Question USB3 Ports - Not Enough Power

THRobinson

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May 17, 2009
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Hey guys

Few days ago I swapped the guts of my sister's computer into a case I had from another system. Her PC was newer/faster but the case had a broken power button and 20yrs old so only a single 80mm fan.

Swap went fine, except when I went to restore files.

Case had 4 ports on the front. 2xUSB2.x and 2xUSB3.x.

If I plug my external backup drive (Orico 2.5" USB 3.0) into the USB2 slots it powers up and works fine. In the USB3 slots it does nothing. If I plug it into the USB3 slots on my computer it works fine, and if I plug a USB thumb drive into the ports on my sister's system they work fine as well. So basically, all the ports work fine, and the drive works fine on my USB3 port. Drive works on her USB2, not USB3... light won't come on so thinking lack of power.

So, question is... should the board supply enough power for the drive? are the ports on the case not working properly? or is it all working properly, just either the board or case has an under powered USB3 port? Trying to determine if there is an issue or not before I get too much into troubleshooting.

Case: Rosewill Line-M
Motherboard: ASRock H110M-HDS
 

THRobinson

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May 17, 2009
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I'll try to grab a shot... I tried it with the USB thumb drive and worked.

I'll also mention that the old case didn't have USB3 ports on the front so I had a Rosewill USB3 hub that fit into the 3.5“ floppy bay. It was plugged into the header of the board and was used for backup before the case was swapped.
 

THRobinson

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Nope... never tried the rear ports. Will giv'er a try now.

Ok... so.... 50/50 annoyed/relieved. Drive is working on the front now.

I installed Win10, ran all updates, and all optional updates, and kept checking until 0 updates were found... then tried the drive and didn't work.

Tried now, and now works. So... not sure what changed? if anything? I tried both USB3.0 slots and neither worked at all yesterday but, working now, so.... ???
 
Nope... never tried the rear ports. Will giv'er a try now.

Ok... so.... 50/50 annoyed/relieved. Drive is working on the front now.

I installed Win10, ran all updates, and all optional updates, and kept checking until 0 updates were found... then tried the drive and didn't work.

Tried now, and now works. So... not sure what changed? if anything? I tried both USB3.0 slots and neither worked at all yesterday but, working now, so.... ???

What is the transfer speed?
 

THRobinson

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Well, by absolute fluke... before I backed up my sister's PC I went to format my Kingston 64GB USB3.0 thumbdrive and got an unknown address error. Tried to fix it, then finally tried another PC and same error. Warranty so new one on the way. I have no other USB3.0 thumbdrives.

So, using the external drive with the Toshiba Sata III 5400rpm HDD 2.5" in it I ran (front panel only)

winsat disk -drive F

USB2.0
Read: 38.38MB/s
Write: 38.68MB/s

USB3.0
Read: 90.7MB/s
Write: 110.83MB/s