[SOLVED] Does a 1x PCIe to USB 3.0 card exist that doesn't require drivers?

[Brcobrem]

Hi,

I'm wondering if there are any 1x PCIe to USB 3.0 cards that don't require drivers? I'd like to get USB 3.0 ports on a 1x PCIe card where the 3.0 ports are natively recognized by USB 3.0 boot devices/media.

Thanks for your help with my wish list.

Regards . . .

 

[SkyNetRising]

I'm wondering if there are any 1x PCIe to USB 3.0 cards that don't require drivers?

Every PCIE device requires drivers. PCIE USB controller is PCIE device.
So, to answer your question - no. That is not, how it works.

 

[Brcobrem]

Hi SkyNetRising,

Thanks for the heads-up! I've never had a reason to know this, but now I do. I appreciate you sharing your experience on this : )

For the benefit of others, if you intend to use one of these PCIe USB controllers and expect it to work with non-WinPE, Linux or other OS's, you must have a way to inject the driver into the stick's/CD's/OtherMedia's build.

I would add, that if you don't want to/can't inject, and if using a WinPE/Linux/etc boot device, you should make sure that the card's chipset is natively supported by the version of the boot OS that you're attempting to use.

Hum . . . Seems to me that your answer might be specific to PCIe cards connected to the southbridge. Because we can insert a graphics adapter into (e.g.) 16x slot, which has direct access to the northbridge, and we know you can post/boot and see the Bios/UEFI, no drivers required. I look forward to your thoughts/comments/corrections.

Regards . . .

 

[InvalidError]

Using add-in-board USB3 for boot requires either that your BIOS is able to enumerate and initialize the card at boot (unlikely to happen on a board without native or integrated USB3 ports) or that the card itself has an UEFI module to provide boot-time services. GPUs are available at boot because they have a UEFI block for the system BIOS to use to make it so. If you put a pre-UEFI GPU in a UEFI-only PC, the GPU won't work until the OS' drivers are loaded.

To be able to boot from USB3, you would need a USB3 card with an on-board UEFI to tell the BIOS how to boot from it. At a glance, those either do not appear to exist or are extremely rare.

 

[Karadjgne]

Too expensive to manufacture. When everyone is selling $16 pcie-usb expansions and you throw in a $100 expansion that's identical, does the same job, doesn't do anything other than facilitate boot options, you aren't going to have a large enough market wanting it, demanding it, buying it to make it viable to create.

 

[InvalidError]

Too expensive to manufacture. When everyone is selling $16 pcie-usb expansions and you throw in a $100 expansion that's identical, does the same job, doesn't do anything other than facilitate boot options, you aren't going to have a large enough market wanting it, demanding it, buying it to make it viable to create.

All of the ASMedia USB3 chips I have looked at support an optional firmware SPI (EEP)ROM, so adding the UEFI blob would cost maybe $2. Small enough of an incremental cost that it would get lost in the pricing noise of generic non-bootable cards.

 

[CountMike]

Every device connected to PC or part of a PC needs a driver to work properly so OS knows of it's existence and use it properly. Only possible difference is whether OS has a built in driver or not. When such device is PnP, BIOS will also be aware of it's existence and OS too.

 

[Brcobrem]

Hi SkyNetRising, Karadjgne, InvalidError, and CountMike,

This is an informative PCIe thread and I sincerely appreciate everyone sharing their knowledge.

Check this out:
USB 3.0 boot with ASMedia controllers - yes!
Here's one with that ASM1142 Chipset.
Another one.
Another one.

Well, I think I'm about done going down this rabbit hole any further. I was going to buy one of those above just to see if it works, but alas, the legacy motherboard I'm toying with only has a two 1x PCIe slots and one 16x graphics adapter already occupied. All those v3.1 high-speed (10Gbs theoretical) ASM1142 cards above require a 4x minimum.

To boot or not to boot . . . that is the question. I'll stay subscribed to this thread and look forward future posts. Thanks again : )

Regards . . .