New MP3 player hookup question

[CLC]

I am hoping that someone here is familiar with MP3s. My wife purchased an MP# player for my son and it is not working on his computer. The computer is abut 2 years old. The MP3 works fine on my computer which is about 6 months old. I know that my computer is USB 2.0 compatible, but I think his is not 2.0 compatible. This is where I believe the problem lies.

Is there a way to upgrade his computer to USB 2.0 compatibility without have to replace the motherboard and chp? Are there other options available? OR, is there something else that I am missing?

Any help would be appreciated.

Your mp3 player should still work w/ standard usb. It just don't be as fast. It's another problem, such as missing drivers. What OS is he running? And, what exactly doesn't work about it?

[CLC]

I expected some downward compatibility and slower performance.

The OS is Xp home edition. A pop-up in the tool bar says "device not recognized." The pop-up continues to show as long as the MPS is connected to the computer. The MP3 will show charging for a few seconds when first hooked up and then the display goes blank. It appears that Windows Media Player can read the two sample songs that are on the MP3 and play them, but any other action through WMP get no response.

Install steps:
1)I installed the drivers provided with the MPS player.
2) Plugged the USB cord into the computer.
3) Plugged the MP3 into the other end of cord.

When I did the exact same install on my computer it works fine.

What brand mp3 player are you trying to connect? Have you looked at the manufacturer's website for updated software? Have you tried uninstalling and reinstalling the bundled software? Have you tried using any other media players?

Also, to which computer did you first try to connect the player, yours or his?

[astroglide]

follow the other instructions. also make sure to plug into a DIRECT port on the pc. if you pass it through a keyboard, monitor, usb hub, or whatever that could be the problem.

[CLC]

Well, after messing with it this morning and talking with Samsung CS, I decided that it must be a USB 1.0 compatibility problem. Samsung first said that it should work, then said it should work, then said it could NEED USB 2.0.

I went back to Best Buy, where it was purchased, and talked to three sales guys. First said it should work and he did not understand why there was a problem. The second guy said much the same thing. They snaged a third associate who said there were issues with the particular model not working with USB 1.0. He himself had been unable to get it to work. He then advised the other two that if they sold that Samsung model FP-1FXB (I think) that they should insure that the customer had USB 2.0.

We exchanged it for a Creative MP3 with 1 Gig capacity for $5.00 more, the Smasung had 500mb capacity. So looks like we got a better deal. Took it home and had it up and running within 10 minutes.

Thanks for your suggestions anyways. /images/graemlins/smile.gif