Question Many USB devices no longer recognized properly

Zagen30

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Dec 24, 2008
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(I wasn't quite sure if this belonged here, Peripherals, motherboards, or somewhere else, so apologies if it's in the wrong place)

Today I noticed a major ramp-up of some USB connection oddities I'd been seeing for some time on my desktop. Many of the devices I plug in are not recognized, though I know that they work on other machines. My mobo is a Gigabyte Asus Sabertooth Z77. Rather old, I know, but I haven't had the money or need to upgrade in a long time. Maybe some components on it are starting to fail. Most of the USB ports I use are on the front of my case, a Cooler Master something-or-other, which have worked fine for many years.

I have a Logitech MK710 wireless keyboard + mouse combo. This works perfectly fine on my Linux laptop, but now works intermittently on my desktop. For a while now it would sometimes not be recognized when Windows booted, though I usually attributed this to plugging it in after I'd already started the machine (which shouldn't be a problem, anyway), and rebooting it would always make it work. At one point the port on the case I'd usually plug the dongle into seemed to not connect to things so well anymore, which I attributed to removing and inserting this dongle multiple times a day (I switch the m+k combo between my work laptop and personal desktop), so I started plugging it into another case-front USB port and things were better.

Today, I tried plugging a USB flash drive into one of the other ports, and it wasn't recognized properly. I tried plugging it into several other ports, both on the case front and the motherboard, and encountered the same issue. I tried a couple other USB drives and they all did the same thing, even the one that the mouse + keyboard normally works on. The drives seem to work just fine with my Linux laptop.

When I go into Device Manager, the drives show up under Other Devices with the yellow warning triangle, and when I open up their properties, they all have Error code 1 (this device is not configured properly). When I try to update drivers, I get "Windows found drivers for your device but encountered an error while attempting to install them."

Another weird thing is that my mouse + keyboard aren't recognized the same in every port. The one I've been using for a year or so now is fine, but if I try other ports, the mouse works but the keyboard doesn't. Sometimes when I try to type on these other ports the numlock indicator goes away for no reason, and if I plug it back into the working port the numlock indicator comes back on on its own.

I did install a couple Windows updates earlier today, so I'm wondering if that was the cause. The first was KB4549951, after which I started seeing these issues. I saw there were more updates so I installed them thinking maybe that one had an issue that was quickly patched, so within the last hour I installed KB4537572 (which seems to be a .NET update, so probably not a patch for USB issues) and then feature update 1909.
 
Last edited:

Colif

Win 11 Master
Moderator
Do you have BIOS version 2104? If you having problems with USB not being identified, it could be the bios - https://www.asus.com/au/Motherboards/SABERTOOTH_Z77/HelpDesk_BIOS/ - although the newest is still 7 years old.

Another weird thing is that my mouse + keyboard aren't recognized the same in every port. The one I've been using for a year or so now is fine, but if I try other ports, the mouse works but the keyboard doesn't. Sometimes when I try to type on these other ports the numlock indicator goes away for no reason, and if I plug it back into the working port the numlock indicator comes back on on its own.

Are you using USB 2 or 3 slots each time?

Intel® Z77 chipset : *6
4 x USB 3.0 port(s) (2 at back panel, blue, 2 at mid-board)
ASMedia® ASM1042 controller : *6
2 x USB 3.0 port(s) (2 at back panel, blue)
Intel® Z77 chipset :
10 x USB 2.0 port(s) (4 at back panel, black, 6 at mid-board)

wonder which of the 2 Back USB 3 slots are the intel ones and which are Asmedia. Motherboard manual doesn't tell me

i doubt there are win 10 chipset drivers for board.

all feature update 1909 does is change your version number. It was the fastest update I have run on my PC

I have a Z97 board from Asus, and I have those 2 updates and haven't noticed anything odd with USB although I only use 2 slots
 

Zagen30

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Dec 24, 2008
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I just updated the BIOS to version 2104 and that didn't fix it. I'll note that the motherboard itself was able to properly recognize a flash drive and use the BIOS file on it.

I've tried both USB2 and USB3 slots and it's the same every time. Just now I plugged the drive that I used to update the BIOS into every USB slot on the front and back, and it's the same issue with each one.