USB 3.0 port doesn't work at USB 3 speed

[jdboe]

When I plug in my seagate freeagent external hard drive I get this message: "this USB mass storage device can transfer information faster if you connect it to a superspeeed USB 3.0 port". The computer has 3 USB ports but none of them are the blue plastic insert that usb 3 ports are supposed to have. 

I have an ENVY Ultrabook 4-1043cl that I thought had USB 3.0 on it. According to these specs it should have 2 usb3 and 1 usb2.

http://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c03367057

My computer matches the above specs. The 2 usb ports on the left have a small "ss" painted between the 2 of them. The one usb on the right has a little lightning bolt painted there. As I said before, none of them have the blue plastic insert. I receive the same message "this will transfer faster if connected to usb 3.0..." when I connect the external hard drive to any of the 3 usb ports. All the ports do transfer data, connect to drives, peripherials, etc. They just don't transfer at 3.0 speeds. 

I am running Windows 7, not windows 8 and I keep everything windows updated.

I found this post talking about a faulty Texas Instruments XHCI controller but my controller is an Intel USB 3.0 eXstensible Host Controller. 

http://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c01893385

So I'm wondering why does the usb 3 not seem to be working and how do I get it to work? 

Thanks for any help you can give.

[erico]

Try reinstalling the Intel USB 3.0 host controller driver to see if it improves the data transfer rate.  What are you using to measure the data tranfer rate?

please post your results.

Best regards,

erico

[jdboe]

to uninstall the driver do I do that from the device manager, right click, uninstall? Should I uninstall both the usb 3 eXtensible host controller and the usb 3 root hub?

I don't have a way to test the actuall transfer rate. I'm going purely off the message that pops up and the "it seems slower" subjectivity test :). Do you have a rate transfer utility that you recommend? 

[erico]

Just uninstall the host controller.  Afterwards  go ahead and doubleclick on the downloaded softpaq exe file. It wil install  the driver.  

if you copy a file from one drive to another, even with a USB 3.0 thumbdrive you can see the transfer rate if you select  details.

Best regards,

erico

[jdboe]

Hmmm. That didn't work out as well as I hoped. I uninstalled the controller but I noticed the usb 3 root hub disappeared when the controller was uninstalled. I then clicked on the controller driver exe that I downloaded. It seemed to install but a message came up saying "this may not have installed correctly. Click recommended settings or click yes it installed. I clicked yes it installed but there was now no usb 3 controller or hub showing up in the device manager.

I rebooted. After the reboot, a windows thing came up saying there was no usb 3 controller and it automatically searched and installed a usb 3 root hub. Afterwards I rebooted again.

This time no windows missing driver message appeared but the device manager still does not show that there is any kind of usb 3 controller or root hub installed. There is however an "unknown device" exclamation point that wasn't there before.

On top of all this, now when I plug in my usb device, it is not recognized as being there at all. So somehow I've messed this up. 

BTW, the transfer rate before I started all this was about 25 mb/sec which I think is a solid usb 2 rate. 

Sooo, now what do I do to get the usb working again?

[jdboe]

Hi Erico. I lost you somewhere.

I decided to do a system restore to a point a couple days ago. It worked to get the usb 2 functionality back so now I'm back to where I started. Maybe it will help the usb 3 work too. I'm not sure what to do at this point. Better to have 2 working usb 2s than none at all.

Regards.

[erico · Accepted solution]

Hi,

You didn't lose me. I am probably in a different time zone than you are.  I live in Europe.  🙂

If you still have the unknown device proceed as follows:

Open the Windows Explorer and find the SWSetup folder.

Expand the folder, locate the sp56724 folder and double-click on it to open it.

That is where the driver for the unknown device (the USB 3.0 host controler should be).  

Invoke the Device Manager.

Right-click on the unknown device  and select update driver software.

In the next window, select Browser my computer for driver software.

Now you can choose to let the OS locate the software or path to the sp56724 folder yourself. In either case, ensure that a signed driver is chosen. 

[jdboe]

Hi Erico,

Since I did a system restore, I don't have the unknown device anymore and the usb 3 device drivers are already showing up in the device manager window. This is what I would expect since they were there before I uninstalled them.

When I right click on the usb 3 xhc driver > update driver software > browse computer for software, I took it to the folder you mentioned then it tells me the driver is up to date.

I did a test transfer and it transferred a 700mb folder at a 100mb/sec speed. I guess that means the usb 3 is working now.

I'm not really sure that I did anything because I know it wasn't working on the date that I restored to (yesterday) but, hey, its working so I'm not going to complain that I don't know "why" its working.

Thanks for your help.

BTW, I'm in Turkey so I'm only 1 hour from your time zone. I was at it late last night thinking you were in the U.S. That's why I was surprised I didn't hear back from you earlier.

[erico]

Hi jdboe,

If your transfer speeds are up around 100MB/s you are definitely in USB 3.0 territory.

It is always good to hear a success story and I am glad I was able to assist you.

Best regards,
erico

[justanothercog]

While this response is to a relatively old post, I would like to offer another possible solution to these "ghostly" USB 3 port is acting like USB 3 and then mysteriously only recognizes USB 3 devices as USB 2.

I bought an HP Envy Ultrabook 4-1030us in August 2012.  I had these same problems trying to get a USB 3 hard drive to be recognized as a USB 3 device and kept gettin the dreaded "This device can perform faster: This USB Mass Storage Device can transfer information faster if you connect it to a Super-Speed USB 3.0 port ." message.  I would uninstall the USB 3 driver and reinstall the latest driver from HP's support site.  It would work only randomly and then stop recognizing the device as a 3.0 device for no reason (no system changes from when it worked and when it didn't work.

I stumbled across a HP support forum post at http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&taskId=120&prodSeriesId=...

 that was listed for an EliteBook 8540p, but the fix listed, to make sure the usb cable is fully inserted, can apply to just about any PC, laptop or desktop.  For a Envy 4 Ultrabook this is a pretty common problem and its because the USB ports are right below a slight "extrusion" or lip of case.  If the USB cable you are using has a "fat head", the extrusion prevents full insertion of the cable and only the USB 2 connectors mate up.  I noticed that the USB 3 cable I was using had a slightly slimmer head on the disk end.  I swapped the cable ends and VOILA!!!!  Problem went away.  Hopefully this post will get a bit more broad distribution. It would have saved me 10 months of USB 3 frustration.