USB 3.0 drives keep being disconnected and reconnected on USB 3.0 but work great on USB 2

thomasackley

Reputable
Sep 29, 2014
10
0
4,510
I have 5 multi-terrabyte USB 3.0 drives connected to my Dell XPS 8700 desk top PC. Of those 5 drives, 2 particular ones keep disconnecting and reconnecting (one of them has to have its' power cycled to reconnect) when connected to USB 3.0 ports. The other 3 drives work fine on USB 3.0.

The 2 "problem drives" work fine, though considerably slower than USB 3.0 speed, on USB 2 ports.

I've tried deleting the drivers and checking for hardware changes in order to get the drivers to reinstall. No joy.

I've verified that all usb ports (both usb 3.0 and usb 2) have their power shutdown options disabled.

I've swapped connections around and the same 2 drives keep getting disconnected regardless of which USB 3.0 port they are plugged into.

My various hobbies involve lots of data transfers of both large (sometimes over 100 gigabyte) and numerous small files (often thousands of files in the 100kB to 10 MB range). Although the hook-up I currently have is liveable,,, it sure would be nice if those other 2 drives could go at USB 3.0 speed.

Any help resolving this will be appreciated.

Thanks,

Tom Ackley

 

Mighty_Miro_WD

Reputable
Jul 30, 2014
42
0
4,560
Hi there.

I think it is possible that one of your devices is messing with the others because of a power sharing issue with the USB ports. You could try is to fix it by going to Control panel -> Power options -> Change plan settings -> Change advanced power settings -> USB settings -> USB selective suspend setting and than Disable them.

Hope this helps.

Cheers! :)
 

thomasackley

Reputable
Sep 29, 2014
10
0
4,510


Thanks for the suggestion but I'd already done that and I still have the problem. I also have gone into the device manager, selected each usb hub, and cleared the "Allow the computer to turn of this device to save power" option under all of the power management tabs. The problem is still there.

I recently found a USB 3.0 Express Interface card on sale at Best Buy for under $15.00, couldn't pass it up, so I bought it and installed it into my dual boot Win 7/XP system I built 6 years ago. From my experience with the USB 3.0 drive attached to that machine, the if card works properly. I think I should take each of the drives in question and connect them to the old PC's USB 3.0 card and see if the problem moves with the drive.

I guess I should try this for a couple of days and post the results.

Any suggestions you have in the meantime will be appreciated.



 

B Tcs

Reputable
Mar 25, 2015
8
0
4,510
I have a similar problem on my Asus Z97-A motherboard, but I have been able to narrow down the problem. Read on for something interesting...

1) For me, the problem is only with SOME USB 3.0 devices like Card readers and external harddrives (some multidtrive USB 3.0 readers do work, some HDs are temperamental about when they will work) - this is all very weird.
2) But the most weird thing is that the problem only occurs when I join my windows 8.1 pro pc to a domain, as soon as I take it off the domain, the problem goes away - this seems to imply that the domain group policies have something to do with it. But why then do some drives work on and off?


I tried the power options as described in the post (http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2335635/usb-drives-disconnected-reconnected-usb-work-great-usb.html)
and I have tried disabling XHCI as described in the post (http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-1885037/windows-usb-devices-disconnect-reconnect-power-saving.html)

None of the above worked.

 

koftedudak

Reputable
Sep 29, 2015
1
0
4,510
I had same problem with my Dell XPS 15 and solved it by disabling the save power feature of USB hub.
To disable it,
Go to Control Panel >> Device Manager
Expand "Universal Serial Bus Controller"
Open "Properties" and click "Power Management" tab and remove the check of "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power".
Repeat it for each USB Root Hub and Generic USB Hub
 

greghig

Reputable
Oct 6, 2015
1
0
4,510
FOUND IT! At least for me. let me know if this works for you.

This fixed ALL my USB 3.0 issues. Not mentioned anywhere else!

Its a BIOS ISSUE. Hopefully your computer has this option.

Go into your BIOS and TURN OFF "Legacy USB Support".

If you want even more speed, (there is a catch), Switch from "quick remove" to Buffering. BUT YOU HAVE TO DISCONNECT THE DRIVE WITH THE REMOVE USB DEVICE OR POWER DOWN THE COMPUTER FIRST.