Windows 8 / 8.1 USB file transfer consistently freezes whole system

Question

I'm running Windows 8.1 Pro (64 bit) on a Gigabyte GA-Z77X-D3H (rev 1.0) motherboard with a Samsung 830 SSD and 8GB of RAM. All is normally well in general day to day use.

However, when I plug in a USB3 hard drive (Both a Samsung USB3 hard drive and a Hard drive dock with Sata hard drive plugged into it) to the back ports and initiate a transfer from my server over the network to the hard drive, after a minute or so into the copy process, the speed indicator graph plunges to the bottom (zero) and the system freezes and becomes unresponsive within about 5 seconds. i.e. the mouse will move and still click for a couple of seconds but then the whole system freezes.

Transfers over the network to an attached USB3 hard drive are always and consistently reproducing the same system freezing. I've also had the system freeze when writing to the USB3 hard drive when recovering an Acronis backup which was not over the network but was stored on an internal hard drive - so I think this is a system/usb issue not necessarily a network one but I'm not sure. Writing to USB2 sticks doesn't seem to cause the same problem.

So far I've tried:

Solution 1

So I've finally discovered a solution after months of stress and pulling my hair out - wanted to update here to help out anyone else with the problem.

I was literally about to go out and buy a new motherboard one morning when I found this webpage: http://z9.io/2013/11/26/yes-finally-fixed-ssd-freezing-computer/ and did a bit more digging into the problem.

I went into the BIOS, changes the SATA mode from AHCI to IDE, rebooted, tested USB transfers and.... No crashes. The system as a whole seems more stable too. Speed is as good as, if not better than before. I did have to do a bit of tweaking to get the system to boot after the SATA mode change (boot into Safe Mode, remove the SATA drivers AHCI drivers from Device Manager, reboot) but now all is running smoothly. No crashes, no freezes, no hangs. I'm very relieved.

It hasn't actually "fixed" the issue in the sense that there's clearly an issue either with the controller or the SSD itself - but there are no obvious downsides to this workaround.

Solution 2

1. Press Windows Key + R and type devmgmt.msc in the Run dialog box to open Device Manager.

2. When the Device Manager window opens, you have to seek the USB device with whom you’re facing trouble. It may be listed under Human Interface Devices as USB Input Device.

If you don’t find it there, you can expand Universal Serial Bus controllers. Here, you’ll find a list of USB devices you’ve connected with your system so far. To find the one from the list for which you have an issue, you have to follow the trial and error method. That is, plug and remove the device and note the changes among the list of devices for Universal Serial Bus controllers. The entry which is appeared and then removed subsequently is the entry for issued device. Keep the device plugged in and right click over this entry, pick Properties.

3. In the device properties window , switch to Details tab. Now click the drop-down menu for Property and select Device Instance Path. Note down the corresponding Value because we will need this value in further steps. By the way, this value iscombination of three IDs; namely Vendor ID (VID), Product ID (PID), Instance ID.

4. Press Windows Key + R combination, type put regedit in Run dialog box and hit Enter to open the Registry Editor.

5. Navigate here:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\USB\\Device Parameters

Substitute the Device Instance Path part (after USB) obtained from the step 3.

6. In the right pane of Device Parameters key look for the DWORD named EnhancedPowerManagementEnabled which must be showing its Value data as 1. Double click on the same to edit the DWORD:

7. In the Edit Dword Window, change the Value data to 0. Click OK. You may now close the Registry Editor as well as Device Manager.

Reboot the machine to get fixed!

Martin