USB NOT GETTING POWERED WHILE IN VM

[LemonIc3]

So I got a network adapter for a class and it powers up (indicated by the green light) while on the host machine but once it's connected to the VM it powers off. The VM can see its there but there is no power to the device... Any tips?

[Zando_]

It's a USB or PCIe device? And what are you making the VM with, a dedicated OS Hypervisor like Proxmox or an in-OS thing like Hyper-V/VirtualBox/VMWare's desktop offerings, etc. And what PC specs?

[SpookyCitrus]

5 minutes ago, LemonIc3 said:

So I got a network adapter for a class and it powers up (indicated by the green light) while on the host machine but once it's connected to the VM it powers off. The VM can see its there but there is no power to the device... Any tips?

Depending on what VM you are using it is most likely disabling networking devices. You would need to configure the VM to allow networking for it to work. 

[LemonIc3]

1 minute ago, Zando_ said:

It's a USB or PCIe device? And what are you making the VM with, a dedicated OS Hypervisor like Proxmox or an in-OS thing like Hyper-V/VirtualBox/VMWare's desktop offerings, etc. And what PC specs?

Its being used for an ethical hacking class for school. Its a USB network adapter. I'm using my laptop but for whatever reason this laptop didn't come with usb 3.0 ports so everything is connected to an external hub.. The specs are.. A ryzen 4900, 2060 max-q and 16 gig single stick RAM. 

[LemonIc3]

Just now, SpookyCitrus said:

Depending on what VM you are using it is most likely disabling networking devices. You would need to configure the VM to allow networking for it to work. 

I'm using VMWARE workstation 17.

[Zando_]

4 minutes ago, LemonIc3 said:

I'm using VMWARE workstation 17.

I use VMWare Fusion and occasionally Workstation when I'm on PC, not very heavily so I'm no expert but I've never had issues with passing through a USB thumb drive or similar (and fully formatting them to make bootable drives, that's normally what I use it for). Usually native device ports though. But on Macs with USB-C I've ran em through dongles without issue. May be a difference with how your OS (I assume Windows?) handles that sort of thing. I would try a native USB port if that's an option, USB 2.0 will be fine for Wi-Fi if you're not trying to shuffle gigabytes of data over it.

[LemonIc3]

7 minutes ago, Zando_ said:

I use VMWare Fusion and occasionally Workstation when I'm on PC, not very heavily so I'm no expert but I've never had issues with passing through a USB thumb drive or similar (and fully formatting them to make bootable drives, that's normally what I use it for). Usually native device ports though. But on Macs with USB-C I've ran em through dongles without issue. May be a difference with how your OS (I assume Windows?) handles that sort of thing. I would try a native USB port if that's an option, USB 2.0 will be fine for Wi-Fi if you're not trying to shuffle gigabytes of data over it.

Yep still nothing both it just totally turns off, VMWARE sees it though cause I get the "Connect device to VM" pop up but when I press connect and it just doesn't get powered back on after disconnecting from the host machine... Also yes I am on windows.

[Zando_]

14 minutes ago, LemonIc3 said:

Yep still nothing both it just totally turns off, VMWARE sees it though cause I get the "Connect device to VM" pop up but when I press connect and it just doesn't get powered back on after disconnecting from the host machine... Also yes I am on windows.

Interesting. I assume any virtualization-related features (if available) are enabled in-BIOS? Modern Ryzens should support all the stuff needed to passthrough devices, question is if the laptop OEM lets you enable them all. Outside of that I can't really reccomend anything else to try, hopefully someone more knowledgable has a better answer. I have been poking around with Proxmox (Debian based Hypervisor OS) and some devices just have issues shutting off and then powering back on when connected to a VM, so it could be the wifi dongle itself that's the issue too. 

[LemonIc3]

4 hours ago, Zando_ said:

Interesting. I assume any virtualization-related features (if available) are enabled in-BIOS? Modern Ryzens should support all the stuff needed to passthrough devices, question is if the laptop OEM lets you enable them all. Outside of that I can't really reccomend anything else to try, hopefully someone more knowledgable has a better answer. I have been poking around with Proxmox (Debian based Hypervisor OS) and some devices just have issues shutting off and then powering back on when connected to a VM, so it could be the wifi dongle itself that's the issue too. 

Well... I actually just bought another one and it came in tried it and same problem so I don't even know anymore, I tried on my main rig and same problem too, but I am gonna try the new one of the main rig as well

[Sauron]

Could be as simple as a missing driver in the guest OS. If you need the network connection on vmware I don't recommed doing it like this anyway, the usb passing feature is for storage devices; for networks use the dedicated NAT or bridge options in the virtual machine settings.