USB 3.0 external hard drive detected as 2.0

Edited by Chris Cosgrove, 21 September 2023 - 04:13 AM.
Moved from Win 10 Discussion to Win 10 Support.

Seems to me that the problem lies with either your ports or the drivers for same.  I would take a look in Device Manager, looking for the drivers reflecting "Controller"...I would then uninstall same and reinstall.

Gen Info.

Louis

I removed the xHCI controller, rebooted, and connected the drive again. Issue still persists. i even removed the hub, checked hidden devices, removed all hidden usb driver devices, rebooted, reconnected and on the first connection it connects as 2.0. After a reboot or swapping it into different ports on the hub it switches back to 2.0. Even plugging that hub into a different 3.0 port direct in the pc has the same results. Very odd issue. 

You wrote that you've tried another cable. Did you check that said cable was USB 3.x compatible? Cabling matters in USB at higher speeds.

What happens when you plug in one drive DIRECTLY to a USB 3.x port, with no hub or other drives connected?

Are you certain your motherboard has the latest firmware? That could be a firmware bug.

Also, I strongly suggest that in future, you divided your posts into shorter, easy-to-read parapgraphs. No one likes to read huge walls of text, and for some people they just quit and go look at other posts.

 

If I plug it into another port it has maybe a 50/50 chance of being detected as a 3.0 device. 

This comment is a conflict with the comment below, I think?  Do you mean another port in the Hub, or on the computer.  And by the way, you should have posted the model of the pc also!  

It sounds to me like you have two corrupted drives though that is just a guess at this point.  USB Ports are a contention of mine and are always questioned as being 100% working.  I see many computers that the ports stop being reliable anymore.  I don't know why, perhaps flash drives being bumped while in them or some weird electrical issue.  Do you ever hear the little plug in chime for no reason while the drives are plugged in?

Consider your operating system is corrupt too, have you run a DISM or SFC, if not do that in that order and reboot after the SFC.    

 

 

I have plugged the drive into the pc directly into the open 3.0 slot and seen it detect fine, but the reboot still has that hang time for windows to redetect it again, where it will be seen as a 3.0.  The other drive has this same behaviour when plugged directly into the pc's 3.0 slot.     

Some good advice, but...Huh? Corrupted drives are not going to throw a USB speed error. That's the adapter chipset that does that.

Anyways, testing if the drives are going bad is easy enough, assuming the OP can run the manufacturer's drive diagnostics software.

Some good advice, but...Huh? Corrupted drives are not going to throw a USB speed error. That's the adapter chipset that does that.

 

Anyways, testing if the drives are going bad is easy enough, assuming the OP can run the manufacturer's drive diagnostics software.

We don't know the whole story, so there is no right or wrong answer here?

He already did that!

The speed error could be many things and is secondary to how I would diagnose it.  Just like when a doctor treats the Symptom rather than the cause, it's just stupid.   

Using a Hub on a low end corrupted machine is also a concern with multiple drives.  It would be nice to see if another known good drive did the same thing?

Edited by pcpunk, 23 September 2023 - 11:11 AM.

And both motherboard and drive firmwares are 100% latest?

And PC has latest chipset/USB motherboard drivers installed?

I wonder if the motherboard VRMs aren't putting out a stable 5.1V. Maybe check the voltage numbers in the UEFI interface.

Edited by Shplad, 23 September 2023 - 11:38 AM.