down and keep fingers crossed when starting again...

Plugged card in again while the computer was off (hot-pluggin is OK with these cards? Dunno) and re-started. This time copied a whole file successfully with similar speed. Not the 100MB/s I was hoping for, but ~75MB/s isn't too shabby.

The Iomega drive comes with a Y-cable with a 2nd USB2.0 connector for more juice. So I plugged this into another USB2.0 port on my laptop. Was this feeding more power to the drive? Who knows? It didn't increase the transfer speed.

This might be a 'feature' of my Dell laptop as much as the card. Think about how the card mounts/dismounts - push it in until it clicks then let go to mount, push in again to dismount. So, what happens when you try and plug in your drive to the port in the card? Unless you're very careful you end up unplugging the expresscard! Doh! Not good. So far I've found it's most reliable to have the machine off - eject the card, plug in the drive to the card, plug the card back into the lappy, then power up.

So, my experience so far has been good and bad. I've still no idea if I've installed the correct drivers for the card, but it seems to be working. Presumably as a USB3.0 port, given 75GB/s. Anyone know which are the correct drivers for the AKE and/or if later ones are available online? Are there generic drivers available?

Using the port is a bit tricky, but if I manage to plug the drive in without ejecting the expresscard, it seems to work pretty well.

 

For the third time in two threads: Use the drivers available here. Download the most recent set, which is at the top of the page. Now for the installation, which I did not cover:

Uninstall the drivers you have now. Remove the Expresscard adapter. Install the drivers you downloaded from the link above. Plug in the adapter. All should be right with the world.

 

Thank You, it is VERY helpful!

Had the exact same issue, but a google search turned up the great posts here by saturnotaku

Is this the Iomega EGO portable 1TB USB 3.0 drive? That would be good news indeed as I am waiting for one as we speak.

It is laptop specific. It does the same on my HP 8730w, but it should be no problem, it's hot pluggable, I do it all the time with my CF card adapter. I have the AKE 54mm type adapter like saturnotaku (That one does fit flush in both my HP and Toshiba laptops - it is exactly 73mm long and 54mm wide, if that helps - if it's the same length and doesn't fit flush it would be your laptop).

How tight does the USB connector itself feel on your card? The ones on the 54mm card feel loose to me...

 

Hi 83bj60 I'm glad this info was useful for you. I should do a follow up to be fair to the AKE card. I found that on the DealExtreme page:

DealExtreme: $18.20 34/54MM Express to USB 3.0 Card for Notebook

...there's a discussion board and a poster has given a link to the latest drivers for the card as follows:

The drivers this comes with are a bit out of date, and the most recent ones are tricky to find, so I've posted the WHQL 3.0.110.12 drivers here:
Hotfile.com: One click file hosting: FL1000_32bit.msi (32-bit)
Hotfile.com: One click file hosting: FL1000_64bit.msi (64-bit)
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Nice! So I uninstalled the old drivers and installed the new ones last night. I also brought the card and my Iomega Ego 1TB (yes it's this one) drive with me to work to run a test on it. I'm using my work ASUS G50V as the test bed in this case.

The ASUS has an Expresscard/54 port which the card plugs right into and low and behold it is entirely flush. So full points to the AKE card there and nil-points to my DELL, which is a frikin' 17" monster (the ASUS is a big 15 incher) and still they can't get a full port depth in it?!

I used CrystalDiskMark to test the Iomega via USB2.0 port (built into laptop) and via the AKE card's USB3.0 port. Results are hopefully attached. The screenshot on the left with Seq Read = 29.9 MB/s is via USB2.0 and on the right is the results for expersscard USB3.0 Seq Read = 100.0 MB/s. Bang on what I was hoping for. I'll try copying some big files back/forth and see what I get.

[added] Copying some big files (blu-ray iso's) back/forth on the ASUS I got a settled transfer speed (according to windows 7 64-bit) of around 65~75 MB/s. I got some significantly better speeds on my DELL back home last night (didn't have CrystalDiskMark at home) ;consistent speeds of around 80~90MB/s which is excellent!

The port on the expresscard is snug but not too tight so I find that if I slide the drive's plug in gently I can get it in without ejecting the card pretty reliably. Just pulling the drive plug out also pulls out the expresscard! I expected that the expresscard would be held in its port but it is not, so I have to hold the card in while pulling out the drive plug. This happens on both the ASUS and the DELL.

 

Sorry saturnotaku I missed that link - thanks for this, all is now right with the world

 

Do you need to use the power adapter for the usb3 express card?? I have a portable hdd which usually works off the USB power... BTW I have one of them coming in next week with two usb 3 ports