This morning I removed the adapter card and the still in place bracket that I did not remove last night. Now I have a place to plug in a USB 3 device, and all I need is a USB external hard drive to plug into it. It works fine with any USB 2 device plugged in. Still, I don't know WHY I bought the adapter, as my PC has ESATA ports in the back, and I have an ESATA external hard drive that I use for backups. I guess it was an impulse purchase!I don't know how many Pc's I've built and fixed over the years; I lost track. tonight I installed a new USB3 PCI slot adapter board. I removed the screw holding in the blank cover plate and pushed the board into the Motherboard slot, hooked up the 5 and 12 volt Molex power plug to it. Had a little trouble getting the mounting bracket to slide in, but got it in. Powered it back up, installed the new driver, and went to plug in a USB cable to try it out. DUH!!!!!!!!!!! I could not get it in. WHY? cause I never removed the blank cover plate. I did not notice it earlier because it does have holes punched into. Dark cramped work area, failing eyesight, and stupidity. No alcoholic drinks before doing it, but I think its Margarita time. fix it in the AM. OLE!
My wife's laptop has both eSATA and USB3 but my laptop only has eSATA and USB2. I use an external eSATA dock but also have several USB external HDs. I really don't like the stiff eSATA cable that came with the dock and would like to try one that purports to be ultraflex. IMHO eSATA connectors are a piss poor design. They should have given it a positive lock like DisplayPort has.