USB ports won't power down after switching off PC (OmniStudio X)

[Noge71]

Hello

My USB ports won't power down after switching off the PC  (so my external hard drive keeps spinning).

 - my advanced power plan settings are very limited and have no specific setting for USB.

   (creating a new power plan does not give me more settings)

- in device manager all usb ports are set to 'allow pc to turn off device to save power"

- In the BIOS there is no ERP setting  (or any power management menu for that matter)

Any help will be appreciated.

Thanks in advance 

[BeemerBiker]

Does the drive eventually stop?  Normally both internal and external mechanical drives sleep after a certain amount of idle time.

Both Western Digital and Seagate have tools to enable or disable sleep on external drives.

Who made the external drive?

Using the windows command prompt, please run the following command and report back what it reveals if you want help.

wmic diskdrive get model, size, mediaType, status

for example

If you have powershell then run it from the administrators command prompt to get better information:

powershell Get-PhysicalDisk

There are also firmware updates to disk drives, even external ones.

Let me know what you find out.

[Noge71]

Hi,

Its the WD ELEMENTS  2621 that doesn't stop  ( (the other ones are SSD drives )

0 WD PC SN5000S SDEPNSJ-2T00-1006 E823_8FA6_BF53_0001_001B_448B_4085_CCA8. SSD False OK H
4 WD Elements 2621 WX62DB102PFZ HDD False OK H
5 Synology BeeDrive 2340VVR0MH92H SSD False OK H
1 SABRENT ASM225CM 3000CCCCBBBBAAAA SSD False OK H

but what i just found out is that the drive indeed stops when it's not in use. (with pc on)

but as soon as i  stop the PC, the HD starts to spin continuously and never stops.

the 2nd external drive i have attached ( a samsung that i put in a case with brand name SABRENT) ,

has a blue led that does completely switch off, when pc is off 

Same for the BeeDrive; led goes off

[BeemerBiker]

There is a problem with the WD.  See if firmware update helps

https://support-en.wd.com/app/answers/detailweb/a_id/31759/~/download%2c-install%2c-test-drive-and-u...

Are you sure it is spinning?  May the LED is just on.

If it is spinning it is because the USB port failed to send a sleep command when shutdown.

It is possible to issue a command to disable the USB port prior to shutdown.

A command to enable the port can be issued automatically during power up.

The tools that does this is devcon64.exe and there is a discussion of it here

devcon is a free Microsoft tool but is hard to find.  It comes with some remote desktop software such as Splashtop, VNC as well as some Microsoft tool/utility downloads.

I once used this to wake up an external disk drive that went to sleep but failed to wake up when the PC restarted.

You would create two scripts:

One script would disable the USB port causing it to not power the device.  The script would then shutdown the PC.

The second script would issue a command to enable the USB  port.  The script would be run from the windows task scheduler as part of powering up.

[Noge71]

Installed the software, but it says no FW available.

Can definitely feel the disc spinning when pc off.

Unfortunately I'm not tech-savvy enough to try your "devcon" solution,

so i think I'll just have to install a switch on the Pc's power cord

[BeemerBiker]

use a powered USB hub

[Noge71]

Thanks, but is that really the only solution ?

I don't want to buy a hub for which i have no (other) need .

Windows has all these energy saving settings, yet the ports stay on when the pc is off ...?

[BeemerBiker]

it is a "feature" to allow a smartphone to charge.  Supposedly.

If the laptop is unplugged from the wall does the external drive stop?

Possibly a bug in the power plan.  

see what the the laptop keeps powered when it is supposed to be shut down

Clicking on the windows 10 or 11 power "Shut Down" should turn off the laptop.
If your laptop is unplugged and you find the battery has significantly drained overnight, one or move devices are drawing power. Windows allows some devices to continue to draw power as explained here. it is also possible that a Windows update replaced a device driver with one that is not power efficient.

Some devices that can cause to cause power drain:

USB hubs that can allow charging of devices
Thunderbolt port that can be used to dock with
The Intel Management Engine may tasks some device to maintain power.

Run the following command from the windows administrators command prompt

powercfg -devicequery wake_armed

for example the following devices are enabled even if the PC is turned off

They are all drawing power EVEN WHEN LAPTOP IS TURNED OFF.

You can disable these devices using the device manager as explained in step 1 here

See if there is a problem with sleep:  try the sleep report

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebooks-Knowledge-Base/Diagnosing-sleep-problems-in-modern-notebooks...

[Noge71]

For good order sake, it's an all in one desktop 

This is the list given so no USB ports listed:

Intel(R) Wi-Fi 7 BE200 320MHz
HID-compliant mouse
HID Keyboard Device
HID Keyboard Device (001)
HID-compliant mouse (001)

but when i check the "sleep" command  i indeed get this error (it lists this for all the USB port):

USB Suspend:USB Device not Entering Selective Suspend

This device did not enter the USB Selective Suspend state. Processor power management may be prevented when this USB device is not in the Selective Suspend state. Note that this issue will not prevent the system from sleeping.

Device Name	USB Composite Device
Host Controller ID	PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_7E7D
Host Controller Location	PCI bus 0, device 20, function 0
Device ID	USB\VID_0D8C&PID_0008
Port Path	3,3

So the question is: how do i correct this ?  

to repeat; my power management menu is very limited and does not show a setting for USB ports

[Noge71]

Found a solution 

if have USB ports in the back of the pc but also in the stand (see below)

The stand seems to function as a hub, so always stays on.

I now connected the HD to the back of the pc, as these ports indeed switch off.

thanks again for all the feedback .