Problems with ASMedia USB 3.1 eXtensible Host Controller

HI, was hoping someone might be able to help me out.

I have a desktop with two 3.1 (gen 2) ports; one each of type A and C on an ASMedia host controller. Plus a number of USB 3.0 (gen 1)ports. The 3.1 host controller has the latest driver (10.0.19041.662 - nov 2020) and also the latest firmware (mobo bios is out of date however).

The problems come up when connecting a USB mass storage device (Asus enclosure + Samsung M2 NVME) directly to the USB 3.1 gen 2 ports on the motherboard. I am getting several errors on both USB 3.1 gen 2 ports:

• A yellow exclamation point in device manager, under the controller, stating:

“Windows has stopped this device because it has reported problems. (Code 43) The USB device returned an invalid USB device descriptor.”

When this happens, the SSD is not usable.

• If I uninstall the USB enclosure and restart, the USB drive will occasionally work in the USB / C port, and register transfer speeds of close to 900 MB/S, but it has several issues when it works: (1) extended system freezes plus (2) the following error logged in event viewer:

“The IO operation at logical block address 0x0 for Disk 4 (PDO name: \Device\000000a6) was retried.”

• When I am momentarily able to see the SSD, SMART data is showing incorrect information via the USB 3.1 port (it shows temps of 3000*C, incorrect symbols for information and 0 r/w usage and power count).

• I also got one BSOD the first time I plugged this thing into the USB/A 3.1 gen 2 port: “stop code: system service exception”

“What failed: FLTMGR.SYS”

Things I've tried so far:

My desktop also has type A and C USB 3.0 ports (Intel USB 3.0 eXtensible controller) and everything works fine, no issues, except that the transfer speed is capped at the USB 3.0 limit of 5 Gbit/s (so real world 440 MB/S).

I tried the USB enclosure in a different PC with a USB 3.1 gen 2 port, and it works fine, no errors logged, and it gets close to 1,000 MB/S transfer speed. SMART data is also correct.

I also tried plugging the SSD into the PC directly via PCiE and the SSD works fine, no errors, no system freezes.

I also tried three different USB 3.2 cables, all same issues (except the USB A cable is worse in terms of I can never see the drive.

I also tried uninstalling the host driver and updating, no change.

I’m not sure where to go from here. Perhaps a motherboard issue? Or other thoughts? Sorry if I don't respond right away, going to sleep and then busy day tomorrow but I will be coming back here later tomorrow or I guess today now.

This box says I need to include my windows version number: Windows 10 (20H2)

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Update 12/16/20.

The manufacturers do not offer drivers for the USB device or the host controller. Host controller was using a generic windows driver. I updated the host controller driver with an ASMedia driver google found on Dell's website (details below) for a comparable system, and all the above problems with the USB/C port went away except the transfer speed is capped at 636 MB/s. Same for the USB/ A 3.1 gen 2 port, except it is capped at 20 MB/s so unusable. Still an improvement from before but not a solution.

ASMedia USB eXtensible Host Controller Driver
Version: 1.16.61.1, A17
Release date: 15 Jul 2020

You dont need driver for this controller. Uninstall it from control panel and leave the windows driver.

When I had the windows driver installed the device didn't work at all and I got all the errors (BSOD, device stopped, and IO error)

I realize that the windows driver should be good (my working pc is on the same generic windows driver version that I updated in this pc) which was why I was thinking there might be something wrong with the host controller.

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Update 12/17
I uninstalled the AS Media host controller and hub, disk drive, and mass storage device, repaired some corrupted files, restarted and reinstalled the default win 10 drivers. The transfer speeds are up to 830 MB/S, but it's getting serious freezing at 4K random r/w (PC will lockup for 30 to 60 seconds) only via the ASMedia 3.1 (gen 2) host controller, the generic 3.0 controller is fine, and only on this PC. So aggravating..

Before read the next paragraph do you have updated your bios?

There exist firmware updates for this device like this, but i dont know if it is compatible 100% with yours :
-https://www.dell.com/support/home/el-gr/drivers/driversdetails?driverid=cmx17
If you take the responsibility and want to install it these are the instructions:


Installation
1. Double-click the new icon on the desktop.
2. The Self-Extracting window appears and prompts you to unzip to C:\DELL\DRIVERS\CMX17.
Where CMX17 is the name of the file to be downloaded. Write down this path so the executable (.exe) file can be found later.
3. Click OK when the Self-Extractor window is displayed.
4. After completing the file extraction, if the Self-Extractor window is still open, close it.
5. Click Start button and then click Run.
6. Type C:\DELL\DRIVERS\CMX17 (where CMX17 is the name of the file) in the Open textbox and then click OK.
7. Follow the on-screen installation instructions.

Thanks, yes I had updated the firmware for the ASMedia host controller already.

I am not on the most recent system bios, but the patch is for an unrelated matter.

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Update 12/19/20. Problem identified. System freezing and loss of SMART data is a driver problem, not a hardware problem.

Either a compatibility issue with the Win 10 generic extensible host controller driver (11/16/2020, ver 10.0.19041.662), or a file corruption that uninstalling and reinstalling the driver isn't fixing.

I booted the PC from a separate OS on my backup drive and all of the problems with the USB/C 3.1 gen 2 port were 100% resolved, benchmarks where they should be.

I might try a new/clean install on a test drive to confirm if it's the 11/16/20 windows driver at fault vs. a file corruption that I can't locate.

I have an identical Evo drive on another PC that I swapped out for secondary confirmation and the same issues remained isolated to the host controller on my primary OS install.

You might wish to perform a repair on your Windows OS image. The link below covers all the aspects of doing so.

How to use DISM command tool to repair Windows 10 image | Windows Central

The driver versioning looks a bit odd to me as I also have the ASMedia USB3.1 eXtensible Host Controller with driver version 1.16.61.1 dated 5/20/2020 provided by ASMedia Technology Inc. I usually try to avoid ASMedia ports as they are notoriously slow.

I got my driver from the Microsoft Update Catalog here.
You will need to sort the "Last Updated" column to bring up the latest version.

It doesn't have a very descriptive labelling. It is titled, "ASMedia Technology Inc - USB - 1.16.61.1", but it works fine for me.



Edit: I just noticed your edited updates. The Dell driver versioning is closer to what I would expect.
I would try the one I posted above from the Microsoft Update Catalog that is provided by ASMedia Technology Inc.

My computer has a ThunderboltEX3 card that came with a CD with Intel USB3.1 software. Although I've downloaded the software to my computer, the device manager only shows usb 3.0 extensible drivers. Is my Thunderbolt card using the usb3.0 software, or the usb3.1 software?

You need to run the .exe file in the download to install the driver.

Must I uninstall the 3.0 drivers in order for the 3.1 to load?

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Must I uninstall the 3.0 drivers in order for the 3.1 to load?