Known Participant

Question

ASUS P9X79 PRO - USB 3.0 Issues

Forum|Forum|12 years ago
February 26, 2013
3 replies
20904 views

Hello folks. Been searching for help on this issue for awhile, and just went through a long RMA process with ASUS only to find that the issue still exists.

Basic problem -- The USB 3.0 ports on the back of the motherboard will not work in with USB3.0 devices. They work just fine with USB 2.0 devices though. The USB 3.0 ports on the front of the PC work just fine. I'm running windows 7 64 bit.

The way the problem presents. I plugin my 2 Seagate 3TB external drives and after awhile they aren't recognized any more (this is after a fresh, up to date driver install and re-setting the bios). My Kingston USB 3.0 card reader also is not recognized. I have one unknown device in the device manager. If I plug the 2x 3TB backup drives into the USB 2.0 slots, everything works just fine. If I plug USB2.0 devices into the USB 3.0 plugs - those items work fine. This is the second MB to do this. It seems to me like it is a driver issue, but there are no other USB3.0 Drivers. I am using the latest drivers from ASUS, windows doesn't have any auto-installed drivers, and I also see 2 items in my startup list called USB3.0 monitors by Renesas Electronics Corporation.

Other settings I have played with: I disabled USB3.0 Legacy support in the BIOS. I also went into windows power settings and disabled USB Selective Suspend.

This sucks. I planned on using the two Seagate USB3.0 drives for exports and I cannot get them to work while plugged into the main USB3.0 ports on the back of the Motherboard. They are formatted in MBR, so not certain if that makes a difference. They work flawlessly plugged into USB2.0 ports.

Any help would be appreciated!

This topic has been closed for replies.

D

DFord068

Participating Frequently

Hi Tony,

The latest drivers for your motherboard can be found here:

http://www.asus.com/Motherboard/P9X79_PRO/#support_Download_30

I would suggest that you go through and download all the latest drivers and install them. This is a good idea anyway. Prior to this though, go in and create a restore point manually.

a big problem with Windows has always been how it installs and more importantly updates it because a lot of the time it leaves orphaned files around, doesn't update every file as it should and the whole thing with the registry is a bad idea but PC user's are stuck with it.

I've got a lot of PC tech experience, used to build them for 10 years and was involved with them from early 80's, remember DOS? There are a number of things we can try but its awkward on a forum. I'd be more than happy to talk you through stuff and try and get this resolved, unless the sockets are faulty. Can u pm me and I will give you Contact details

D

DFord068

Participating Frequently

also a point on the Seagate Expansion 3TB USB 3.0 Black Desktop HDD's. What manufacturers' tend to do with these caddies is put what are known as green or Eco drives in them. They tend to perform very poorly in comparison to a normal drive.

This is just a suggestion and in no circumstances do NOT do it if those drives are still under warranty or if you are not confident doing it. But I would by a NAS bay with 4 slots. also with RAID support if u can. USB 3.0 is still oretty expensive. they are about £500+ here in UK for a decent one. USB 2.0 will be cheaper and some even have e-SATA which your mobo does. But the USB 2.0 gives you around 30-45 MB/s.

Then I would remove the drives from those cases. There are several steps but they are pretty easy. Interestingly I couldn't find any info on the speed and size of cache. But this will be available from the drive itself. I did this with two Western Digital drives and fitted them into a bay. It means you can have 4 drives but they are all sharing that one connection.

One thing I did learn is that if you check page 10 of your manual for the P9X79 PRO, it says there are - 4 x USB 3.0/2.0 ports at back panel with 1 x additional VIA SuperSpeed USB hub controller (blue). It isn't really clear looking from the pics in manual which this is but I would retest the drive and try it in each of the Blue USB3.0 hubs until u find the Superspeed one because your drives specifically need that kind of port to work and there is only one of them. the drives should be compatible in a USB 2.0 but you didn't buy em for slow data transfer.

also did you use the Drive Unlocker utility (on the motherboard disk) for drives 3TB or larger this is necessary.

E

EastCoastTonyAuthor

Known Participant

All my drivers were up to date. ASUS issued a new bios, but I have the one just prior installed and the new one doesn't address anything USB3.0 related.

