Why is my USB 3.0 so slow?

[DavidHuynh48]

My New ASUS N55SL-DS71 has two USB 3.0 ports on it, and I also just bought a Seagate external hard drive that is USB 3.0 compatible. It comes with a USB 3.0 wire as well. So when I connect the external hard drive to my laptop through the USB 3.0 port with included wire, I seem to be getting really slow transfer speeds. When I try to transfer a 25.0 GB folder of videos onto the external hard drive, I get around 11 mbps! What's going on and how can I fix this?

This is what it looks like under device manager

http://i.imgur.com/LnvSo.png

Laptop: http://www.amazon.com/ASUS-N55SL-DS71-15-6-Inch-Laptop-Black/dp/B006TZGBYE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1345771941&sr=8-1&keywords=asus+n55sl-ds71

External Hard Drive: http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Backup-Portable-External-STBU1000100/dp/B00829THO6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1345771986&sr=8-1&keywords=seagate+external+hard+drive

 

[Pinhedd]

Grab the latest ASMedia USB 3.0 drivers and firmware from here

http://station-drivers.com/page/asmedia.htm

You should have the ASMedia 1041/1042 so grab the latest driver which is 1.16.1.0 and the latest firmware which is 12220E

You will need to use a FreeDOS USB stick or CD to flash the firmware

 

[pjmelect]

There may be nothing wrong with your USB 3 interface or devices. Even if you were to use USB 2 the transfer rate would not be any different. The hard drive on the laptop may be the bottle neck. Don't forget that the operating system is also running on the hard drive which could be indexing, defraging, virus scanning etc. Try removing your anti-virus program and see if that improves things.

 

[DavidHuynh48]

Grab the latest ASMedia USB 3.0 drivers and firmware from here

http://station-drivers.com/page/asmedia.htm

You should have the ASMedia 1041/1042 so grab the latest driver which is 1.16.1.0 and the latest firmware which is 12220E

You will need to use a FreeDOS USB stick or CD to flash the firmware

I have very little background knowledge with computers, so I'm afraid to experiment and attempt to update my drivers and firmware on my own. I'm not exactly sure what to do, so could you briefly outline what I need to download or do, step by step?

 

[Pinhedd]

I have very little background knowledge with computers, so I'm afraid to experiment and attempt to update my drivers and firmware on my own. I'm not exactly sure what to do, so could you briefly outline what I need to download or do, step by step?

Updating the drivers is easy. All you have to do is download the file below

http://station-drivers.com/telechargement/asmedia/asmedia_usb3_1.16.1.0allos(www.station-drivers.com).exe

It's a self extracting archive so extract it to the default directory (usually Downloads) with an arbitrary subfolder. Make sure you add a subfolder to the extraction path. If you do not it will clutter your downloads folder.

Go into the subfolder and run setup.exe. Follow the prompts and it will install the drivers

Updating the firmware is much more difficult. ASMedia hasn't made it possible to update the firmware through the driver interface and instead must be updated through an operating system which does not have a hardware abstraction layer.

To get started with flashing the firmware you will need three things

1. The HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool. This will allow you to format a USB mass storage device into a bootable disk. It will also let you install the DOS compatible FreeDOS kernel and command interpreter which you will use to flash the firmware. Get this from here http://files.extremeoverclocking.com/file.php?f=197

2. The FreeDOS kernel and command interpreter. These are literally only 2 files. Grab FreeDOS 1.1 from here

http://www.freedos.org/download/

It's an ISO but you don't want to burn it. Instead either extract it using WinRAR or mount it using any ISO mounting tool.

3. The latest firmware for the device

http://station-drivers.com/telechargement/asmedia/asmedia_asm104x_12220E(www.station-drivers.com).exe

Now that you have everything ready, grab your USB stick and prepare to wipe it. It will be reformatted so back up anything that may be on it.

Run the HP Disk Format Tool. Select the appropriate device if it is not selected by default and check "Create a DOS Startup Disk". For the field below which says "Using DOS system files at..." point it to the extracted/mounted FreeDOS installation CD and into the subfolder "FREEDOS/SETUP/ODIN". The subfolder is very important, it will yell at you if it doesn't find what it's looking for.

Press Start. It will only copy two files and they will both be flagged as protected system files on the USB stick so you won't see them unless you have those shown; if you see what looks to be an empty disk don't worry.

Extract the firmware from part 3 above into a subfolder on the USB stick.

Reboot your PC and press whatever key you have to press to get into the boot menu (usually escape or F8 on Asus motherboards). Select the USB stick rather than the hard drive. If the boot menu is organized it may show up under Hard Drives or Removable Devices.

If you're not familar with the DOS command syntax you may want to get familiar with the Windows cmd.exe first, it has the same syntax as the DOS command parser. All you'll need to do once you're in FreeDOS is change directories and run a batch file.

To change a directory type "cd DIRECTORY_NAME"

To change to the directory immediately above the current directory type "cd .."

