Q re USB standards

[eisen]

I'm building a new system for a friend based upon a Gigabyte GA-7VRX mobo. The mobo has USB 1.1 on the built in ports but it also has USB 2.0 available via a cable connector. I'm using an Enlight case which has front USB ports and I'd like to connect these to the USB 2.0 connectors on the mobo. There is nothing I can find in the case specs to indicate whether the front case ports can be used for USB 2.0.

Q: Do front-mounted case ports universally support support both USB 1.1 and 2.0? Or are they specific to one or the other?

Thanks for any assistance!

[uart]

That's a good question. My experience is that many cases come with such poor front USB wiring that they are barely up to USB1.1 speeds let alone USB2.0 I'll be interested to know how it turns out.

BTW, it seems like a weird combo to put the USB2.0 on a header (that many people will never even use) and to only have crappy old USB1.1 for the main USB ports. My current motherboard (K7S5A-pro) does the exact opposite. It has 4x USB2.0 ports on the rear with support for a further 6x USB1.1 port via headers (though most peple only ever use 2 of these 6 as front USB ports)

[eisen]

What's even stranger is that USB 1.1 would even coexist with USB 2.0 on the same board! As USB 2.0 is backwards compatible with all USB 1.1 devices, what's the point? One can only guess that the board was well through the design process when USB 2.0 appeared, and rather than undo some design work to remove the 1.1 circuit, they simply augmented the design with the addition of the USB 2.0 circuits and headers.

Still, I don't have a solid answer to my original question. I"ve asked around and keep getting answers such as, "Try it and see" or "I think so but I'm not 100% certain." Sure would be nice to get a definitive answer from someone who's been down this road before me. [There are no substitutes for experience and knowledge!]