USB 3.0 Controller Driver Issues and Work Around Summary

Issues

There are a number of issues regarding USB 3.0 controllers primarily with Windows 7. This article highlights some of the more common problems as well as work-arounds for them. A driver package tor the four most common groups of USB 3.0 controllers is available at the end of this article.

Problem 1 - Intermittent Device Response with Third Party Applications

Problem 2 - VMWare Player or VMWare Workstation USB Removable Device / Passthrough does not work

Problem 3 - Intel USB 3.0 Controller Driver May not Install through WDS / MDT / CC4 / SCCM

Problem 4 - Upgrade to Windows 8 will not proceed with the Manufacturer USB 3.0 driver Installed

Problem 5 - Smart Technologies Tablet or Smart Technologies Smartboard drivers cause the system keyboard and/or mouse to be Unresponsive

Problem 6 - Removal of EHCI Support From Intel Skylake and newer platforms means that Windows 7 can't use USB devices until an additional driver installed

Please Note: These issues are not specific to Stone PCs or desktops but rather are related to the chipsets and drivers supplied from the chipset manufacturer.

USB 3.0 Controllers Affected

The main controllers addresses by this article are:

​Native support for most of these controllers is available from within Windows 8.1; the Windows 8 / Windows 8.1 in-box driver is not affected by the issues discussed in this article.

Problem 1 - Intermittent Device Response with Third Party Applications

Applications which monitor the USB ports on a system may not work, or USB devices in the system may have intermittent issues

Cause

The USB 3.0 Controllers above install their own port monitoring application by default. This notifies you, for example, if you plug a USB 3.0 device into a USB 2.0 port. The monitoring application monitors all ports on the system including USB 2.0 ports and issues can be seen across all ports in the system.

The conflict between the driver's port monitoring application and an add-application which is also probing the USB ports can cause either program to cease working, or the USB ports themselves may intermittently fail to respond or detect devices.

Resolution

See also Problem 5 for a similar issue around Smart Technologies Smartboard or Smarttablet drivers.

Problem 2 - VMWare Player or VMWare Workstation USB Removable Device / Passthrough does not work

In this situation VMWare products are not able to take control of the USB device and pass it through to the guest operating system. When you attempt to connect the device to the guest operating system, you get an error message that the device is in use on the host.

Resolution 1

Ensure the VMWare USB Arbitration service is running in Computer Management > Services.

Resolution 2

Use the same resolution as for Problem 1. Then once you have removed the USB monitoring program, you should be able to assign the USB device to the guest operating system.

Note: This problem appears to be more prevalent on Intel 8/9 Series USB controllers than other models, and has been verified to exist on VMWare Player 6.0.3

Problem 3 - Intel USB 3.0 Controller Driver May not Install through WDS / MDT / CC4 / SCCM

When you use the INF driver and deploy this through a driver package, the Intel 7 or 8/9 driver may not install properly. The "Intel(R) USB 3.0 Root Hub" is listed in device manager as an Unknown device, or with a yellow exclamation mark on it. Device Manager reports that the driver is not installed correctly.

Cause

The cause is a problem with the way the driver and driver ID is constructed. The device has an ID of USB3\ROOT_HUB30&VID_8086_PID_1E31 whilst the driver does not have an INF that matches closely enough for the deployment process such as WDS to use it.

Resolution

Problem 4 - Upgrade to Windows 8 will not proceed with the Manufacturer USB 3.0 driver Installed

If you attempt to upgrade to Windows 8 from Windows 7 the upgrade checker may report that the USB 3.0 controller driver is not compatible.

Resolution

Problem 5 - Smart Technologies Table or Smart Technologies Smartboard drivers cause the system keyboard to be Unresponsive

Similar to Problem 1, some versions of the Smart Technologies Product Drivers can cause problems when a USB 3.0 controller is installed in the system. This has been verified on Windows 7 and the 2010 version of the Smart Technologies driver package.

When you boot the system, the keboard and or mouse may be unresponsive until you remove them and then plug them back in.

Removing the USB 3.0 controller monitor program does not resolve the problem. The problem has been seen on H61, B75, Q77 and H81 systems.

Cause

The drivers themselves appear to cause system problems as they were not designed to be aware of USB 3.0 controllers. The issues are evident even if you are not using the USB 3.0 ports on the system.

Resolution

Either seek updated drivers from Smart Technologies, or if you are not connecting the Smartboard / Smarttable to the problem system, just uninstall the Smart Technologies driver package from Control Panel. The rest of the Smart Technology software will continue to function without the driver package.

Stone USB 3.0 Driver Package

A driver package is available that contains the most up to date Windows 7 USB 3.0 controller drivers for all six mentioned controllers as of 25/7/16. This package includes:

Windows 7 Drivers for x86 and x64 are included. Download here.

Applies to:



Article ID: 359
Last updated: 25 Jul, 2016
Revision: 27
Stone Branded Products -> Desktop PCs and All-in-One (AIO) -> Troubleshooting -> USB 3.0 Controller Driver Issues and Work Around Summary
https://kb.stonegroup.co.uk/index.php?View=entry&EntryID=359