Billionton Cardbus to USB 2.0 PC Card adapter

[Ian Smith]

Finding no clues to something known to work on FreeBSD, I'm trying 
$subject card, wanting to add 2 x USB 2.0 ports to my Thinkpad T23 
running 8.2-RELEASE, and soon 9.0-RC1

The T23 has 2 x USB 1.0 UHCI ports.  They work fine but 12 minutes to 
write an 9.0-RC1 image is not much fun, forget external USB HDs etc.

Plugging in the card looks promising enough:

Oct 27 18:28:54 t23 kernel: ohci0: <NEC uPD 9210 USB controller> mem 0x88000000-0x88000fff irq 11 at device 0.0 on cardbus0
Oct 27 18:28:54 t23 kernel: ohci0: [ITHREAD]
Oct 27 18:28:54 t23 kernel: usbus3: <NEC uPD 9210 USB controller> on ohci0
Oct 27 18:28:54 t23 kernel: usbus3: 12Mbps Full Speed USB v1.0
Oct 27 18:28:54 t23 kernel: ohci1: <NEC uPD 9210 USB controller> mem 0x88001000-0x88001fff irq 11 at device 0.1 on cardbus0
Oct 27 18:28:54 t23 kernel: ohci1: [ITHREAD]
Oct 27 18:28:54 t23 kernel: ugen3.1: <NEC> at usbus3
Oct 27 18:28:54 t23 kernel: uhub3: <NEC OHCI root HUB, class 9/0, rev 1.00/1.00, addr 1> on usbus3
Oct 27 18:28:54 t23 kernel: usbus4: <NEC uPD 9210 USB controller> on ohci1
Oct 27 18:28:54 t23 kernel: usbus4: 12Mbps Full Speed USB v1.0
Oct 27 18:28:54 t23 kernel: ehci0: <NEC uPD 720100 USB 2.0 controller> mem 0x88002000-0x880020ff irq 11 at device 0.2 on cardbus0
Oct 27 18:28:54 t23 kernel: ehci0: [ITHREAD]
Oct 27 18:28:54 t23 kernel: usbus5: EHCI version 0.95
Oct 27 18:28:54 t23 kernel: ugen4.1: <NEC> at usbus4
Oct 27 18:28:54 t23 kernel: uhub4: <NEC OHCI root HUB, class 9/0, rev 1.00/1.00, addr 1> on usbus4
Oct 27 18:28:54 t23 kernel: usbus5: <NEC uPD 720100 USB 2.0 controller> on ehci0
Oct 27 18:28:54 t23 kernel: usbus5: 480Mbps High Speed USB v2.0
Oct 27 18:28:54 t23 kernel: ugen5.1: <NEC> at usbus5
Oct 27 18:28:54 t23 kernel: uhub5: <NEC EHCI root HUB, class 9/0, rev 2.00/1.00, addr 1> on usbus5
Oct 27 18:28:56 t23 kernel: uhub4: 2 ports with 2 removable, self powered
Oct 27 18:28:56 t23 kernel: uhub3: 3 ports with 3 removable, self powered
Oct 27 18:28:57 t23 kernel: uhub5: 5 ports with 5 removable, self powered

But plugging in either of my (working on the UHCI USB1 ports) USB memory 
sticks fails, and in quite inconsistent ways on subsequent insertion and 
removal.  More successful, in that /dev/da0 appears but is inaccessible:

Oct 28 01:26:52 t23 root: Unknown USB device: vendor 0x0951 product 0x1624 bus uhub5
Oct 28 01:26:52 t23 kernel: ugen5.2: <Kingston> at usbus5
Oct 28 01:26:52 t23 kernel: umass0: <Kingston DataTraveler G2, class 0/0, rev 2.00/1.00, addr 2> on usbus5
Oct 28 01:26:52 t23 kernel: umass0:  SCSI over Bulk-Only; quirks = 0x0000
Oct 28 01:26:53 t23 kernel: umass0:2:0:-1: Attached to scbus2
Oct 28 01:26:55 t23 kernel: (probe0:umass-sim0:0:0:0): AutoSense failed
Oct 28 01:26:55 t23 kernel: da0 at umass-sim0 bus 0 scbus2 target 0 lun 0
Oct 28 01:26:55 t23 kernel: da0: <Kingston DataTraveler G2 PMAP> Removable Direct Access SCSI-0 device
Oct 28 01:26:55 t23 kernel: da0: 40.000MB/s transfers
Oct 28 01:26:55 t23 kernel: da0: 7640MB (15646720 512 byte sectors: 255H 63S/T 973C)
Oct 28 01:27:00 t23 kernel: (da0:umass-sim0:0:0:0): AutoSense failed
Oct 28 01:27:32 t23 last message repeated 3 times
Oct 28 01:29:36 t23 last message repeated 12 times
Oct 28 01:33:12 t23 last message repeated 4 times

