USB port functionality inconsistency

I hope that the title of this thread alone indicates the wordiness and obscurity of this question which cannot be answered by Google. On my laptop there are 3 USB ports. I swear that on 2 occasions the best USB port (The one that can sync with my phone, transfer large files onto flashdrives, etc) switched to a different port. Another example is my wired mouse not functioning well on the 2 inferior ports. So is it common for the "best" usb port to switch between ports?

I don't have a good answer but I feel your pain. I know that Windows is weird with USB ports and drivers. Sometimes it takes uninstalling some drivers and reinstalling them in a different order to get it straightened out. Sometimes the "main" USB port changes for some reason. Sometimes a USB port simply disengages and won't recognize anything plugged into it. It drives me nuts at times and usually seems to fail when I need to get something important done.

That's the amazing thing about Windows machines, those impossible alterations that just sort of randomly occur that in many cases should not be physically possible. Just got rid of a Windows laptop that magically switched the axis on its touchpad - right/left was up/down, up/down was right/left. Geek forums said even with hardcore registry hacks you probably wouldn't be able to make your laptop do this yourself..

Good to know I am not alone I do believe it has to do with the un/reinstalling of drivers everytime a mouse/phone/drive is plugged in.

A lot of times, you plug in a device into a different USB port, and it has to install the driver because it assumes it is a different device. Same driver, same device, different port.

I had a similar experience with multiple monitors. No matter what I tried, couldn't get the left monitor to be the left one in the OS, and the right monitor to be on the right in the OS. Thought I would trick it by physically swapping the monitors' positions. Somehow, on next boot, it changed up so that again, the left monitor was the right one and vice versa.

Yes, exactly, once you plug a device (for example external USB Logitech headphones) mini usb adapter into a port, it tends to be very specific about where that device goes back in - usually.

I will give a thumbs up to the people that developed USB 3 - it is so much faster than USB 2, that I can use an external patriot USB stick as a much faster hard drive then the one that came with the laptop.

That being said - USB still really doesn't seem like it did anything that could not be done if the industry had just developed a mini powered Ethernet port instead. Maybe I am missing something, but ordinary Ethernet is still a lot faster than usb, at least by specs.

As far as your mouse - I am not an MS fan boy at all, but I have had really good luck with a 5 button MS mobile mouse 6000. Amazing battery life, and it works on just about any surface.

I wish windows phone did a better job of supporting some external usb functions - it is a bit limiting.

USB still feels like something that was tacked on rather than built in on Windows machines. It's gotten a lot better than it was in the early days of USB 1.0 but it still needs improvement in terms of glitchy drivers.

I've had my problems as well. I have USB 2.0 ports on the front and back of my tower. Some devices (different flash drives, external drive enclosures, etc) would work if plugged in in the rear but not the front. And vice versa sometimes. Sooo.. I recently added a PCI Express USB 3.0 card with a duel front port panel. After a couple of weeks of working beautifully, now, port 2 only connects as a USB 2. !! Reinstalling drivers didn't help.

Sorry for the delay in my response, just noticed this thread.

I had a situation with a new laptop in that the USB 3 port would go to sleep in the middle of a transfer, or mouse use, or whatever, with random timing as to simply stopping operation. The two USB 2 ports driven by the same card would still be operational.

I eventually discovered reports on the Internet of the Renesas USB controllers with some bad programming for the microcontrollers on the USB controller card. The only solution was to change out that internal USB card.

Rather than send the laptop back to the manufacturer, I took the laptop in to a local authorized repair shop - commercial and focused on businesses, not your BB or oriented towards consumer operations. The repair shop tech confirmed that the Renesas USB 3.0 programming was defective. If you were lucky, you could load new firmware, maybe. They replaced the card under warranty. All has been well for over a year.

HarryN said:

Yes, exactly, once you plug a device (for example external USB Logitech headphones) mini usb adapter into a port, it tends to be very specific about where that device goes back in - usually.

I will give a thumbs up to the people that developed USB 3 - it is so much faster than USB 2, that I can use an external patriot USB stick as a much faster hard drive then the one that came with the laptop.

That being said - USB still really doesn't seem like it did anything that could not be done if the industry had just developed a mini powered Ethernet port instead. Maybe I am missing something, but ordinary Ethernet is still a lot faster than usb, at least by specs.

Click to expand...

Gigabit tops out @ 120MB/second. I have seen good thumb drives hold sustained reads of 135.

turbodog said:

Gigabit tops out @ 120MB/second. I have seen good thumb drives hold sustained reads of 135.

Click to expand...

I agree that USB 3 is now in the same speed range (+/- 10 - 20%) as gigabit Ethernet. Since gigabit Ethernet has been around for so long compared to USB 3, the question still remains though - has USB really brought anything to the table that could not have been done with a focused, mechanical, POE, and software tweak of gigabit Ethernet ? Maybe it has, and I just don't understand the technical benefits and implementation details sufficiently.

USB is cheaper than POE gigabit.
Most computers only have one ethernet port, which is used for networking.
Ethernet is meant for connecting devices. Rather than to have a device with built-in nic, would have to make an ad-hoc network automatically and automatically allow hole in firewall, etc.,etc., just to be able to browse files on a device using ethernet as its interface. USB basically does this by itself already.

I too have wondered, though, if gigabit has been around for so long (us spoiled brats and our gigabit ethernet! It's not THAT old...), why no easy hacky way to make a non-networking device take advantag eo fthis interface speed? But then again, it is a bit easier to take advantage of spare PCIe ports nowdays.