USB 3 devices not being recognised as USB 3

[monel]

Hi,

I've had this problem on and off for ages. On certain computers, any USB 3 device I connect, I get the Windows warning, connect this to another port for faster speeds. That's not the exact notification. To be clear, this is on USB 3 ports.

It usually happens with android devices, or flash storage I think.

Is there a known solution? I put up with slower speeds but it can cause issues.

I've tried troubleshooting devices, drivers, everything.

Sorry if it's a common problem that's easy to fix, because I have tried.

[gunrock]

Better cables? I have issues with some UBS 3 rated USB A to USB C cables being dodgy and getting similar messages. They charge ok, but are low quality junk.

[MartyG]

Can be a bit of minefield with USB 3.0/3.1/3.2 cables, so I'd agree with the above and take a look at your cables first.

Cheap flash storage can use cheap controllers even if they claim to be USB3, often they don't get close to USB3 speeds and if you're plugging into a hub you can introduce further latency and thruput issues. I have a few different card readers and they all produce different speeds reading the same SD card, despite all claiming to be USB3.

Do you have another PC/Laptop you can plug the devices into to see if you get the same issues?

[monel]

Thanks.

This is happening with original media / storage and android or other devices, regardless of quality of leads. The same devices run fine on other pcs. I think it may be windows drivers but it's not simple for me to figure out.

[MartyG]

I doubt it's drivers they tend to be fairly generic USB host drivers. What mobo do you have?

You could have a look in device manager and see if there are any yellow exclamation marks, should look something like this:

[monel]

Thanks for the replies. Not for storage, but one android device in the past I had an exclamation mark, tried to 'fix issues', uninstall and reinstall drivers, never worked.

But this problem is different. Actually if I can't resolve it, I will give up, had enough.

[randombs]

I was getting that message every time I connected my USB-C HDD to my laptop's USB3 port. Turns out the USB-C cable(from my Android phone) was actually USB2 cable, not USB3:



(you can see 4-5 pins at the back of the USB3 connector, whereas the USB2 connector only has four pins)

You did mention flash storage - if you meant USB sticks then this won't apply because their USB port is on the stick itself.

Anyway, here are some things off the top of my head:

- If it's a desktop and the USB ports are on the front, the cable connecting those ports to the motherboard could be faulty and the USB3 controller is treating them as USB2 ports
- I've seen some computers with a setting in the BIOS that changes the USB3 ports to USB2
- I once had a laptop whose USB3 ports showed up in Device Manager as USB2 until I installed the manufacturer's chipset driver. After that, the ports showed up as USB3. I haven't seen this issue on newer machines, though
- The exclamation mark can be caused by a bad cable - the cable isn't allowing data(or power) to flow well enough for Windows to identify the device properly

If you can, I'd definitely recommend creating a Ubuntu Live USB, booting it and seeing if Ubuntu recognises your devices as USB2 or USB3.

[monel]

I was getting that message every time I connected my USB-C HDD to my laptop's USB3 port. Turns out the USB-C cable(from my Android phone) was actually USB2 cable, not USB3:



(you can see 4-5 pins at the back of the USB3 connector, whereas the USB2 connector only has four pins)

You did mention flash storage - if you meant USB sticks then this won't apply because their USB port is on the stick itself.

Anyway, here are some things off the top of my head:

- If it's a desktop and the USB ports are on the front, the cable connecting those ports to the motherboard could be faulty and the USB3 controller is treating them as USB2 ports
- I've seen some computers with a setting in the BIOS that changes the USB3 ports to USB2
- I once had a laptop whose USB3 ports showed up in Device Manager as USB2 until I installed the manufacturer's chipset driver. After that, the ports showed up as USB3. I haven't seen this issue on newer machines, though
- The exclamation mark can be caused by a bad cable - the cable isn't allowing data(or power) to flow well enough for Windows to identify the device properly

If you can, I'd definitely recommend creating a Ubuntu Live USB, booting it and seeing if Ubuntu recognises your devices as USB2 or USB3.