MSI X370 USB3 External Hard Drive Randomly Disconnects

I have recently upgraded my motherboard (second hand), CPU (second hand) and memory (new), however I am now having USB external hard drive problems which I didn't have before.

I mostly use Teracopy to copy/move files, but since upgrading it fails most of the time on the verifying stage when I copy from internal hard drive AND external hard drive.

I have the external USB3 hard drive in 2 partitions.

I have tried 2 front USB ports (USB3 & USB2).

I currently have it on the rear USB3.1 port and the problems of momentarily disconnecting happen on all 3 USB ports.

I have run a surface scan for and there are no errors. I am currently running a bad sector scan which if the program is accurate reports 1 bad cluster. All my drives are in very good condition and although a few years old now still appear to be in very good health until now with a change of motherboard, CPU and memory.

When I copy onto the external USB hard drive there are occasions some files will not be copied but mostly it seems to be when Teracopy is verifying, Bart Backupper program also reports errors sometimes.

Winamp which I use for music sometimes reports that I have just plugged in my external hard drive and would I like to use with Winamp due to this error.

The previous owner of the motherboard flashed the bios and it’s date is 13/11/19 (American Megatrends Inc. – Version = 1.NU AMD Agesa Combo-AM4 1.0.0.4).

I did have a problem where my external USB hard drive didn’t show up in the boot menu but that was just once. Upon the first install on Windows 10 it hot to the stage of copying files and then aborted itself. when I booted Linux Mint (Live distro) it hung and I had to restart the computer.

I have reinstalled Windows 10, I have updated the USB drivers and annoyingly the problem persists.

Does anyone know what the problem is with my computer?

Thanks.


My system spec is:

Operating System = Windows 10 Pro 64bit.

CPU = AMD Ryzen 5 1600 – 6 core, 12 threads - (Recently upgraded, Second hand)
Motherboard = MSI X370 Gaming Pro Carbon - (Recently upgraded, Second hand)
RAM = Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2x8gb) DDR4 3000 MHz C16 XMP 2.0 - (Recently upgraded, New)

PSU = Corsair VX450W PSU
Graphics Card = Nvidia GTX (Inno3D) 1060 6gb
Audio = Sound Blaster Z


Hard Drives:

SAMSUNG SSD 830 (128gb) – Sata
Samsung ST500LM012 HN-500MBB (500mb) - Sata
Samsung M3 portable (1tb) - USB3

Blu Ray Recorder = LG HL-DT-ST BD-RE BH16NS40 - Sata

 

Thank you. I've had this PSU for about 10 years or so, I have had a FM2+ 7670k 3.6ghz (95w TDP) CPU and an older more powerful graphics cards in whilst using this PSU with no problems. The last graphics card I suspected was a faulty Gainward Nvidia GTX 260. I have also had an AM3 Quad Core running on it as well.

My Ryzen 5 1600 is 3.2ghz (65w) TDP.

I have done a memory test using memtest and it reported no errors with this Corsair DDR4 ram. I have it running at 2666mhz (Ryzen 1st generation speed).

It's not holding the connection as it is taking many attempts to look for bad clusters with this USB external hard drive as it keeps reporting "Failed to open the storage device, Please reload the disk information and retry" Please refer to the screenshot that I have attached. I still have about 200gb to check but it has displayed this error this several times. I will continue the check tomorrow.

 

Sounds to me like the external drive is the problem. Drives can encounter many problems aside from what a surface scan can detect. Heck, it could even be an intermittent cable problem on the external drive.

 

It disconnects very briefly. I never bad problems with the external hard drive before, I backed up gigabytes of files before replacing the motherboard, CPU and memory onto the external hard drive the day before without any problems. It's only when restoring my data that I had the problem with it.


I have the ISO disc image files on the external hard drive, which I install Windows from and run Linux. I did a fresh install of Windows after upgrading.


I have had the hard drive for about 7 years and it has been lightly used. I have used it more lately as I have music samples and VST's stored on it. Other than that, I have only used it for backup.


There has been no computer crashes no blue screens, I can play games such as the Witcher 3 on it at very high settings.


Temps are very reasonable, I don’t “stress” the computer much other than playing the occasional game which I have hardly done on this computer as I only built it 2 weeks ago.


I have done hard drive self-tests (done on 2 programs), S.M.A.R.T health reports everything fine, not many programs can display external hard drive info.


My computer case is the same. The front USB ports are on the top of the case, cables are properly connected. I have rarely moved the hard drive, cable and case are in excellent physical condition.


I suspect it's the motherboard chipset, I know the memory controller is both on the X370 chipset and on the Ryzen CPU itself. The Asmedia chip is connected to the X370 chipset according to the MSI motherboard manual.

It could possibly be a power issue from the motherboard. (MY PSU is plenty powerful enough.


I have a USB2 hub (via my monitor) connected, a laser printer, and PCTV connected, all on the USB ports but they are very rarely used.


In the last few days I have cleared everything off the external hard drive and reformatted it and it has made no difference. The problem remains. I am currently trying the hard drive on a forth rear USB port (3.2 generation).


Device manager reports everything is working properly, there are no exclamation marks.


I have tried “allow the computer to turn off this device to save power" disabling USB Selective Suspend in Windows Advanced power management but it made no difference and I never had to do this before with my previous builds.


It’s frustrating.

 

There's a lot happening, so some of these suggestions you may have already tried, or are not relevant...but the bottom line is that you need to start ruling things out.

1) Are you able to transfer files to and from the 2 drives if the external drive is disconnected?

2) Have you installed the latest chipset driver?

3) Unplug all needless usb devices and try transferring to and from the external drive.

4) Try 1 ram stick at a time as was mentioned. You said you did a memory test, but software memory tests are only accurate if the result is "failed". A passed result does not necessarily mean the ram is ok.

