Windows 8 USB 3.0 Problems

Question

I have run into many USB 3.0 problems across multiple devices and computers running Windows 8 Pro 64-bit. After many headaches and sleepless nights I think I have narrowed all the problems down to one thing in Device Manager:
 "Intel (R) USB 3.0 eXtensible Host Controller -0100 (Microsoft)”
The controllers (Multiple Computers) have had problems with all the Microsoft Drivers including the most resent: 6.2.9200.16548 3/1/2013
The problems:
USB 3.0 External Optical Drives (labeled Windows 8 compatible) not recognized or continuously disconnecting/reconnecting with or without manufacturers drivers.
USB 3.0 Flash drives running slow and/or disconnecting often with data corruption/loss
USB 3.0 Flash drives not recognized
My solution: <Disabled> “Intel xHCI Mode” or “XHCI Pre-Boot Mode” in BIOS/Firmware
This solution Takes the
"Intel (R) USB 3.0 eXtensible Host Controller -0100 (Microsoft)” out of Device Manager and eliminates all the problems stated above across multiple machines running Windows 8 Pro 64-bit.
However: This is not a fix.
The Intel USB 3.0 controllers on the machines seam to only run at 2.0 speeds. (Before they were also slow but much less functional, often not recognizing devices)
Non-Intel USB 3.0 controllers are fully functional at full USB 3.0 speeds. (Before they had limited or no function depending on the controller)
This appears to be a fix for non-Intel USB 3.0 controllers but what about the Intel controllers that take the lion’s share of USB 3.0 controllers on the market?
Dose Microsoft have a fix for
"Intel (R) USB 3.0 eXtensible Host Controller -0100 (Microsoft)”
Is there a new Microsoft driver coming out soon? How about an Intel driver for Windows 8 like the one they have for 7?
Am I the only one who is being slammed with this problem from every windows 8 machine I touch? I have not seen a large amount of discussion on the internet with such a seemingly big thing like USB 3.0 not working with Windows 8!

Answer 1

Hi I guess I am going to add a few more flies to the ointment.
I have a serious issue with USB 3.0 and I would like to hope that somebody may have an answer even if they are unable to help.
I run three different computers, for three completely different purposes, they are of different makes, One is an Acer, the other is a Pryon and the third is a Toshiba, I also have 2 Toshiba laptops, one brand new running Windows 8, the other running
Windows 7. So basically what I am saying here probably has nothing to do with the systems I am running.
I guess a lot of people are getting swindled here by the hard drive manufacturers and everyone here seems to be blaming it on windows. I have spent thousands of dollars replacing all my old 2.0 drives (and some were getting a bit tired) with these new fangled
super duper super fast 3.0 drives. I think overall in the past year I have bought around thirty of them, mostly portables, but some desktop ones, all different brands too I might add, Seagate, Western Digital, Toshiba and Samsung. This as you can imagine has
cost me a lot of money. The data I had on the old 2.0 drives equated to about 20 years of my life. Out of the roughly thirty I have bought, nine of them have bit the dust so to speak. Nearly all, once they become unusable, come up with the same thing, "The
last USB device you connected to this computer is not recognised.
As an example I will recount exactly what has occurred with the last one to fail, which was today about 4 hours ago as I write this. It was working perfectly fine this morning, never gave off one indication that it may be about to fail. Then after a restart
(which incidentally I am wondering if anyone else has this problem whereby once they shut down their computer they have to either power off or remove every USB 3.0 device from their unit before the computer will even start - this happens on two of mine - but
not on the Toshiba)
So I shut down, I am using a powered 9 port hub for most of the portables on this particular system (Pryon) which I have to power off so all the drives disappear else the computer just hangs at the boot screen until I have done this) I have one 2,0 disc
connected which I don't need to remove for the system to start.
Anyways once I have restarted the computer I then re-power up the hub and all the drives are loaded again and away I go. Well that was all good except when I checked one of my drives was missing from the File manager that I use (Salamander) and also not
showing in Windows Explorer either. So I trace down the culprit, unplug it and re-plug it back in. Lo and behold up comes the afore-mentioned windows does not recognize this device. This is odd given that there are five other drives of the exact same make
and model attached to the same hub still working. As I don't have all the slots in the hub filled I decide to change the slot and plug it into a different one. Same result. So then I decide to plug it into a 3.0 slot connected directly to the box, same result.
As a last try I then plug it into a 2.0 slot on the box, same result. So then I take it out and try it on the other two boxes and eventually the laptop...same result....
I now have nine of these contraptions all totally useless to me....yes I guess I could send em back to Seagate and Toshiba and Western Digital and they will replace em with a brand new one...clean as a whistle with my twenty years up the poop chute....
I have looked everywhere through Google trying to find someone or somebody with the same problem as me, surely I cannot be the only person in Australia that happens to keep on getting the duds.
I've had 2.0 drives that have lasted ten years or more and probably may have went another ten if I didn't keep so called upgrading....some of these that have failed on me are not even 3 months old. I even had one desktop 3.0 drive that I bought on the Wednesday
in Adelaide and by the time I had gotten it home after my son had copied some stuff onto it..it wouldn't work.
I have tried just about everything I've ever read on these forums, like using a different cable, Ive even pulled one of the portable to pieces to be able to use an attachment that I can plug it directly into a 3.0 slot and still nada....
My newest laptop is still under warranty and I have had that back to the supplier twice with a main hard drive failure which they have had to replace.
The reason why I am suggesting here that it may not be all windows fault is that my other laptop is still running windows seven and once a drive cacks it it wont show up in that either....I will say this though, I only have one drive that I use in that laptop
and that is still running well.
Now before everybody jumps down my throat I have checked thoroughly for viruses on all my boxes, and they all are clean. And in anycase I've never heard yet about a virus that can attack one hard drive only, given that all that is on there is music, just
like the other six.
Unless windows eight itself somehow manages to render a hard drive useless somehow then it has to be a fault in the manufacturing technology and that even though a drive might work perfectly for a week or two there is something there that the manufactures
are missing in their testing.
Like someone said earlier, maybe it is going to take some massively big law-suit from a huge company that has lost everything against somebody for them to realise that USB 3.0 is tainted and no good.
Do they still make 2.0 cause I am going back there and hopefully I can do it before I lose everything, even though it will take a good part of six months to copy back over whatever it is that I still may have left....
Like I said I don't expect any answers but thank you for taking the time to at least read this...
Cheers Vern