Question USB3.2 backward compatibility

[MarkC1970]

I am confused by the behaviour of the USB3.2 ports on my new laptop and I would appreciate some advice. Long story short, every USB device works with my laptop except for some ESP32 devices with CP2102 USB chips. The ESP32's work on every other desktop or laptop I try so they are OK as well.

Now for the weird bit that makes absolutely no sense. If I plug in an unpowered USB hub first, the ESP32's will then work plugged into the hub and even plugged into a USB3.2 port on the laptop. Unplug the USB hub and the ESP32's disconnect just like if you unplugged them as well.

So, what wizardry is the USB hub performing? Does plugging a USB3 hub in make the laptop's internal USB hubs default back to USB3 protocol? I can carry the USB hub around just to make it work but I am sure it must be possible to make the ESP32's work without that. USB3.2 is supposed to be 100% backwards compatible but something is not working here.

 

[Eximo]

Probably something wrong with the handshake protocol in your device. Plugging in the hub probably does force a different mode because it can negotiate properly.

I recall one hardware recall where they had to swap a resistor out on every unit to support USB 3.0 when it supplanted USB 2.0 on devices. Just wasn't a thing when the hardware was built the first time around.

 

[MarkC1970]

Is there a way in settings, device manager or registry to set the USB3.2 ports to act like USB3? I know I will lose speed but I have no real use for 10Gps transfer rate so it is no loss. Thanks.

 

[Eximo]

You may be able to control the USB speed from the BIOS but that is very motherboard dependent.

There are ways to manipulate things like that in Linux, but I am not sure about Windows.