If I were to remove the drives from their cases, I'd just plug them in internally. They're just for storage and video project exports. I also keep the MYDocuments windows folder on them. I was thinking that may be upsetting things as well in USB 3.0 mode.

I didn't need to use the disk unlocker tool, as the drives initialized / formatted normally and were recognized. I read it was necessary in the past, but I think that issue has since been overcome.

Thanks. Will PM you.

J

JFPhoton

Inspiring

....I too had USB 3 problems with my asus laptop and fixed it.

Make sure first, it is not a Windows problem, as mine was.

Navigate to USB root hub i device mgr...under properties, make sure to uncheck box that allows Windows to tirn off devices. Then, download newest drivers for the USB 3 controller directly from the company....not Asus...good luck!!

E

EastCoastTonyAuthor

Known Participant

Thanks JFPhoton. That is something I didn't do, so I'll give it a shot.

I am a little confused now. The drivers are by ASMedia correct? But the USB3.0 monitor is by Reneasas???

Under Device Manager I see ASMedia XHCI Controller. The driver provider is ASMedia Technology Inc. So the drivers are by ASUS but in their driver install they've included the monitor software by Reneasas???

J

JFPhoton

Inspiring

....not sure what you mean by "monitor" software. Each USB 3 port should be using a specific driver, just for the USB 3 function alone. Mine was from "Fresco Logic" and ,coincidentally, it updated itself just yesterday through the Windows 7 update process. Asus may not be up to date on that USB 3 driver and you would need to go directly to the site of the company that makes the port for them.

I do know that USB 2 has separate drivers.....USB 3 has its own on each " USB 3 Root Hub"...check that it does.

Are you sure the other USB 3 ports ARE functioning to their fullest? My experience was, using an external USB 3 dock, I was only getting 105MB/sec. sustained read with a Corsair F120 SSD plugged in it.

Once I installed the new drivers I found at Fresco Logic for their USB 3 hub, the speed went to over 220MB/sec. !!!!....( I have SATA II on that laptop).

THEN, I was getting repeated instances of the USB 3 drive going offline....or, not showing up at boot. At first, I thought it was my cell phone interfering, ( which I had read about). However, I read further and discovered that my problem was common. The suggested remedy was to go into device manager to the USB 3 root hub, and under properties tab, UNCHECK that box which lets Windows shut off USB 3 devices whenever it wants.

Voila! That has solved the problem and it has not returned. I hope "Occum's Razor" applies in your case and the solution will be simple !! Good Luck !

J

JEShort01

Inspiring

It seems that USB 3.0 is blazingly fast, but still having teething problems. Or at least that has been the case for me, and I have tested using two different USB 3.0 devices (WD Passport and SSD in Orico sled) and two separate sustems (Gigabyte X79 system and HP workstation laptop).

My Gigabyte X79 motherboard too uses Renesas 3.0 for its USB 3.0 ports (rear only in my case) and I found newer firmware and drivers for Renesas that improved things vs. the latest and greatest f/w and drivers that Gigabyte put on their www site. I do say improved things - dramatically! They are still NOT perfect. For me, when I really tax the USB 3.0 in sustained transfers (file transfers or video editing) it craters; I don't remember the specific error messages, but I do recall both the PC and laptop needed a hard reboot to restore the USB working at all. VERY frustrating. At this point, I much prefer eSATA over USB 3.0.

Jim

E

EastCoastTonyAuthor

Known Participant

Thanks Jim, at least I know now that I'm not going nuts. I've tried just about everything. To reset things I have to either reboot several times, uninstall/reinstall all the drivers, or clear and reset the bios.

What really bothers me though is that neither ASUS or Seagate seems to acknowledge this. I've had the same type of issues as well - USB 3.0 working fine, then I overtax the drive and it just tanks, craters, gives the hell up. Unfun! This is my first experience with USB3.0 and I expected things to just work.

Going to look up the new Renesas drivers in case I don't already have them. Thanks for the tip.

Sign up

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Sign in to Adobe Community

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Scanning file for viruses.

This file cannot be downloaded