USB 3 Problem Driving Me Insane! (External WD My Book HD)

[deadman_uk]

I have an Asrock Z68 Extreme4 motherboard that has 2 USB 3.0 ports at the rear. My external WD My Book 4TB USB 3.0 Hard drive will not operate at USB 3.0 speeds no matter what I do. Using USB Device Tree Viewer (which actually shows I have 8 USB 3.0 ports....hmmm), it always shows my external HD as "high-speed" using USB Version 2.10 and not "SuperSpeed" using USB version 3.00. I have a 32GB USB memory stick which inside USB Device Tree Viewer, shows it as "SuperSpeed" most of the time but frustratingly, sometimes this will only show as "high-speed" when plugged into either one of the two USB 3.0 ports. Sometimes I have to reboot my computer for my memory stick to operate at USB 3 speeds. As I said, I can never get my external HD to operate at SuperSpeed. This leads me to believe that it's not the fault of my external HD but something else.

I have installed Etron EJ168 USB 3.0 Host Controller drivers 0.115 and now 0.118 hoping it solves my problem. I have also disabled legacy USB 3.0 support in the UEFI (BIOS) and set legacy USB support to UEFI only. Power saving features of the USB ports are off too. Nothing is working, any ideas? I have attached two pictures to this thread for you to look at:

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[cyclone3d]

The early 3rd party USB 3.0 controllers were pretty much a pile of crap.

Having dealt with this type of problem as well I feel your pain.

At least your ports work although at a reduced speed.

The USB 3.0 ports hardly ever work on my board. I have even updated the controller firmware and it really didn't help that much.

 

[defaultluser]

Yup, try an add-in card, or try your best to scrounge a Z77 motherboard

Early USB 3 chipsets are hit-or-miss, and only Intel/AMD native implementations (or more recent 3rd-party chipsets) have great compatibility.

 

[GotNoRice]

Ouch. For what it's worth, I've also had very bad luck with the 3rd party USB 3.0 controller on my Z68 board (Asus P8Z68-V). Most of the time not even USB 3.0 thumb-drives will work at USB 3.0.

I have an external WD Mybook as well, but the model I have has eSATA, Firewire 800, and USB 2.0. It's amazing how well eSATA works considering how simple and obvious of a solution it is.

 

[deadman_uk]

So it's the fault of early technology? Damn, that motherboard cost me over £100 when I got it

 

[Nicholars]

I actually uninstalled the USB3 drivers due to various problems and just use USB2... I rarely transfer stuff to/from USB stick so its not a major problem.

 

[horrorshow]

Yeah, I have the USB3 Marvell chipset disabled.

Nothing but headaches on these early boards....

 

[GotNoRice]

Interesting. I have never had any problems with the USB 3.0 ports on my Z68 board, aside of course from them not working at USB 3.0. They are able to charge my phone significantly faster than the Intel USB 2.0 ports, and they tend to have less issues with external hard drives (aside from being limited to USB 2.0).