Windows 8.1 USB 3 Ports Not Working


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I'm really not trying to format, but I'm all but sure I have no choice.

 

I was trying to get fastboot to work within my Windows 8.1 Professional environment. I went into the device manager, cleared out all of my USB Controllers and rebooted my machine, figuring that once they reinstalled, it would help fix my issue. Created an entirely new issue now, as my USB 3 ports do not work any more. My USB 2.0 ports work great.

 

I have a laptop with the same chipset, same OS, and there are two differences. On my desktop, there are two controllers missing.

 

1. Intel® USB 3.0 eXtensible Host Controller - 0100 (Microsoft)

2. USB Root Hub (xHCI)

 

The .sys files that make up the driver on my laptop are present on my desktop. My desktop simply ignores anything that's in the port. Here's what I've done.

 

1. Uninstalled/Reinstalled Chipset drivers from my PC Manufacturer (HP h9-1440t w/i7 3770K)

2. System Restore

3. Intel's Windows 7 drivers for my chipset (All methods fail to install)

4. USB Oblivion (clears out ghost USB devices)

5. Googled extensively!

6. CCleaner/Puran system utilities

 

My PC came with Windows 8. I upgraded to Windows 8.1 and Pro afterwards. From what I've read, there seems to be an issue with the upgrade process. I'm not sure who the blame lays with, but it seems to be something broken with Windows 8.1 since they're handling the drivers. Someone with more in depth knowledge about the inner wokings of this OS may know how I can get them back, or some steps I haven't tried.

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That's normal. Not all USB entries in the devices manager are actual physical hardware controllers, there's one virtual device for USB2 and another virtual device for USB3 that should never be deleted. Unfortunately I don't have a machine with USB3 to tell you the ID of the device where you must reload the correct driver (those devices should still be present), try checking on a similar machine. Also try disabling the USB3 ports in the BIOS UI, booting Windows again, then going back in the BIOS and re-enabling them.

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The only options for disabling USB in my BIOS are for security reasons...But, I did try it to be sure and that didn't work either...From days past, it seems like I remember going into safe mode and doing something there, but I can't really remember...I'm going to try that next. Thank you for that suggestion though, it at least got my mind moving again.

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The only options for disabling USB in my BIOS are for security reasons...But, I did try it to be sure and that didn't work either...From days past, it seems like I remember going into safe mode and doing something there, but I can't really remember...I'm going to try that next. Thank you for that suggestion though, it at least got my mind moving again.

You could go with the "nuclear" option, using sysprep to generalize the machine so that all the hardware is re-detected again, however I don't know how it behaves with user data (better make a backup first).

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There is something to writing out your issues that actually helps with the process...

 

Somewhere along the lines, I got fancy and remembered how windows layers things. So, I went back into the device manager > System Devices and uninstalled the SMBus Host Controller from there. Almost immediately, the 2 drivers reinstalled and upon a reboot, are working perfectly, USB 3 ports in tact. I do not have a technical explanation as to why that worked, but it did. Thanks for helping!

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