Question MSI X370 Gaming Pro Carbon - External USB3 Hard Drive Randomly Disconnecting

[undying]

I have recently upgraded my motherboard (second hand), CPU (second hand) and memory (new), however I am now having USB external hard drive problems which I didn't have before.

I mostly use Teracopy to copy/move files, but since upgrading it fails most of the time on the verifying stage when I copy from internal hard drive AND external hard drive.

I have the external USB3 hard drive in 2 partitions.

I have tried 2 front USB ports (USB3 & USB2).

I currently have it on the rear USB3.1 port and the problems of momentarily disconnecting happen on all 3 USB ports.

I have run a surface scan for and there are no errors. I am currently running a bad sector scan which if the program is accurate reports 1 bad cluster. All my drives are in very good condition and although a few years old now still appear to be in very good health until now with a change of motherboard, CPU and memory.

When I copy onto the external USB hard drive there are occasions some files will not be copied but mostly it seems to be when Teracopy is verifying, Bart Backupper program also reports errors sometimes.

Winamp which I use for music sometimes reports that I have just plugged in my external hard drive and would I like to use with Winamp due to this error.

The previous owner of the motherboard flashed the bios and it’s date is 13/11/19 (American Megatrends Inc. – Version = 1.NU AMD Agesa Combo-AM4 1.0.0.4).

I did have a problem where my external USB hard drive didn’t show up in the boot menu but that was just once. Upon the first install on Windows 10 it hot to the stage of copying files and then aborted itself. when I booted Linux Mint (Live distro) it hung and I had to restart the computer.

I have reinstalled Windows 10, I have updated the USB drivers and annoyingly the problem persists.

Does anyone know what the problem is with my computer?

Thanks.


My system spec is:

Operating System = Windows 10 Pro 64bit.

CPU = AMD Ryzen 5 1600 – 6 core, 12 threads - (Recently upgraded, Second hand)
Motherboard = MSI X370 Gaming Pro Carbon - (Recently upgraded, Second hand)
RAM = Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2x8gb) DDR4 3000 MHz C16 XMP 2.0 - (Recently upgraded, New)

PSU = Corsair VX450W PSU
Graphics Card = Nvidia GTX (Inno3D) 1060 6gb
Audio = Sound Blaster Z


Hard Drives:

SAMSUNG SSD 830 (128gb) – Sata
Samsung ST500LM012 HN-500MBB (500mb) - Sata
Samsung M3 portable (1tb) - USB3

Blu Ray Recorder = LG HL-DT-ST BD-RE BH16NS40 - Sata

 

[popatim]

In Device manager, USB hub properties, turn off 'allow the computer to turn off this device to save power" or try disabling USB Selective Suspend in Windows Advanced power management.
See if either of those helps.

 

[undying]

In Device manager, USB hub properties, turn off 'allow the computer to turn off this device to save power" or try disabling USB Selective Suspend in Windows Advanced power management.
See if either of those helps.

I have tried disabling USB Selective Suspend in Windows Advanced power management but it made no difference and I never had to do this before with my previous builds. I have had the hard drive for about 7 years.

It disconnects very briefly. I never bad problems with the external hard drive before, I backed up gigabytes of files before replacing the motherboard, CPU and memory onto the external hard drive the day before without any problems. It's only when restoring my data that I had the problem with it.

I have the ISO disc image files on the external hard drive, which I install Windows from and run Linux. I did a fresh install of Windows after upgrading.

I have had the hard drive for about 7 years and it has been lightly used. I have used it more lately as I have music samples and VST's stored on it. Other than that, I have only used it for backup.

There has been no computer crashes, no blue screens, I can play games such as the Witcher 3 on it at very high settings.

Temps are very reasonable, I don’t “stress” the computer much other than playing the occasional game which I have hardly done on this computer as I only built it 2 weeks ago.

I have done hard drive self-tests (done on 2 programs), S.M.A.R.T health reports everything fine, not many programs can display external hard drive info.

My computer case is the same. The front USB ports are on the top of the case, cables are properly connected. I have rarely moved the hard drive, cable and case are in excellent physical condition.

I suspect it's the motherboard chipset, I know the memory controller is both on the X370 chipset and on the Ryzen CPU itself. The Asmedia chip is connected to the X370 chipset according to the MSI motherboard manual.
It could possibly be a power issue from the motherboard. (MY PSU is plenty powerful enough.

I have a USB2 hub (via my monitor) connected, a laser printer, and PCTV connected, all on the USB ports but they are very rarely used.

In the last few days I have cleared everything off the external hard drive and reformatted it and it has made no difference. The problem remains. I am currently trying the hard drive on a forth rear USB port (3.2 generation).

Device manager reports everything is working properly, there are no exclamation marks.


It’s frustrating.

