Windows 10 USB 3.0 speeds limited to 40MB/s

[Aniallation]

As of recently I've encountered an issue on both my PCs, desktop with Gigabyte B450 Aorus M board, and Asus Vivobook with Ryzen 5500U. Copying to/from USB 3.0 devices seems to be limited to 40MB/s max which is apparently the speed of USB 2.0. I've done some searches and almost all of results I can find seem to be people who have this issue with only the front ports on their PC and not the rear. In my case it is happening on all ports front and back, whether ones that run directly off the CPU or via the chipset. Drivers are up to date on both systems and I've tried multiple different B450 driver versions on the desktop. Is it a Windows 10 related issue?

 

This is happening with >90% of transfers for at least the past two weeks. Every now and then it will start off full speed again, but if it's a larger transfer, after a little bit it will drop back down, and do a "zigzag" speed pattern going up and down between 30-40MB/s. 

 

 

Even Dimitri from HardwareCanucks commented on having this same issue so it clearly can't be that uncommon but nobody seems to have found a fix?

[Mark Kaine]

18 minutes ago, Aniallation said:

Is it a Windows 10 related issue?

its more complicated than that. 

 

You see how it starts off fast and then falls to 33mb...? 

 

The first part is the cache, which is small and fast, the rest is the "real" speed of the device...(what device is it?)

 

And I think windows plays a role too, for example when I copy to ssd over usb3 this can happen too... it'll be faster than your example,  but nowhere near as fast as it should.  And even internally this can happen,  especially if its lots of small files...

 

 

So a combination of devices not being as fast as advertised (USB thumb drives typically) and windows being windows (highly unoptimized) Im guessing. 

 

 

 

 

[Aniallation]

3 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

its more complicated than that. 

 

You see how it starts off fast and then falls to 33mb...? 

 

The first part is the cache, which is small and fast, the rest is the "real" speed of the device...(what device is it?)

 

And I think windows plays a role too, for example when I copy to ssd over usb3 this can happen too... it'll be faster than your example,  but nowhere near as fast as it should.  And even internally this can happen,  especially if its lots of small files...

 

 

So a combination of devices not being as fast as advertised (USB thumb drives typically) and windows being windows (highly unoptimized) Im guessing. 

 

 

 

 

 

A Patriot Rage XT and a Crucial X6 SSD, both of which I know sustain much higher speeds than that, especially when reading. This also happens when copying one large file, which was what was happening in the screenshot I took in the OP.

[Mark Kaine]

4 minutes ago, Aniallation said:

 

A Patriot Rage XT and a Crucial X6 SSD, both of which I know sustain much higher speeds than that. This also happens when copying one large file, which was what was happening in the screenshot I took in the OP.

hmm, I see, yeah that is odd, for me its definitely happening more with the front ports.

Currently I'm using a external Toshiba hdd connected to the back port and im getting roughly 100-150mb, but yeah its not consistent at all, and exactly that phenomenon,  it'll start fast and can get really slow at any point,  though definitely less so than the front ports.

 

I know that doesn't answer your question really, but id like to know too what's causing this. I think its just a thing windows does to maintain data integrity,  and it can get really slow.