Adding a USB 3 card to an Asus M4A77T motherboard

[Asrael]

The above motherboard only has USB 2 ports. I'd like to add one of the PCI-E USB 3.0 cards available but I'm not clear as to whether these types of cards are supported in MX.

Has anyone successfully added such a card to an old motherboard? If so I'd be grateful for a pointer to which types/manufacturers are supported.

[Eadwine Rose]

Please post your Quick System Info using Copy for forum, thanks.

[Asrael]

Code: Select all

System:    Kernel: 5.10.0-22-amd64 [5.10.178-3] x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 10.2.1 
           parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/vmlinuz-5.10.0-22-amd64 
           root=UUID=<filter> ro quiet splash 
           Desktop: Xfce 4.18.1 tk: Gtk 3.24.24 info: xfce4-panel wm: xfwm 4.18.0 vt: 7 
           dm: LightDM 1.26.0 Distro: MX-21.3_x64 Wildflower January 15  2023 
           base: Debian GNU/Linux 11 (bullseye) 
Machine:   Type: Desktop Mobo: ASUSTeK model: M4A77T v: Rev X.0x serial: <filter> 
           BIOS: American Megatrends v: 2401 date: 05/18/2011 
Battery:   Device-1: hidpp_battery_0 model: Logitech Wireless Keyboard serial: <filter> 
           charge: 55% (should be ignored) rechargeable: yes status: Discharging 
CPU:       Info: Dual Core model: AMD Athlon II X2 260 bits: 64 type: MCP arch: K10 
           family: 10 (16) model-id: 6 stepping: 3 microcode: 10000C8 cache: L2: 2 MiB 
           flags: lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4a svm bogomips: 12857 
           Speed: 3214 MHz min/max: N/A Core speeds (MHz): 1: 3214 2: 3214 
           Vulnerabilities: Type: itlb_multihit status: Not affected 
           Type: l1tf status: Not affected 
           Type: mds status: Not affected 
           Type: meltdown status: Not affected 
           Type: mmio_stale_data status: Not affected 
           Type: retbleed status: Not affected 
           Type: spec_store_bypass status: Not affected 
           Type: spectre_v1 mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization 
           Type: spectre_v2 
           mitigation: Retpolines, STIBP: disabled, RSB filling, PBRSB-eIBRS: Not affected 
           Type: srbds status: Not affected 
           Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected 
Graphics:  Device-1: AMD Redwood PRO [Radeon HD 5550/5570/5630/6510/6610/7570] vendor: XFX Pine 
           driver: radeon v: kernel bus-ID: 01:00.0 chip-ID: 1002:68d9 class-ID: 0300 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.11 compositor: xfwm4 v: 4.18.0 driver: 
           loaded: ati,radeon unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,vesa display-ID: :0.0 screens: 1 
           Screen-1: 0 s-res: 3840x1080 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 1016x285mm (40.0x11.2") 
           s-diag: 1055mm (41.5") 
           Monitor-1: DisplayPort-0 res: 1920x1080 hz: 60 dpi: 93 size: 527x296mm (20.7x11.7") 
           diag: 604mm (23.8") 
           Monitor-2: HDMI-0 res: 1920x1080 hz: 60 dpi: 93 size: 527x296mm (20.7x11.7") 
           diag: 604mm (23.8") 
           OpenGL: renderer: AMD REDWOOD (DRM 2.50.0 / 5.10.0-22-amd64 LLVM 11.0.1) 
           v: 3.3 Mesa 20.3.5 compat-v: 3.1 direct render: Yes 
Audio:     Device-1: AMD SBx00 Azalia vendor: ASUSTeK driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel 
           bus-ID: 00:14.2 chip-ID: 1002:4383 class-ID: 0403 
           Device-2: AMD Redwood HDMI Audio [Radeon HD 5000 Series] vendor: XFX Pine 
           driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus-ID: 01:00.1 chip-ID: 1002:aa60 class-ID: 0403 
           Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k5.10.0-22-amd64 running: yes 
           Sound Server-2: PulseAudio v: 14.2 running: yes 
Network:   Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet 
           vendor: ASUSTeK M4A785/P7P55 driver: r8169 v: kernel port: e800 bus-ID: 02:00.0 
           chip-ID: 10ec:8168 class-ID: 0200 
           IF: eth0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter> 
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 447.13 GiB used: 73.46 GiB (16.4%) 
           SMART Message: Unable to run smartctl. Root privileges required. 
           ID-1: /dev/sda maj-min: 8:0 vendor: Crucial model: CT480BX500SSD1 size: 447.13 GiB 
           block-size: physical: 512 B logical: 512 B speed: 3.0 Gb/s type: SSD serial: <filter> 
           rev: 052 scheme: MBR 
Partition: ID-1: / raw-size: 438.11 GiB size: 430.16 GiB (98.19%) used: 73.2 GiB (17.0%) fs: ext4 
           dev: /dev/dm-0 maj-min: 253:0 mapped: root.fsm 
           ID-2: /boot raw-size: 1024 MiB size: 973.4 MiB (95.06%) used: 273.1 MiB (28.1%) 
           fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda1 maj-min: 8:1 
Swap:      Kernel: swappiness: 15 (default 60) cache-pressure: 100 (default) 
           ID-1: swap-1 type: partition size: 7.98 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) priority: -2 
           dev: /dev/dm-1 maj-min: 253:1 mapped: swap 
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 50.0 C mobo: 27.0 C gpu: radeon temp: 47.0 C 
           Fan Speeds (RPM): cpu: 2872 case-1: 0 
           Power: 12v: 12.16 5v: N/A 3.3v: 3.28 vbat: N/A 
Repos:     Packages: note: see --pkg apt: 1980 lib: 992 flatpak: 0 
           No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list 
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian-stable-updates.list 
           1: deb http://deb.debian.org/debian bullseye-updates main contrib non-free
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.list 
           1: deb http://deb.debian.org/debian bullseye main contrib non-free
           2: deb http://security.debian.org/debian-security bullseye-security main contrib non-free
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mx.list 
           1: deb http://mxlinux.mirrors.uk2.net/packages/mx/repo/ bullseye main non-free
Info:      Processes: 197 Uptime: 36m wakeups: 7 Memory: 15.62 GiB used: 1.3 GiB (8.3%) 
           Init: SysVinit v: 2.96 runlevel: 5 default: 5 tool: systemctl Compilers: gcc: N/A 
           alt: 10 Client: shell wrapper v: 5.1.4-release inxi: 3.3.06 
Boot Mode: BIOS (legacy, CSM, MBR)

[timkb4cq]

I haven't actually done this, but most of these adapters are plug-and-play with Linux. Chipsets from AsMedia, NEC, Renesas, & Fresco Logic have support in the kernel. There's at least one VIA chipset that's not compatible. This list isn't necessarily complete.
Most of the offerings on Amazon list whether they support for Windows 7, 10, 11, MacOS, Linux - so it can be useful to check there whether or not you buy there.

[Asrael]

Thanks timkb4cq, I was intending to buy from Amazon but the listings I've looked at seem to omit Linux as supported. Time for another search.
The details on the supported chipsets is most valuable.
Thanks again.

[baldyeti]

One caveat: the USB3 ports are likely to be recognised under linux, but you may not be able to boot off one of the extra ports (no BIOS/boot support)

[Asrael]

Thanks baldyeti, not a problem. Just tired of USB 2 transfer speeds