Asus P9X79 Pro USB 3.0 ports

piowoc

Member
Nov 4, 2012
55
0
61
Hi,

I have Asus P9X79 Pro and all four USB 3.0 ports on the back panel suddenly slowed down to the speed of USB 2.0. Interestingly, the USB 3.0 ports on the front panel still work with the proper USB 3.0 speed. All of them were tested with at least 3 different peripheral products: 2 different USB 3.0 memory card readers and an external USB 3.0 HDD.

Here is my exact configuration:
Board: ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. P9X79 PRO Rev 1.xx
BIOS: American Megatrends Inc. 3009 10/05/2012
Windows 7 Ultimate (x64) Service Pack 1 (build 7601)

It's really strange, because according to ASUS technical support there are only 2 USB controllers on this motherboard, one for USB 3.0 and another one for all USB 2.0, so logically all USB 3.0 should act exactly the same, but they don't.

I played with BIOS a bit, turned on and off all USB legacy support, but it didn't change anything.
Then I decided to try it with Windows 8 Pro x64, installed on a separate drive, but it didn't change the situation either.

Any suggestions?

Your replies will be appreciated.
Regards,
Peter
 

bankster55

Golden Member
Mar 24, 2010
1,124
0
0
Speaking basically:

There are no USB 3.0 Intel ports on X79 Pro
There are 2 front USB 3 ports with 19 pin header on mobo
There are 4 in back two as #6 and two as #8 in user manual I/O plate diagram
The USB 3.0 are ALL ASMedia chips which means USB controller must be enabled in onboard devices and drivers loaded and showing in dev manager. No unknown devices with yellow triangle shown in system devices. Look thru all USB entries there and make sure everything looks normal
I dont quite remember, but I think there two ASM entries in dev man - one for ea chip.
USB 3.0 is backwards compatible with 2.0 so flash drives must be USB 3.0 and so stated on purchase package.

And you MUST disable legacy 3.0 support in bios!!!

You might try a rerun of Intel chipset install pak 9.3.XXXX before anything since with various bios updates it may need to detect a newer OROM, And I would do a full cmos reset with PSU unplugged even before that.

You can make full copies of your bios pages and settings with a FAT32 stick and pressing F12 to make a screenshot (top middle and bottom) Clearing CMOS loses any profiles.

Edit:
Just noticed theres a ASM USB firmware update avail
http://www.overclock.net/t/1193055/...read-drivers-bioses-overclocking-updated-11-1
Very strange that yours was working USB 3, then not - could be corrupted bios flash - especially during the convert phase.

http://i.imgur.com/OFFgT.jpg
 
Last edited:

tweakboy

Diamond Member
Jan 3, 2010
9,517
2
81
www.hammiestudios.com
Where as Im assuming a P9X79 vanilla has usb 3.0 ports in the back ?

and wtf is the difference between a P8 board and a P9 board. ? I see people using Ivy on P8 boards. some using P9 with a sandy , Is X79 the latest major chipset ?
 

piowoc

Member
Nov 4, 2012
55
0
61
Hi,

I did almost anything you can think of, including the CMOS reset and the installation of the brand new ASM USB driver and ... it works as expected now!

I am unable to tell what exactly did the trick, but it was probably the CMOS clearing and the installation of the new driver combined.

Thank you so much bankster55 for all your tips! You are the best!

Regards,
Peter