Question Intel(R) 8 Series/C220 Series USB EHCI #1 - 8C26 failure (yellow triangle) after a few hours usage

[d_a_renoir]

I hope this is the right place to ask, because I don't see a Windows 8 category.

Recently I experience this situation where one particular USB port on my laptop would randomly stop working after a few hours of usage. When I check device manager, it shows this yellow triangle on the Intel(R) 8 Series/C220 Series USB EHCI #1 - 8C26 USB. I disable and then re-enable the driver, and then it seems like it would work alright again. It would also load up just fine after a restart or shut down + turning it back on. After a few more hours of using the computer, the driver would just suddenly have errors again and the USB port will fail as before.

Since it's caused by a driver just not working, I assumed this is not a hardware issue? I've already ran Windows Troubleshooter on the Hardware and Devices option, and it did not catch any issue with the USB driver.

Also, not sure if it's related, but sometimes, despite the same USB port seemingly "working" properly (no yellow triangle) after re-enabling the driver, Windows Folders becomes not responding if I plug in a device on it. Even if I'm not particularly opening a folder inside the drive being plugged into this port (for example, I'm opening the local My Documents folder), it's gonna randomly become Not Responding. If I eject the device, Windows immediately goes back to running smoothly.

 

[kanewolf]

I hope this is the right place to ask, because I don't see a Windows 8 category.

Recently I experience this situation where one particular USB port on my laptop would randomly stop working after a few hours of usage. When I check device manager, it shows this yellow triangle on the Intel(R) 8 Series/C220 Series USB EHCI #1 - 8C26 USB. I disable and then re-enable the driver, and then it seems like it would work alright again. It would also load up just fine after a restart or shut down + turning it back on. After a few more hours of using the computer, the driver would just suddenly have errors again and the USB port will fail as before.

Since it's caused by a driver just not working, I assumed this is not a hardware issue? I've already ran Windows Troubleshooter on the Hardware and Devices option, and it did not catch any issue with the USB driver.

Also, not sure if it's related, but sometimes, despite the same USB port seemingly "working" properly (no yellow triangle) after re-enabling the driver, Windows Folders becomes not responding if I plug in a device on it. Even if I'm not particularly opening a folder inside the drive being plugged into this port (for example, I'm opening the local My Documents folder), it's gonna randomly become Not Responding. If I eject the device, Windows immediately goes back to running smoothly.

My thought is that it IS a hardware issue. Maybe overheating. Why? It takes hours to happen and it is a laptop. Have you tried a laptop cooling pad underneath it?
What do you have connected to the USB port that is having problems? Something that draws a lot of power ? That would contribute to the overheating of the components for that port.

 

[d_a_renoir]

Oh. I had a USB drive plugged, for data transfers. Sometimes I don't immediately unplug it, and the repeated freeze/not responding will persist until I remove the drive.

I have a cooling pad, and I've already had the fans checked. If it's over heating, I wonder if it's the cooling gel inside that's the problem.

 

[kanewolf]

Oh. I had a USB drive plugged, for data transfers. Sometimes I don't immediately unplug it, and the repeated freeze/not responding will persist until I remove the drive.

I have a cooling pad, and I've already had the fans checked. If it's over heating, I wonder if it's the cooling gel inside that's the problem.

Is the USB drive a flash drive or an HDD? If an HDD, you might try a powered hub. Might be too much power being drawn by the device.
Does this EVER happen when you don't have the drive plugged in ?

 

[d_a_renoir]

Is the USB drive a flash drive or an HDD? If an HDD, you might try a powered hub. Might be too much power being drawn by the device.
Does this EVER happen when you don't have the drive plugged in ?

So far I've only experienced this happening when a HDD is plugged in, though I haven't tested other devices yet.

This is new. Never happened before, the exact same port used to work just fine with no issues. However, my computer is getting old. If you say this might be physical, then it could be that this singular USB port or some other components have since worn out. Like, there's 4 USB ports, and the other ones work fine. If I take this same drive, and plug it into a different port, no problems arise. It's just this one slot that has problems

Before the freezes start happening, if there's a drive plugged into this same port, sometimes when I put the laptop to sleep and wake it back up, it would take a second for the computer to detect the drive again. I had previously assumed this is because USB selective suspend is turned on, but I dunno. Maybe this port is not transmitting power properly?

 

[d_a_renoir]

Today I experienced a total freeze twice. Mouse and keyboard not reaponding, screen frozen. Had to force shut down the laptop.

I had not plugged in anything on the USB port that I suspected of having issues. Is it possible that driver failure is what's causing this? Would uninstalling/disabling the USB driver with the yellow triangle do anything?

Or is this really an overheating issue, and I need to get the laptop physically checked? I already had the fans examined maybe 3 months ago, and it's been cleaned and cleared. What else could possibly cause the overheat?