Question External SSD + old mobo, very poor performances!

[deadpoet]

Hello to everyone.

My computer is an old ASUS Essentio CM6730 (its mobo is the P8H61-M PRO); I bought it around 2012. Over the years I constantly upgraded it, adding new HDDs, more memory, better video-cards, etc. Two years ago, I did the third and last major upgrade adding an SSD, 16GB RAM and WIN10 64-bit. Its life-cycle is at an end, anyway, because the mobo barely supports the SSD and the RAM…

I recently bought an external SSD to perform a data-backup. The drive is the Samsung T7 (MU-PC1T0T/WW T7, USB 3.2 Gen 2, 10 Gbps) this one:

https://www.amazon.it/dp/B087DFLF9S

Its specs are 1000 MB/s writing speed, 1050 MB/s reading speed.

Of course, I did not expect such results in my old PC. However, I was disappointed all the same when I plugged it into an USB 3.0 port and benchmarked it: results were a bland 176 MB/s reading speed, 236 MB/s writing speed.

Doing some research online, I found out that UASP is not active in my system.

I upadate the following drivers:

• Intel - Other hardware - Intel(R) 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller - 1C2D
• Intel - Other hardware - Intel(R) 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller - 1C26
• Realtek Semiconduct Corp. - USB - 12/21/2015 12:00:00 AM - 10.0.10586.31222
• ASMedia Technology Inc - USB - 4/12/2017 12:00:00 AM - 1.16.47.2

…to no avail. I actually had to roll the last one back, because it cut speed down to 142 (reading) and 178 (writing). Rolling back to the previous driver rerstored 176 / 236 speeds.

This is how my device manager looks:

I browsed my BIOS settings but I didn’t seem to find anything important there.

I did some more research online, and I found out that ASUS introduced UASP in its older mobos through a driver called ASUS USB 3.0 Boost.

ASUS - The Best USB 3.0 Experience - USB 3.0 Boost

I did find this driver online and tried to set it up, but nothing happened. There were several executables and several .inf files inside the .zip archives that I found online, but none of them does anything. Some of them return an error message, some of them just do nothing…

This is where my quest ends… for now… Any suggestions?

 

[lvt]

If the UASP drivers are installed correctly, you should see it mentioned somewhere.

I remember when the USB 3.0 cards are still working on my PC, the connected HDDs are seen as UASP devices.

BTW, did you use the original USB cable that comes with the SSD, and did you try all the USB 3.0 ports?

 

[deadpoet]

I reckon UASP drivers are not installed correctly but I don't know how to install them...

I did use the original USB cable from inside the SSD box, and tried all the USB 3.0 ports

 

[lvt]

I reckon UASP drivers are not installed correctly but I don't know how to install them...

I did use the original USB cable from inside the SSD box, and tried all the USB 3.0 ports

So it could be the drivers.

From the screenshot you attached above, it seems that the USB 3.0 on your computer is using Microsoft's own drivers. As far as I could remember, the version 0.96 is an old driver version, the time when my computer was running fine with USB 3.0 (with UASP enabled) it has the version 1.0

 

[lvt]

BTW do you have the latest Bios version for your motherboard?

Another solution for your external SSD is to buy a PCI-E to USB 3.0 add-on card, as you already have USB 3.0 using ASmedia chipset on your motherboard, you should buy an add-on card with different chipsets like Renesa or Via. I have several USB 3.0 add-on cards that work well with my Asus motherboard.

 

[BFG-9000]

Sandy Bridge chipsets do not have native USB 3.0 so that ASUS USB 3.0 boost will not work, as H61 only has USB 2.0 ports. You can see even the example they use is an Ivy Bridge Z77 chipset. Not all Z77 chipsets support UASP either, as it depends on whether the board manufacturer paid for a license--the ASUS USB 3.0 boost is the result of ASUS deciding to retroactively buy a license for all of their 70 series chipset board buyers.

Unfortunately your onboard Asmedia 1042 does not support UASP. The nearly identical Asmedia 1042A does support UASP, presumably because the required license for that has been paid for.

Windows 8 and later respects the UASP license status and non-eligible chipsets will only operate in USB Mass Storage Bulk-Only Transport mode

 

[lvt]

Sandy Bridge chipsets do not have native USB 3.0 so that ASUS USB 3.0 boost will not work, as H61 only has USB 2.0 ports. You can see even the example they use is an Ivy Bridge Z77 chipset. Not all Z77 chipsets support UASP either, as it depends on whether the board manufacturer paid for a license--the ASUS USB 3.0 boost is the result of ASUS deciding to retroactively buy a license for all of their 70 series chipset board buyers.

Unfortunately your onboard Asmedia 1042 does not support UASP. The nearly identical Asmedia 1042A does support UASP, presumably because the required license for that has been paid for.

Windows 8 and later respects the UASP license status and non-eligible chipsets will only operate in USB Mass Storage Bulk-Only Transport mode

If that's the case, the only solution is to use these accessories, they are all UASP compatible.

The add-on PCI-E to USB 3.0 card

The USB 3.0 to SATA adapter

 

[deadpoet]

Thank you all guys, so that's actually the case of the mobo not supporting UASP... Thank you again for your explanations and suggestions...

 

[Diceman_2037]

Sandy Bridge chipsets do not have native USB 3.0 so that ASUS USB 3.0 boost will not work, as H61 only has USB 2.0 ports. You can see even the example they use is an Ivy Bridge Z77 chipset. Not all Z77 chipsets support UASP either, as it depends on whether the board manufacturer paid for a license--the ASUS USB 3.0 boost is the result of ASUS deciding to retroactively buy a license for all of their 70 series chipset board buyers.

Unfortunately your onboard Asmedia 1042 does not support UASP. The nearly identical Asmedia 1042A does support UASP, presumably because the required license for that has been paid for.

Windows 8 and later respects the UASP license status and non-eligible chipsets will only operate in USB Mass Storage Bulk-Only Transport mode

Partial misinformation, the boost driver works on any firmware updated renesas or asmedia 0.96 controller, as long as its on an asus platform and using the vendor specific driver rather than microsofts, that includes nec/renesas and asmedia controllers on X58, Z77, X79, and add-in cards, not just onboard, there is no pch resistriction present.

You simply unpack the Turbo USB zip package and install the Boost driver itself seperate from the app (Find AppSetup\UASDriver\Setup.exe)

Once that driver is installed you find the desired "mass storage device" in Device Manager and manually install the UAS Boost driver onto it (Under the Asustek Vendor, in the show all view) , if the usb device and controller all supports uas correctly you will get the asus uas driver installed automatically on it, if not the asus bot driver.

The Turbo USB application itself is another matter, as it won't install on windows 10 or 11. (Thats ok, because all it did was provide a simple way to do what was instructed above without using device manager)

As to your claim that 1042 does not support UASP on the Microsoft generic stack, that may be correct however the Renesas/NEC 0.96 cards and onboard implementations have a firmware update that does enable UASP compliance with the microsoft standardized uasp driver.