mtbc | Scanners, SANE and USB

Our trusty old flatbed scanner works fine with my about-to-be-retired dodgy old laptop but not with any of our newer Intel-based computers. Some searching online strongly suggests that the problem is that all of the computers' USB ports are USB3. I have experimented with slower USB hubs, blacklisting xhci and typing magical register-setting incantations but with no luck. I don't want to wholly disable USB3 in any BIOS as I make plenty of use of external SSDs and other such devices. So, as these issues are apparently all with older scanners, I have ordered a rather newer model. In browsing online I was struck by how many of the current cheaper models aren't supported by SANE and how few models there even are at low prices. I was clearly naive to think that flatbed scanners are an easy commodity item; perhaps for our previous ones I was just lucky.

Update: I have now replaced our CanoScan LiDE 25 with an LiDE 220 which works fine with my Broadwell-based Intel NUC running OpenBSD 6.0.