5) Was the ram and cpu previously used with that mobo, or did you get those separately?

 

The only driver that I have updated so far is:

The USB drivers are:

ASMedia Technology Inc.

Driver Date = 25/03/2019

Driver Version = 1.16.56.1


From the file = 'asmedia-usb3-v1.16.56.1.zip'.

I updated this driver with ASMedia drivers although they are older than what Windows 10 installs by default by a few months, they are official. However, when Windows installs itself it installs a Microsoft written driver for the USB ports.


Today I had the hard drive plugged into the USB 3.2 and it got through a bad cluster scan with 100% pass. However I then put the drive back in the USB 3.1 port and it didn't show in bios for the first few times.

It is showing in the bios now and I am running another scan to check that the hard drive stays connected the whole time.



There are no problems with the internal drives and I can transfer between them without error (so far).

I unplugged the hub which is part of my monitor (it contains an extra 4 USB2 ports, 1 of which I use briefly daily to backup my documents, bookmarks and emails from Firefox and Thunderbird) from the USB and plugged the external hard drive into that port then when I ran the bad cluster scan it succeeded with 100% pass.

The motherboard, ram and CPU were bought separately.

The CPU was bought from Amazon Warehouse and came with the stock AMD cooler. It was in excellent condition.

The motherboard was bought from eBay. The seller had 100% feedback and the board was in excellent condition, boxed manual and accessories apart from the M.2 Cover.

The Memory was bought new from Amazon.





I haven't tried 1 stick of ram at a time yet. I haven't installed the latest AMD drivers. I am running Windows 10 Pro 64 bit version 1909 (clean install since upgrade).

I know nothing is 100% reliable with software and hardware but I have never felt any cause for concern until this upgrade.


My keyboard is = Corsair K30 (backlit keyboard)
My mouse is = Thunderbird Gaming Mouse

 

Try these in this order:

Someone may have played with the bios settings, so restore the bios defaults.

Stop going through the hub for now. Unplug all needless usb devices and try transferring to and from the external drive with it plugged in directly to the computer.

Go to the MSI site and download the latest chipset driver, bios update, and USB driver.

If all of that doesn't find the culprit, you may want to post on a msi forum.

 

Bios was reset when I installed the CPU. I also manually reset it myself.

The hub is connected and the drive is being scanned again for bad clusters, mainly to test the connection between the computer and the hard drive.

I started a return on eBay with the seller last week (which he has complied to) but I wanted to try to fix this issue as the rest of the motherboard (other than the USB problem) appears to be very stable and healthy. I can still get a refund for the motherboard if necessary (I always buy when I know I can get a refund if neccessary).

I haven't updated the bios as I wouldn't still be covered by eBay (frustratingly as I would've done this sooner).
https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/support/X370-GAMING-PRO-CARBON#down-bios

My post is also on the MSI forum:
https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=330107.msg1952169#msg1952169

I am also on Toms Hardware Forums:
https://forums.tomshardware.com/thr...b3-hard-drive-randomly-disconnecting.3560394/

Overclockers forums:
https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/threads/usb-external-hard-drive-randomly-disconnects.18874565/

 

I have always suspected it too be a chipset problem and it looks like I'm right. Drivers and bios updates are unlikely to fix any problem as it at a hardware level a customer is unable to fix. I had problems on a few occasion of the hard drive not showing in the bios and also when I ran Linux Mint from a live distro (running from my external hard drive where I install from), Linux halted upon loading the operating system. Windows 10 also halted once when I tried to install it from the external hard drive. Fortunatley the length of time varies and I was able to install Windows.

In the last two weeks since this upgrade I have also been researching on the internet about this issue and it would seem apparent that these forum posts and articles are relevant to my problem. Please refer to the links below (this is just a few).


https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=307278.0

View: https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/6m3kt5/if_youre_getting_random_usb_disconnects_on_ryzen/


https://www.google.com/search?q=msi...so=_40INXszXFL201fAPg_G46AM55:908.5.5.5.5.5.5

https://community.amd.com/thread/220104

https://hardforum.com/threads/usb-diconnectes-on-ryzen.1948783/

https://www.techpowerup.com/223583/...-usb-3-1-issues-could-escalate-costs#comments

https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/875478-are-ryzen-memory-problems-still-existent/



An article with a the diagram of the X370 chipset layout = https://www.extremetech.com/computing/284887-asmedia-still-likely-building-amd-chipsets

In my motherboard manual the 2 rear 3.1 gen2 USB ports go from the X370 chipset to the ASMedia chipset and then to the two 3.1 gen2 ports as demonstrated on page 19 = https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/support/B450-GAMING-PRO-CARBON-AC#down-manual

I had better experience yesterday (1/1/20) when I managed to get through a full bad cluster scan which took nearly 3.5 hours to complete on my Samsung M3 portable external hard drive 1TB. It was on the ASMedia 3.1 gen2 port yesterday (I have hardly used my computer today). My hard drive has no bad clusters.

The problem of disconnecting USB devices would appear to be a common issue with a Ryzen CPU as most of the USB ports (including USB2) are directly controlled by the Ryzen CPU or X370 chipset.

If a device draws too much power then it disconnects hence the problem I was having as it only happened when using my drive for more than a few seconds (time varies before disconnecting). It would appear to be inherited by the 2nd generation Ryzen CPU's as well.



I am currently considering a change to an Intel CPU (hoping that it might be a better experience). I have always had AMD CPU's since my Athlon 800mhz (cartridge type CPU) but this problem is frustrating.

Thanks to everyone for your help, but it has been a frustrating problem as I feel I cannot trust my computer with at least some of my data.

I hope this post will be of use to people that are experiencing the same or a similar problem.