PVM110N-1 on H81 chipset causing boot problems

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1

We have 2 systems both with Windows 7 x64
System 1 is based on an Asus H81M-K motherboard
System 2 is based on a Gigabyte GA-H81M motherboard

System 1 exhibits the following problems when a PVM110N-1 is connected:

  • BIOS boot time very slow
  • Intermittent crash during windows 7 boot causing restart into repair mode

System 2 exhibits the following problems when a PVM110N-1 is connected:

  • Stuck indefinitely on BIOS full screen logo during restart. (But a cold start after removing IEC lead is ok)

On both systems, the card functions correctly if Windows is able to boot.

System 1 is in our workshop. We have tried

  • Different USB ports (USB2.0/3.0)
  • Disabling USB boot.

Due to a lack of driver support on these Platforms, we have been unable to ascertain if switching to Windows XP would make a difference.

We switched to the older P8055-1 cards and these worked OK on System 1.

Has anyone else had similar experiences, and therefore is there is an issue with the PVM110N-1 and the H81 chipset or Windows 7 64-bit?

2

Hello,

Just a guess.
In the BIOS some systems can be setup to boot from a USB device.
You may want to check this.
If it’s on turn it off.

3

as noted above, we already have this disabled.

4

Sorry,

I missed that.

5

To add to above:

We tried the concerned PVM110N-1 board on a PC which uses Intel® 965Q Express Chipset and there were no BIOS or boot issues.
We tried updating the BIOS firmware on System 1 and this made no difference.

I would welcome any comments from Velleman if this is a known issue, and if there is anything that can be done to resolve it?

6

If I’m correct, then the VM110N is an USB HID device, like a keyboard or mouse. So it makes sense that disabling boot from USB will not help. I don’t know enough about the HID protocol through to speculate how it may affect the boot process.

7

Correct, all the 8055 based cards are HID devices.

There was an error in the USB device descriptor in the original K8055/VM110 version, that apparently caused DirectX crashes on XP and the card not properly enumerating on newer Windows versions. That bug was fixed in the K8055N/VM110N chips together with protocol enhancements.

The “-1” in the card name makes me wonder if beeboxsystems has the old PIC version with the USB descriptor bug and that it now causes problems in newer BIOS versions. I never had any of the pre-assembled boards, only a P8055-1 and P8055N-2. Can somebody confirm if the PVN110N-1 is the new or old version?

Regards,
Jan

8

[quote=“MostlyHarmless”]Can somebody confirm if the PVN110N-1 is the new or old version?[/quote]There is new firmware version - same as in the P8055N-2.

9

Some further information:

We suspected an incompatibility between the boards and the USB host controllers.
Here’s a link to the specs of the motherboard of system 1
asus.com/uk/Motherboards/H81 … fications/
It uses a Intel® 8 Series/C220 Series USB Enhanced Host Controller and Interl® USB eXtensible Host Controller.

We bought a PCI Express USB addin card
ebuyer.com/184688-startech-4 … -pexusb4dp

And when connected to this card, the board worked fine.

BIOS initialised without delay, and there were no further crashes on boot.

I will confirm if this fix works with system 2 later in the week.

10

Hi,

I have a problem with the Velleman K8055N Interface. It works fine as long as I plug it in after the computer has booted (Win7 Pro). When I keep it plugged in and restart the computer, the booting process hangs when the boot animation starts and I end up in startup repair (8 out of 10 times). When I unplug the interface and reboot, the computer immediately starts without a problem.
Bios boot settings have been set to Harddisk and CD-drive only.

Seems like you found the problem, but did the pci-USB card work?

Thanks in advance.

Best regards,
Albert van Duin

11

Hi,

I want to report that after installing a NEC/Renesas chipset PCI-e USB3 card and connecting the 8055 to that card, my booting problem went away!
The Lenovo pc I am using has Intel USB3 controllers on board, and they apparently do not work well with the 8055.

regards,
Albert

12

Thank you for the update.
It’s good that you found a solution.
This seems to be a very specific PC hardware related problem.