.. during which time I was trying things like below, before even trying 
to mount it.  Throughout that time the LED on the stick flashes about 4 
times per second, steady, like it's repeatedly trying to connect.

smithi on t23% ll /dev/da*
crw-r-----  1 root  operator    0, 157 Oct 28 01:26 /dev/da0
smithi on t23% id -p
uid     smithi
groups  smithi wheel operator staff dialer network vboxusers
smithi on t23% dd if=/dev/da0 count=1 | hd
dd: /dev/da0: Input/output error
0+0 records in
0+0 records out
0 bytes transferred in 0.193469 secs (0 bytes/sec)
smithi on t23% ll /dev/da*
crw-r-----  1 root  operator    0, 157 Oct 28 01:26 /dev/da0
smithi on t23% fdisk /dev/da0
fdisk: unable to get correct path for /dev/da0: Input/output error
smithi on t23% date
Fri Oct 28 01:37:21 EST 2011
smithi on t23% ll /dev/da*
crw-r-----  1 root  operator    0, 157 Oct 28 01:26 /dev/da0

I've done all that as root other times, it's not a permissions thing.  
Here it seems to disconnect cleanly on removal, not so at other times:

Oct 28 01:40:36 t23 kernel: ugen5.2: <Kingston> at usbus5 (disconnected)
Oct 28 01:40:36 t23 kernel: umass0: at uhub5, port 2, addr 2 (disconnected)
Oct 28 01:40:36 t23 kernel: (da0:umass-sim0:0:0:0): lost device
Oct 28 01:40:36 t23 kernel: (da0:umass-sim0:0:0:0): removing device entry

Another less successful attempt, with juicy error messages.  To an old 
systems hacker such inconsistency smells of timing issues, but my sense 
of smell isn't what it used to be :)

Oct 27 18:32:57 t23 root: Unknown USB device: vendor 0x090c product 0x1000 bus uhub5
Oct 27 18:32:57 t23 kernel: ugen5.2: <USB 2.0> at usbus5
Oct 27 18:32:57 t23 kernel: umass0: <USB 2.0 product 0x1000, class 0/0, rev 2.00/11.00, addr 2> on usbus5
Oct 27 18:32:57 t23 kernel: umass0:  SCSI over Bulk-Only; quirks = 0x0000
Oct 27 18:32:58 t23 kernel: umass0:2:0:-1: Attached to scbus2
Oct 27 18:32:58 t23 kernel: (probe0:umass-sim0:0:0:0): TEST UNIT READY. CDB: 0 0 0 0 0 0
Oct 27 18:32:58 t23 kernel: (probe0:umass-sim0:0:0:0): CAM status: SCSI Status Error
Oct 27 18:32:58 t23 kernel: (probe0:umass-sim0:0:0:0): SCSI status: Check Condition
Oct 27 18:32:58 t23 kernel: (probe0:umass-sim0:0:0:0): SCSI sense: UNIT ATTENTION asc:28,0 (Not ready to ready change, medium may have changed)
Oct 27 18:32:58 t23 kernel: da0 at umass-sim0 bus 0 scbus2 target 0 lun 0
Oct 27 18:32:58 t23 kernel: da0: <USB 2.0 Flash Disk 1100> Removable Direct Access SCSI-0 device
Oct 27 18:32:58 t23 kernel: da0: 40.000MB/s transfers
Oct 27 18:32:58 t23 kernel: da0: 967MB (1981440 512 byte sectors: 64H 32S/T 967C)
Oct 27 18:33:07 t23 kernel: ugen5.2: <USB 2.0> at usbus5 (disconnected)
Oct 27 18:33:07 t23 kernel: umass0: at uhub5, port 1, addr 2 (disconnected)
Oct 27 18:33:07 t23 kernel: (da0:umass-sim0:0:0:0): AutoSense failed
Oct 27 18:33:07 t23 kernel: (da0:umass-sim0:0:0:0): lost device
Oct 27 18:33:07 t23 kernel: (da0:umass-sim0:0:0:0): Invalidating pack
Oct 27 18:33:07 t23 kernel: (da0:umass-sim0:0:0:0): removing device entry

The apparent connection and then soon disconnection occurs without any 
attempts at access by me.  This 1GB Shintaro stick also works on the 
UHCI ports, and I'd expect the Kingston stick to be reasonable quality.

Inserting the card with a USB stick already in place fared no better.

Any advice on things to try welcome.

cheers, Ian