Z77x-UD5H USB 3.0 stuck at USB 2.0 speeds

[Hoopster]

My UD5H has the F14 BIOS and the latest Intel USB 3.0 drivers installed; however, it looks like most of the USB 3.0 ports on this board are controlled through a VIA chip. I have benchmarked two 7200 RPM external USB 3.0 drives with ATTO while connected to front panel USB 3.0 ports (the Gigabyte supplied panel connected to a USB 3.0 MB header), rear panel USB 3.0 ports and front panel USB 2.0 ports connected to a MB USB 2.0 header. I also have a USB 3.0 card reader (replaced a USB 2.0 card reader) connected to USB 3.0 MB port.

The USB external drive benchmarks are actually a little faster on read/write speeds when connected to a USB 2.0 port than they are with USB 3.0. Connected to any USB 3.0 port on the front panel (MB headers) or rear panel (all support by VIA chipset), the speeds are the same; approx 28 MB/s write and 34 MB/s read. These drives benchmark faster (50 MB/s write; 80 MB/s read when connected to my laptop USB 3.0 ports.

Both the front-panel USB ports and the USB 3.0 card reader are connected to the USB MB 3.0 headers at the bottom of the board (USB3_2 and USB3_3) which are controlled by the VIA chip according to the UD5H manual. The USB3_1 port in the middle of the board (controlled by the Intel Z77 chipset) has a broken pin and I cannot use it.

On the Gigabyte support page for the Z77x-UD5H there are only Intel USB 3.0 drivers. There are no VIA USB 3.0 drivers. The UD3H has VIA USB 3.0 drivers in addition to Intel. The VIA chip on the UD5H appears to be the VIA VL810. I tried installing the VIA drivers from the UD3H download page as well as directly from the VIA site for the VL810. In both cases, the appropriate hardware was not detected and nothing was installed.

All USB ports are functional, I am just not getting USB 3.0 speeds from any USB 3.0 port. They all appear to function at USB 2.0 speeds only. Any ideas?

All xHCI settings in BIOS are set to Auto and all HS Port #1-4 Switchable settings are enabled.

OS is Windows 7 64-bit

Here is what I see in Device Manager:

[Hoopster]

Found this posting in another forum.

"Hey, I just noticed that the VIA USB 3.0 driver is not even listed on the GA-Z77X-UD5H driver download page, nor on a bunch of the other Z77 Gigabyte motherboard download pages. I DID find it on the GA-Z77-D3H page though... GIGABYTE - Motherboard - Socket 1155 - GA-Z77X-D3H (rev. 1.0)
Will give the VIA USB 3.0 drivers a try now. Fingers crossed that this info helps me and others here.

Never mind, the linked driver won't install, suitable hardware not found. Looking further into this, the VIA USB 3.0 ports are actually from a VL810 hub on the motherboard, that runs off the Intel USB 3.0 controller built into the Z77; it's not a VIA USB 3.0 controller, just a hub. The hub does not need drivers."

I guess the bottom line is that no VIA controller driver is needed even though all the USB 3.0 ports I am using are controlled through the VIA hub/Intel controller combination. That does not explain my USB 2.0 like speeds, but, at least I know it is not because of a missing driver.

[Hoopster]

Problem solved. I discovered Intel has a newer USB 3.0 eXtensible Host Controller driver which is not on the Gigabyte UD5H download page. It is version 1.0.7.248. When I installed this driver, I see this in Device Manager:



Notice the two USB 3.0 Hubs which were not there before. An ATTO benchmark of the USB 3.0 drives now shows 80-82 MB/s read and write speeds as opposed to the 28/34 write/read I was getting before when the hubs were functioning at USB 2.0 speeds

[stasio]

Intel® USB 3.0 Driver 1.0.7.248 is posted a week ago here.

[Hoopster]

Intel® USB 3.0 Driver 1.0.7.248 is posted a week ago here.

That is quite an impressive compilation. Next time, I'll know where the one-stop shop is for all driver, BIOS and utility information. Kudos for maintaining that; I'm sure it's quite a task to keep it all up to date.

[boondocks]

I also have a broken pin on the Intel USB 3.0 header on one of my UD5H boards. Depending on which pin it is, one of the two ports may work.
I bent that same pin several times and finally broke it.

But as you found out no VIA drivers exist for the board since they are actually VIA hubs.
After many months of no problems with USB 3.0 on either of my boards, recently both started displaying messages about problems constantly to the point where I finally had to just turn off the reporting. Very irritating.

[Hoopster]

Well, solving my USB 3.0 speed problem has created other issues. Since installing the Intel USB 3.0 eXtensible Host Controller v 1.0.7.248 driver, the USB ports do function at USB 3.0 speeds; however, my AFT Pro-57U card reader does not function at all. None of the card slots show up in Device Manager. The USB port on the reader still works, but, only if a USB 2.0 thumbdrive or external disk is plugged in; USB 3.0 anything is not recognized. The card slots do not work at all. If I run USB extension cables from the card reader back to rear-panel USB 3.0 ports, it all works fine. The problem is with the on-board USB 3.0 connectors controlled through the VIA VL810 controllers. If I roll back to the previous driver, the card reader and USB ports function, but, everything now works at USB 2.0 speeds only.

Also, if I plug a bus-powered 2.5" external USB drive enclosure into a USB 3.0 port, large file (usually >1GB) writes to the disk often fail from a progress/termination reporting standpoint. At some point the copy progress bar just stops and the disk activity light on the drive flashes continually. If I wait until after the copy should have succeeded and unplug the drive (only way to "exit" as I cannot cancel or end process in Task Manager), I see that the file copy succeeded and the file is fine and is accessible; the Windows progress bar and the disk just never get that message. Reads from the disk are never a problem and I can copy any quantity of files of any size (just copied a total of 175 GB with no issues) and it always succeeds without issue.

Large file copies work without issues to an externally-powered USB 3.0 drive enclosure and to USB 3.0 thumb drives.

So, I am stuck at either USB 2.0 with everything functioning or at USB 3.0 with no card reader and a flaky 3.0 large file copies on my small drive enclosure.