Front USB ports working for everything... but USB Sticks?

[-iSynthesis]

I have an unusual issue... Basically the front USB ports of my PC work for everything (Keyboard, mouse, game controllers, external harddrive, etc. etc.) but USB sticks... Both of the sticks are working on other PCs and on the motherboard ports, just not in the front.

They're detected in the BIOS and show up in device manager as "USB Mass Storage Device" but don't show up under Explorer nor Disk Management. When I plug any of them into one of the ports windows goes mad, explorer basically crashes (tries to load something), that "plugged device in"-sound appears about 5 times in a row and then just... nothing... Sometimes, in the beginning they show up in Explorer, however just for a few seconds and you can't interact with it.

I don't have anything else plugged in except keyboard and mouse (both connected to the motherboard directly).

Specs that matter are: ASRock Z87 Extreme 4, Bitfenix Shinobi XL (4 USB 3.0 ports at the front, all connected via the two USB 3.0 internal headers on the motherboard).

 

I'd massively appreciate if someone could help with this...

[Moonzy]

are the usb sticks USB 3.0 or 2.0?

the external hard disk that worked, is 3.0?

[-iSynthesis]

1 minute ago, Moonzy said:

are the usb sticks USB 3.0 or 2.0?

the external hard disk that worked, is 3.0?

Both sticks are USB 2.0 afaik, the harddrive is 3.0

[Moonzy]

Just now, -iSynthesis said:

Both sticks are USB 2.0 afaik, the harddrive is 3.0

tried updating the chipset and usb drivers?

[Windows7ge]

Is it very specifically just USB sticks or is it any form of mass storage device such as HDDs or SSDs in USB docks? It could be physical damage on the cables/connectors going to to USB ports. Data pins likely if not a malfunctioning custom USB controller built into the chassis.

[-iSynthesis]

36 minutes ago, Moonzy said:

tried updating the chipset and usb drivers?

I wish I could... But the intel driver utility (I can't quite find another way to download the drivers tbh) just says "No supported driver or software updates are available for your system.", the USB 3.0 Host Controller Drivers I could find wouldn't install either, saying "this platform is not supported" (says it supports up to Windows 7 on their website)

[-iSynthesis]

34 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

Is it very specifically just USB sticks or is it any form of mass storage device such as HDDs or SSDs in USB docks? It could be physical damage on the cables/connectors going to to USB ports. Data pins likely if not a malfunctioning custom USB controller built into the chassis.

My Western Digital 1TB external harddrive works on all 4 ports, which is just... plain weird to me at this point...

[Moonzy]

3 minutes ago, -iSynthesis said:

I wish I could... But the intel driver utility (I can't quite find another way to download the drivers tbh) just says "No supported driver or software updates are available for your system.", the USB 3.0 Host Controller Drivers I could find wouldn't install either, saying "this platform is not supported" (says it supports up to Windows 7 on their website)

the drivers from mobo website?

[-iSynthesis]

16 minutes ago, Moonzy said:

the drivers from mobo website?

I was able to get those downloaded, it said there were newer drivers on the system already, I tried to continue and it installed them but didn't fix the problem...

Edit: Device Manager says the following: 

"This device cannot start. (Code 10)

{Operation Failed}
The requested operation was unsuccessful."
 

[Moonzy]

8 minutes ago, -iSynthesis said:

I was able to get those downloaded, it said there were newer drivers on the system already, I tried to continue and it installed them but didn't fix the problem...

try disabling windows hardware driver update, uninstall them and install the ones from the website

 

windows could have installed wrong drivers 

[-iSynthesis]

35 minutes ago, Moonzy said:

try disabling windows hardware driver update, uninstall them and install the ones from the website

 

windows could have installed wrong drivers 

Sadly this didn't work... It's just so weird but I'm guessing it's something with backwards compatibility to 2.0 as it's working with 3.0 devices (sadly, don't have a usb 3.0 stick to try...), I'll try the internal 2.0 headers tomorrow if I have the time for it...

Thanks a lot for your help!

[Windows7ge]

1 hour ago, -iSynthesis said:

My Western Digital 1TB external harddrive works on all 4 ports, which is just... plain weird to me at this point...

This'll sound a little archaic but did wiggling the thumb drives change their behavior?

 

[Moonzy]

4 hours ago, -iSynthesis said:

Sadly this didn't work... It's just so weird but I'm guessing it's something with backwards compatibility to 2.0 as it's working with 3.0 devices (sadly, don't have a usb 3.0 stick to try...), I'll try the internal 2.0 headers tomorrow if I have the time for it...

Thanks a lot for your help!

Keyboard and mouse are 2.0 and it's weird it only affects thumb drive

[Windows7ge]

You could try booting a clean install of Windows then check their behavior. Should help direct us in terms of if it's a Windows problem or hardware problem.