USB3 ports have become unstable - random drive dismounts (W520)

Hi,
I have a ThinkPad W520 (ThinkVantage Toolbox shows the Product as 4270CTO). About 18months old. Have been using the USB3 ports (direct, not via an external hub) to mount TrueCrypt encrypted external HDDs (Seagate GoFlex USB3.0 Slim/Ultraportable).
Worked well for 15 months or so. Last couple of months the USB ports have become unstable - dismounting the external drives randomly and then Windows pops up that irritating "You need to format the disk in drive G: before you can use it" window. Sometimes that happens two or three times in rapid succession for the same drive, over a 4 to 10 second period. Occassionally that's followed by a message in the system tray to the effect that the USB3 port has fallen back to USB2 (a message along the lines of "this drive could perform better if plugged into a USB3 port").
It's causing havoc with the encrypted filesystems - when I remount them I get a Windows prompt to scan and fix the filesystem due to the bad dismount.
Any ideas?
Regards,
JD

Update your NVIDIA drivers?
Does this workaround help?
https://sites.google.com/site/ebobster/stuff/displayportblanking
W520: i7-2720QM, Q2000M at 1080/688/1376, 21GB RAM, 500GB + 750GB HDD, FHD screen
X61T: L7500, 3GB RAM, 500GB HDD, XGA screen, Ultrabase
Y3P: 5Y70, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD, QHD+ screen

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USB3 ports have become unstable - random drive dismounts (W520)

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