0

I seem to have a strange issue with my PC. The devices which are connected to it are randomly getting disconnected, only to be connected again in like a second.

I typically observe the issue when I connect a usb 3.0 drive to the pc and start copying large ammounts of data (direction of data transfer does not matter). When the copying happens I look at the transfer speeds to/from the usb drive and see that it hovers about 70MB/s then drops to 0MB/s every few seconds.

During those periods when I observe 0MB/s copying speed, sometimes this usb drive disappears from the system only to be reconnected in a second. Sometimes I also see my keyboard and mouse lose power and disconnect also. Even bluetooth mouse sometimes get disconnected during this period (it reconnects in a few seconds, but I cannot move mouse during this periods).

Another issue which happens pretty randomly is when I reboot I see that one of my harddrives is missing (I can sometimes see it as not formatted properly), but when I reboot again the drive reappears. I think this was caused by faulty hard drive, but I've already replaced all of them during few months and the issue is still here. I've also noticed that hard drive is disappearing more frequently if I connect additional sata hard drive to the PC.

I'm starting to think this is either a faulty motherboard or a psu (will try replacing the psu first). I'm asking here, because maybe someone had a similar problem and could point out a possibly faulty component which could cause this, or point out what else could I try.

What was done: Check disk was run on all drives (there were sometimes errors caused by sudden disconnect of a drive, but were repaired, when run again there were no errors). Hard drives which were thought to be faulty were replaced. Computer was cleaned inside.

Computer specification: Cpu: Intel Core i5 6600k @3.5 (stock speed, not overclocked), Ram: Corsair DDR4 2x4GB 2400MHz, CL14, Vengeance Mobo: Gigabyte GA-Z170-D3H rev. 1.0 (bios F5) PSU: CoreXStream OCZ-CXS500W Drive 1 (system): Samsung 850Evo 250GB Drive 2: Hitachi 2TB (HUA723020ALA641) Drive 3: Seagate 250GB (ST3250620NS) Usb hard drive: Seagate expansion 1.5TB - when copying to/from this drive the errors happen more frequently, but the drive itself is perfectly stable on another pc Hub: Chinese usb 3.0 hub (problem happens with this disconnected as well) Keyboard: Genesis R33 usb Mouse: A4tech XL-747H usb

Is there anything I can do to narrow down which component is faulty? Best regards and thanks in advance

Improve this question

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
0

All the cases I saw with the similar problem were lack of power supplied to the external drive. So, if your external box doesn't have it's own power supply then USB is not providing enough power. Take note that connecting USB 3.0 device consuming more than 500 mA is a bad idea bcoz USB 2.0 port can provide max 500 mA.

Improve this answer
3
  • Hi, I've bought a new PSU (xfxforce.com/en-us/products/ts-series-bronze-full-wired/…), and situation is improved. I still see problem with transfer speeds but now I only see them when copying to USB drive, not from it. However no other devices get disconnected now. I don't see this problem when I'm copying data to usb 3.0 pendrive, so maybe something else is wrong with the usb drive itself.
    – Mikaka
    Commented Aug 29, 2018 at 18:26
  • @Mikaka from what you say it' still power issue. This specific device USB drive is consuming too much power, more than MB can provide. It was improved by the new PSU, but not ideally coz MB has it's own limitations. I believe that your external drive doesn't have it's own power supply? if so, that's the root cause.
    – Hardoman
    Commented Aug 29, 2018 at 19:59
  • I have this problem quite often. An external drive will drop out in the middle of a copy operation. I have seen it with the internal SD card, USB jump drives, and external hard drives. It happens on USB ports that are internal to the computer, and ones that have external power. More often than not, it is the source that drops out.
    – codingCat
    Commented Aug 27, 2019 at 20:32
0

Just in case anyone finds this in the future and has similar problem.

I think it is fine now. I decided to take the risk and updated the bios of the mobo.

I had F5 bios before, and now have F22f and I don't see this problem anymore. I'm running for 3 weeks on it and it seems to be fine.

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .