ASRock z77 Fatality Professional Motherboard "USB 3.0 connections not working"

[rattyjunk]

I've only just discovered after just under a year after purchasing a HTPC that some of the USB 3.0 sockets don't work. I've searched and can't seem to find a concrete solution. I've read it could be a problem with the intel or etron drivers, but I couldn't find out which sockets where controlled by what so left it alone. The picture shows the working ones marked in green and non working ones in red. I'm not sure what to do to remedy this. All the USB 2.0 sockets work fine however, I just hope this a simple fix.

I did think about updating the motherboard bios which is on v1.20 but held off because I was worried that I might loose all the settings in the update and having had the computer made I wasn't sure is the builders had entered some unique settings. I've yet to hear back from them concerning this.

Just a little info on what happens when I plug my hard drive into the non working sockets..... The hard drive light does come on and flash once but that is it, so it would seem there is power there. Of course in the working sockets the drive spins up and appears in My computer and I can access it as you would expect.

So, I'll detail my specs and if you require some more details then ask. The machine was built in the US btw...

Motherboard: ASRock z77 Fatality Professional
CPU: Intel i5 3570k (Ivy Bridge)
Memory: 16GB GSkill Ares
OS: Win7 Home Premium
GPU: Nvidia 520GT (Driver 327.23)
Main Drive: Crucial M4 128GB
Storage: x8 WD 3TB Greens

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!

[parsec]

Re: ASRock z77 Fatality Professional Motherboard "USB 3.0 connections not working"

Your board has two separate USB 3.0 interfaces/chips, Intel and Etron. I'm guessing that the Etron USB 3.0 driver was not installed, but not sure.

If you start the Windows Device Manager, and double click on "Universal Serial Bus Controllers", you can check if all the USB hubs are working. If you see any yellow '!' symbols, that means that device has a problem.

The Etron USB 3.0 driver can be downloaded from your board's download page:

ASRock > Fatal1ty Z77 Professional

That file must be unzipped and then the application is run in Windows to install the driver.

[rattyjunk]

Re: ASRock z77 Fatality Professional Motherboard "USB 3.0 connections not working"

Your board has two separate USB 3.0 interfaces/chips, Intel and Etron. I'm guessing that the Etron USB 3.0 driver was not installed, but not sure.

If you start the Windows Device Manager, and double click on "Universal Serial Bus Controllers", you can check if all the USB hubs are working. If you see any yellow '!' symbols, that means that device has a problem.

The Etron USB 3.0 driver can be downloaded from your board's download page:

ASRock > Fatal1ty Z77 Professional

That file must be unzipped and then the application is run in Windows to install the driver.

Looking in device manager everything seems fine, no yellow exclamation marks... I read someone suggesting that the intel or etron driver could have taken over running of both USB controllers, but this seemed a bit silly to me. If that was the case then how would you explain the socket on the far right having one working socket and one not, as seen in the picture. I guess I better stop waffling because I don't know really what I'm talking about

Any further suggestions? Btw thanks for the quick reply!!

Going off topic a bit... with regards to a bios update if I decide to do one, will all my setting remain the same in the bios after the update and is it advisable to update to the latest bios

[parsec]

Re: ASRock z77 Fatality Professional Motherboard "USB 3.0 connections not working"

The BIOS update question is difficult to answer, because I have seen different results depending on the BIOS update. Usually after a BIOS update, all the BIOS settings are set to their default values, meaning anything that was changed from the default value will be different. But I have seen a few BIOS updates on my ASR boards that did not reset everything. That would happen going to the next new update, one step forward, rather than say 1.20 to 1.70. It depends on what has changed, and is hard to predict.

Your BIOS should have the ability to save BIOS profiles, a list of the settings that you can apply with one click in the BIOS. But when new options are added in an update, I've seen the profiles (up to three on ASR boards) removed after the update, since the new option, etc, makes the profiles unable to load correctly.

Your board's ASR F-Stream Tuning Utility may have an option to save and load BIOS profiles in Windows. But again if the BIOS update is major, they may not load correctly.

I would not assume your BIOS settings will not be changed, changing from 1.20 to 1.70. Updating would help only if any new features are useful to you.

[rattyjunk]

Re: ASRock z77 Fatality Professional Motherboard "USB 3.0 connections not working"

The BIOS update question is difficult to answer, because I have seen different results depending on the BIOS update. Usually after a BIOS update, all the BIOS settings are set to their default values, meaning anything that was changed from the default value will be different. But I have seen a few BIOS updates on my ASR boards that did not reset everything. That would happen going to the next new update, one step forward, rather than say 1.20 to 1.70. It depends on what has changed, and is hard to predict.

Your BIOS should have the ability to save BIOS profiles, a list of the settings that you can apply with one click in the BIOS. But when new options are added in an update, I've seen the profiles (up to three on ASR boards) removed after the update, since the new option, etc, makes the profiles unable to load correctly.

Your board's ASR F-Stream Tuning Utility may have an option to save and load BIOS profiles in Windows. But again if the BIOS update is major, they may not load correctly.

