USB 3.0 54mm Express Card Not Working

[g514]

Hello,

Last year I purchased a two port 54mm USB 3 express card for my laptop. Suddenly in December the card stopped working. I assumed that it was a hardware problem so I purchased a new card.

I received the new card in the mail today. When I insert the card into the computer I can hear the Windows sounds that a new device has been attached. When I try plugging anything into the card, however, they aren't recognized by Windows as being attached. The device will power up (the light turns on or flashes etc.) but won't appear in my computer. I've tried rebooting and re-installing the drivers from the mini-cd that came with the card.

The card is supposed to use the NEC-Renesas chip set so I've went to the Intel site and downloaded what I believe is the newest version of the driver (https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=19880&lang=eng&wapkw=renesas). Still I cannot get anything that I plug into the card to be recognized by my computer.

I'm using a Dell Studio XPS 15 laptop. It's running Windows 7 Home Premium Service Pack 1 64 bit.

I feel it is software related, but at this point I'm really at my wits end. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
CG

 

[King Kevain]

The sound you are hearing is windows acknowledging you have plugged the card into the PCI expansion slot - is the device listed in Device Manager and does Windows report it as Running correctly?

According to Dell, the XPS 15 does not have an ExpressCard slot, it has a mPCIE slot - http://www.dell.com/content/topics/topic.aspx/global/products/xpsnb/topics/en/us/xps-15-cnet-reviews?c=us&l=en&cs=19

I'm thinking that would be why it's not working

 

[g514]

The sound you are hearing is windows acknowledging you have plugged the card into the PCI expansion slot - is the device listed in Device Manager and does Windows report it as Running correctly?

According to Dell, the XPS 15 does not have an ExpressCard slot, it has a mPCIE slot - http://www.dell.com/content/topics/topic.aspx/global/products/xpsnb/topics/en/us/xps-15-cnet-reviews?c=us&l=en&cs=19

I'm thinking that would be why it's not working

Hi King Kevain,

Thanks for your answer.

The model of laptop I have is the Studio XPS (http://www.dell.com/us/dfh/p/studio-xps-16/pd), which does have an 54mm Express Card slot. The Studio 15 that you provided a link to is a newer model. I apologize. I should have been more clear on the exact model.

As I said the Express Card was working fine for about 11 months, and then suddenly stopped working in Nov/Dec 2014. At the time I thought it was a problem with the card itself, but since the new card isn't working either I'm now convinced it's a software problem.

No, Windows does not report the card running correctly. As you said it acknowledges the card as being plugged in and know that it is a USB Controller, however, under the Device Manager it is listed with a little yellow exclamation mark. When I right click and go to "properties" it says there are no drivers installed. When I click on "Update Drivers" and then select "search automatically" it gives me a message saying, "Windows could not find driver software for your device."

I've tried re-installing the Renesas driver software several times. Each time it says the installation is complete but the card still isn't installed properly by Windows. I'm becoming very frustrated.

Thanks,
G