 

[popatim]

Next try the USB hub power setting in device manager.
We have brand spanking new HP pc's at work that have USB issues as well. I feel it's an OS issue myself for ours at least, since one of these usually resolved the issue.

Your's could be the motherboard as well. There is often a dedicated 5v power module for the USB ports which could be flaky. Does your external have a power light? Does it go out when the transfers stop?

 

[undying]

Next try the USB hub power setting in device manager.
We have brand spanking new HP pc's at work that have USB issues as well. I feel it's an OS issue myself for ours at least, since one of these usually resolved the issue.

Your's could be the motherboard as well. There is often a dedicated 5v power module for the USB ports which could be flaky. Does your external have a power light? Does it go out when the transfers stop?

I have never needed to change the power settings for the USB hard drive or any USB devices.

The USB hard drive disappeared from the bios earlier this evening after I changed ports (after I had tested another port (gen 3.2)). I turned the computer on a few times and it didn't show, then eventually it did show up in the bios and proceeded as normal into Windows.

I used to have this USB hard drive connected to my laptop which is about 8 years old now and it only has USB2 ports and the USB hard drive was never a problem on that and it wasn't either for my previous desktop computers.

My USB2 hub is built into my monitor, there is are no USB lights it has 4 ports (2 underneath and 2 on the left side) I use the 2 ports on the side for USB sticks. The hub is plugged into a rear USB3 port.

My monitor = Hewlett Packard ZR2240w
My motherboard = MSI X370-GAMING-PRO-CARBON

 

[popatim]

USB hubs in device manager is what I was referring too. You probably have at least 2 with one being a root hub.

Is this a fresh install of Windows with your upgrades?
Did you install your motherboards drivers?

 

[undying]

USB hubs in device manager is what I was referring too. You probably have at least 2 with one being a root hub.

Is this a fresh install of Windows with your upgrades?
Did you install your motherboards drivers?

Yes I have a generic USB hub and I have a ASMedia root hub where I can change power settings, however I have never had to do this with any of my computers with this drive. This is the 3rd computer I've run this drive from.

Yes I have reinstalled Windows twice since upgrading. The second time I hoped that it would fix the problem but it hasn't.

No I haven't manually installed any chipset drivers other than the ASMedia USB3 driver. I have always suspected it too be a chipset problem and it looks like I'm right. Drivers and bios updates are unlikely to fix any problem as it at a hardware level a customer is unable to fix. I had problems on a few occasion of the hard drive not showing in the bios and also when I ran Linux Mint from a live distro (running from my external hard drive where I install from), Linux halted upon loading the operating system. Windows 10 also halted once when I tried to install it from the external hard drive. Fortunatley the length of time varies and I was able to install Windows.

In the last two weeks since this upgrade I have also been researching on the internet about this issue and it would seem apparent that these forum posts and articles are relevant to my problem. Please refer to the links below (this is just a few).


https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=307278.0

View: https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/6m3kt5/if_youre_getting_random_usb_disconnects_on_ryzen/


https://www.google.com/search?q=msi...so=_40INXszXFL201fAPg_G46AM55:908.5.5.5.5.5.5

https://community.amd.com/thread/220104

https://hardforum.com/threads/usb-diconnectes-on-ryzen.1948783/

https://www.techpowerup.com/223583/...-usb-3-1-issues-could-escalate-costs#comments

https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/875478-are-ryzen-memory-problems-still-existent/



An article with a the diagram of the X370 chipset layout = https://www.extremetech.com/computing/284887-asmedia-still-likely-building-amd-chipsets

In my motherboard manual the 2 rear 3.1 gen2 USB ports go from the X370 chipset to the ASMedia chipset and then to the two 3.1 gen2 ports as demonstrated on page 19 = https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/support/B450-GAMING-PRO-CARBON-AC#down-manual

I had better experience on the 1/1/20 when I managed to get through a full bad cluster scan which took nearly 3.5 hours to complete on my Samsung M3 portable external hard drive 1TB. It was on the ASMedia 3.1 gen2 port yesterday (I have hardly used my computer today). My hard drive has no bad clusters.

The problem of disconnecting USB devices would appear to be a common issue with a Ryzen CPU as most of the USB ports (including USB2) are directly controlled by the Ryzen CPU or X370 chipset.

If a device draws too much power then it disconnects hence the problem I was having as it only happened when using my drive for more than a few seconds (time varies before disconnecting). It would appear to be inherited by the 2nd generation Ryzen CPU's as well.



I am currently considering a change to an Intel CPU (hoping that it might be a better experience). I have always had AMD CPU's since my Athlon 800mhz (cartridge type CPU) but this problem is frustrating.

Thanks to everyone for your help, but it has been a frustrating problem as I feel I cannot trust my computer with at least some of my data.

I hope this post will be of use to people that are experiencing the same or a similar problem.