USB 3.0 ports on ProDesk 400 GI MT only run at USB 2.0 speeds

[bobmdi]

The ProDesk 400 is supposed to have 2 USB 3.0 ports on the front (blue) along with 2 USB ports (black). There are also 4 USB 2.0 ports on the back.  The front blue ports (marked as SS - super speed?) are there, but they seem to connect as USB 2.0 ports. I have tried them with several external drives (HDD and SSD). They connect at a maximum speed of around 35MB/s. I get the same speed when I connect to the USB 2.0 ports.  I can take the same drives with the same cables and plug them into a different PC (win 11) ,where they connect at USB 3.0 speeds (around 450MB/s for the SSD). I've physically cleaned the USB 3.0 ports on the HP Prodesk Win 7 PC using canned air to flow out any dust and contact cleaner spray to ensure clean contacts, along with multiple insertions of the connector, and still the connections are at USB 2.0 speeds.

Both the two, blue, USB 3.0 ports behave in exactly the same way.

Looking at the device manager under USB controllers I see two USB 3.0 entries, Intel USB Route hub and eXtensible Host Controller.  Interestingly, Casper 7.0 shows the HDD and SSB  connecting as a USB 2.0 drives on the DeskPro.  Again, that consistent with the speeds I'm seeing (using CrystalDiskMark).

I see the same thing with a USB 3.0 Thumb drive. On the DiskPro I see it under the drives section of Device manager as a USB 3.0 drive (I assume that's just the device name), but Casper 7.0 shows it connecting as USB 2.0 and the data transfer rates are consistent with that ~ 35 MB/s). The same thumb drive runs at around 110MB/s when it connects as a USB 3.0 device on another PC.

Any ideas about what's going on?  I have not yet attempted to manually update the Intel USB 3.0 drivers, which I'm sure will be one suggestion. I don't know if there's any danger in trying to do this.  I think the current drivers are old (2013, v 2.5.0.19), but attempting to automatically update them from the device manager results in the usual "couldn't find anything" message.  I do see references to later drivers on the web, but they are for windows 10 and 1l. I also ran the Intel Drivers and Support Assistant and it tells me that no updates are available for my system. So maybe I have the latest Windows 7 drivers?

I tried searching here but found nothing really useful on this topic. Other inquiries were about windows 10 or contained links to pages that no longer exist!

[NonSequitur777]

@bobmdi,

Welcome to our HP Community forum!

The only suggestion that comes to mind is to see if any BIOS/driver update(s) for your platform could make a difference: HP ProDesk 400 G1 Microtower PC Software and Driver Downloads | HP® Support.

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777

[bobmdi]

I just made a long post which the HP website seems to have eaten. I won't repeat it but will briefly say nothing worked. The HP helper software either wouldn't install or would run or wouldn't do anything even if I found a version that would install and run. It did locate the  HP USB 3.0 driver update package for Win 7 which I manually downloaded and ran.  That resulted in the Blue Screen of Death appearing, so I had to do a hard manual shut down and reboot. The system came back OK, but no change in USB behavior. The USB 3 port still connects as USB 2 and runs at USB 2 speed.

At this point I give up.  The one thing I might try now  is to install an ISA buss card with USB 3.0 ports.  I did this on another Win 7 machine with no native USB 3 ports and it worked fine.  It seems like this would be faster and safer than attempting to mess around with drivers. Thanks for all suggestions, but at this point I think I'd be wasting even more of my time trying to figure out what's going on!

[NonSequitur777]

@bobmdi,

I understand completely -been there, done that too, I am afraid...

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777

[bobmdi]

Eventually I found that the system BIOS has a function to enable or disable USB 3.0. This was a surprise to me and it was set to disable. Once reset to enable in the BIOS, the USB 3 ports started to function as USB 3 rather than USB 2.

Simple solution once you know the BIOS option is there!

[NonSequitur777]

@bobmdi,

Outstanding! -I am glad you solved your issue.

And thank you for following up with your solution.

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777