To run an executable or batch file (.bat) just type the name

Once you're in FreeDOS change into the subdirectory that you extracted the firmware to and run "u.bat". It should do the rest automatically.

Once the updater has run you will be returned to the command line. You are now done and can reboot the PC

good luck

 

[DavidHuynh48]

Best answer selected by DavidHuynh48.

 

[DavidHuynh48]

Updating the drivers is easy. All you have to do is download the file below

http://station-drivers.com/telechargement/asmedia/asmedia_usb3_1.16.1.0allos(www.station-drivers.com).exe

It's a self extracting archive so extract it to the default directory (usually Downloads) with an arbitrary subfolder. Make sure you add a subfolder to the extraction path. If you do not it will clutter your downloads folder.

Go into the subfolder and run setup.exe. Follow the prompts and it will install the drivers

Updating the firmware is much more difficult. ASMedia hasn't made it possible to update the firmware through the driver interface and instead must be updated through an operating system which does not have a hardware abstraction layer.

To get started with flashing the firmware you will need three things

1. The HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool. This will allow you to format a USB mass storage device into a bootable disk. It will also let you install the DOS compatible FreeDOS kernel and command interpreter which you will use to flash the firmware. Get this from here http://files.extremeoverclocking.com/file.php?f=197

2. The FreeDOS kernel and command interpreter. These are literally only 2 files. Grab FreeDOS 1.1 from here

http://www.freedos.org/download/

It's an ISO but you don't want to burn it. Instead either extract it using WinRAR or mount it using any ISO mounting tool.

3. The latest firmware for the device

http://station-drivers.com/telechargement/asmedia/asmedia_asm104x_12220E(www.station-drivers.com).exe

Now that you have everything ready, grab your USB stick and prepare to wipe it. It will be reformatted so back up anything that may be on it.

Run the HP Disk Format Tool. Select the appropriate device if it is not selected by default and check "Create a DOS Startup Disk". For the field below which says "Using DOS system files at..." point it to the extracted/mounted FreeDOS installation CD and into the subfolder "FREEDOS/SETUP/ODIN". The subfolder is very important, it will yell at you if it doesn't find what it's looking for.

Press Start. It will only copy two files and they will both be flagged as protected system files on the USB stick so you won't see them unless you have those shown; if you see what looks to be an empty disk don't worry.

Extract the firmware from part 3 above into a subfolder on the USB stick.

Reboot your PC and press whatever key you have to press to get into the boot menu (usually escape or F8 on Asus motherboards). Select the USB stick rather than the hard drive. If the boot menu is organized it may show up under Hard Drives or Removable Devices.

If you're not familar with the DOS command syntax you may want to get familiar with the Windows cmd.exe first, it has the same syntax as the DOS command parser. All you'll need to do once you're in FreeDOS is change directories and run a batch file.

To change a directory type "cd DIRECTORY_NAME"

To change to the directory immediately above the current directory type "cd .."

To run an executable or batch file (.bat) just type the name

Once you're in FreeDOS change into the subdirectory that you extracted the firmware to and run "u.bat". It should do the rest automatically.

Once the updater has run you will be returned to the command line. You are now done and can reboot the PC

good luck

WOW, thank you so much! I couldn't have asked for a better answer, this is amazing. I will try this as soon as my USB stick comes in the mail and let you know what happens!

 

[Pinhedd]

good luck!

 

[DavidHuynh48]

I'm running across an issue when I want to put the FreeDOS files on my USB. The HP tool tells me "The user-supplied DOS system files are not compatible with FAT32." So I tried formatting my USB to NTFS, but I the check box isn't able to be checked when I choose NTFS. I'm pretty sure I have the right folder selected. I mounted the .iso to a virtual drive, and the location box reads "D:\FREEDOS\SETUP\ODIN". What can I do now?

 

[Pinhedd]

I'm running across an issue when I want to put the FreeDOS files on my USB. The HP tool tells me "The user-supplied DOS system files are not compatible with FAT32." So I tried formatting my USB to NTFS, but I the check box isn't able to be checked when I choose NTFS. I'm pretty sure I have the right folder selected. I mounted the .iso to a virtual drive, and the location box reads "D:\FREEDOS\SETUP\ODIN". What can I do now?

FreeDOS should be installed on the FAT file system, not the FAT32 file system.

 

[DavidHuynh48]

FreeDOS should be installed on the FAT file system, not the FAT32 file system.

My USB stick is a 32 GB USB 3.0 Transcend Jetflash stick. How can I get an FAT file system?

 

[Pinhedd]

My USB stick is a 32 GB USB 3.0 Transcend Jetflash stick. How can I get an FAT file system?

You may need to use a smaller USB stick. I haven't been able to get it working on my 16GB one but it works fine on a 512MB one. Anything under 2GB should be able to be formatted as FAT16 rather than FAT32