Can't get my new USB 3.0 PCI Express card to work

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okay player

n00b
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May 24, 2012
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4
Hi guys,

I recently bought a new external HD and thought I'd try to get the most of it by adding USB 3.0 to my PC.

The hardware and driver install seems to go fine, but shortly after that I get a pop-up claiming:

"Power Surge on Hub Port
A USB device has exceeded the power limits of its hub port."

which seems odd considering there isn't anything connected to it.

I've tried uninstalling and completely removing the device as well as installing a completely different USB 3.0 PCI Express card with the same results. Also tried resetting BIOS to factory default and that didn't help either. Is this an issue with my mobo?

Any idea's?

Thanks!
 
Specs of your PC and the list of which cards you tried would help.
 
Sorry, it really is shameful I didn't include that...

Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.13ghz
Asus P5B Deluxe w/ wifi
2 GB RAM
Seagate 750 GB HD
EVGA 8800GTX
Creative X-Fi
Silverstone Strider 750W PSU

Running Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit.

The card I have currently is a Mediasonic device. (Has a smaller, 4 pin port for power) In Device Manager, it's listed as "Renesas Electronics USB 3.0 Root Hub/Host Controller"

The first card was a Syba (Best Connectivity) device. (This card used Molex for power)

Edit: yes, I was sure to plug in the power connectors for each card.
 
Can you try the USB 3.0 devices in another PC and see if it exhibits the same issues?
 
One internet post I saw on this was from a guy who said he fixed it by changing the power connector going to the USB card. I guess he originally had it on a power cable with multiple devices coming off of it. When he switched to a power cable that wasn't being shared with other devices, his problem went away. Maybe that was causing him some sort of sag-surge issue?

One other option that comes to mind is using a newer Renesas driver. I have a SIIG USB 3.0 card in my rig and it also uses the Renesas chipset. I recently updated that driver using a driver update from Intel. It's intended for their motherboards that have the Renesas chipset built in, but it worked just fine with my SIIG card. Once you get that driver installed, you can go to the start menu and find a "Renesas Electronics" folder. There is a utility in there that launches a small driver dialogue window. Included in that window is a checkbox labeled "Disable USB 3.0 Power Management Functions". You may want to check that box, reboot, and see if that clears up your issue. I know some USB 3 solutions include a "fast charge" option that's intended to allow faster battery charging of cell phones, but I wonder if something like that may be causing you issues? I've never been totally clear what this option does in this driver, but I remember some people saying it fixed some problems for them when I investigated it a few months back.

The link below will direct you to that driver from Intel. It is the 2.1.28.1 driver that came out in April 2012. It includes both the 32-bit and 64-bit drivers.

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Det..."renesas+usb+3"&DownloadType=Drivers&lang=eng


Another oddity I ran into with my card, when I first installed it, was getting it into an agreeable PCI-e slot on my Asus P6T Deluxe. I first tried it in a little PCI-e x4 slot that is above my graphics card. It would have seemed to have been a good use of the slot, but the card never really worked right and my driver install even seemed to freak out. I then moved it to one of my unused x16 slots and it worked just fine. Don't know why. Just glad it worked.

Might also want to note which BIOS you are running on your motherboard. Just looking at the Asus site, it looks like there have been lots of updates to that BIOS. One of the intermediate ones listed "USB Enable/Disable" though I would think that would just have to deal with the onboard USB 2.0 stuff.
 
Last edited:
Thanks for all the help so far!

I plugged the power straight from the PSU instead of piggybacking it from something else, and no longer get the power surge pop up! Such a noob mistake... sigh. So yeah, the card now recognizes USB devices...hooray!

The odd thing is when I plugged the hard drive in, a popup told me 'this device can operate faster using USB 3.0' :rolleyes: I started to backup my music directory (110GB) and it was scheduled to take about 2 hours... Is there a way I can check to make sure the device is working at the speed it should be?
 
It is not a noob mistake. I discovered the same problem of the power limit garbage with a usb 3.0 card that I have by trial and error. The good thing is that most modern mobo's have usb 3.0 integrated so this will be a short lived problem.
 
okay player said:
Thanks for all the help so far!

I plugged the power straight from the PSU instead of piggybacking it from something else, and no longer get the power surge pop up! Such a noob mistake... sigh. So yeah, the card now recognizes USB devices...hooray!

The odd thing is when I plugged the hard drive in, a popup told me 'this device can operate faster using USB 3.0' :rolleyes: I started to backup my music directory (110GB) and it was scheduled to take about 2 hours... Is there a way I can check to make sure the device is working at the speed it should be?
Click to expand...

One thing you may need to check is if you are using a USB 3.0 cable. If you have a USB 3.0 device but use an older USB 2.0 cable, the whole thing will be slowed down to USB 2.0 speeds.
 
Pretty sure it's a USB 3.0 Cable... it's USB to MicroB and the inside of the USB connector is blue which I believe indicates 3.0. But yeah, everytime I plug it into a port on the card a popup tells me 'This device can perform faster.'

I completely reinstalled the card/original drivers and same deal...
 
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