I would not assume your BIOS settings will not be changed, changing from 1.20 to 1.70. Updating would help only if any new features are useful to you.

Any further advice on my USB socket issue? Should I uninstall and re install the etron and intel driver

[rattyjunk]

Re: ASRock z77 Fatality Professional Motherboard "USB 3.0 connections not working"

Any further advice on my USB socket issue? Should I uninstall and re install the etron and intel driver

Well I re installed both intel and etron drivers and no improvement, so unless you have any suggestion I'm stuck

[parsec]

Re: ASRock z77 Fatality Professional Motherboard "USB 3.0 connections not working"

The following is from your board's specs on the ASRock information page:



Now which are which... perhaps your board's manual will identify which is which. It's also possible, through a tedious process, to identify which are Intel or Etron. Connect a USB flash drive to a USB 3.0 port, and then start Device Manager, and search your way through all the USB device entries. You'll find the USB flash drive eventually under an Intel or Etron entry. Then move the USB flash drive to the next USB 3.0 port, and repeat the search.

I doubt those USB 3.0 ports are mixed up between the two sources. My guess is the Intel USB 3.0 ports are

That idea makes me wonder, as I recall this from your first post: "... when I plug my hard drive into the non working sockets...".

Does "non-working" mean any USB device, like a flash drive, mouse, keyboard, etc, will not function at all on those USB ports? That is not clear. The hard drive you mention, is that in an external case with a USB interface, and is powered only from the USB port?

Another question, do you have the ASRock Utility, "XFast USB" installed? It may be, and for a test, try this: connect your "hard drive" to one of the non-working USB 3.0 ports, and wait until the light flashes as you described (and then nothing happens). Then unplug the USB cable from that USB port, wait a second or two, and plug it in again, in the same USB 3.0 port. Any difference?

I must ask this since you provided no information about the hard drive you connect to USB ports. Does it have a USB 3.0 compatible cable? USB 3.0 cables are different than USB 2.0 cables, and a USB 3.0 port will not function completely or possibly not at all with a USB 2.0 cable.

[rattyjunk]

Re: ASRock z77 Fatality Professional Motherboard "USB 3.0 connections not working"

The following is from your board's specs on the ASRock information page:



Now which are which... perhaps your board's manual will identify which is which. It's also possible, through a tedious process, to identify which are Intel or Etron. Connect a USB flash drive to a USB 3.0 port, and then start Device Manager, and search your way through all the USB device entries. You'll find the USB flash drive eventually under an Intel or Etron entry. Then move the USB flash drive to the next USB 3.0 port, and repeat the search.

I doubt those USB 3.0 ports are mixed up between the two sources. My guess is the Intel USB 3.0 ports are

That idea makes me wonder, as I recall this from your first post: "... when I plug my hard drive into the non working sockets...".

Does "non-working" mean any USB device, like a flash drive, mouse, keyboard, etc, will not function at all on those USB ports? That is not clear. The hard drive you mention, is that in an external case with a USB interface, and is powered only from the USB port?

Another question, do you have the ASRock Utility, "XFast USB" installed? It may be, and for a test, try this: connect your "hard drive" to one of the non-working USB 3.0 ports, and wait until the light flashes as you described (and then nothing happens). Then unplug the USB cable from that USB port, wait a second or two, and plug it in again, in the same USB 3.0 port. Any difference?

I must ask this since you provided no information about the hard drive you connect to USB ports. Does it have a USB 3.0 compatible cable? USB 3.0 cables are different than USB 2.0 cables, and a USB 3.0 port will not function completely or possibly not at all with a USB 2.0 cable.

Thank you for the reply and yes I was a bit vague wasn't I!

When I mentioned "my hard drive" I was talking about a 3TB WD external drive I have which has mains power. I read through your post and decided to try each usb 3,0 socket with a standard usb pen drive, All the sockets worked fine. I then tried to identify which sockets were etron and intel but couldn't seem to find any info on what was connected so gave up on that one

I then thought I'd try my USB 3.0 hard drive again and the sockets I was having issues with acted the up again. I did however notice that drive did show in the "remove the device safely menu although was not accessible through my computer (strange).

I then decided to install the Fast usb utility you mentioned and straight away some of the sockets worked first time. One or two I discovered worked after unplugging the drive and then connecting the drive again.

So it would seem that if I'd done a bit more trouble shooting initially I may have found everything was OK, although I have installed both intel and etron drivers and the USB utility, so who knows.

BTW thanks for bringing the USB utility to my attention, it really speeds things up.

Thank you for the time you spent with the suggestions and lets hope that's the last of it

[parsec]

Re: ASRock z77 Fatality Professional Motherboard "USB 3.0 connections not working"

So you're fine with your USB 3.0 ports now? Sounds like they are, I just want to make sure since sometimes people feel a bit embarrassed when things start working, and they feel they should have known, which you may have hinted at. Then they don't ask for more help or admit the problem is not fixed completely. IMO, it's easy to get drawn down one "path" or forget there are other things that can be done, when we usually do them one way. Just human nature, I've done that too.

Glad you like the XFast USB.