I have a Z440 system which, for reasons unknown, intermittently fails to recognize any USB 3.0 thumb drives. I am not able to discern any type of pattern for failure or resolution. On occasion when I plug in a USB 3.0 thumb drive the drives activity indicator fails to illuminate and the OS does not see the drive to mount it. I can plug a USB 2.0 device into the same port and everything works as expected. I can take the USB 3.0 drive and plug it into the rear ports and it functions as expected. This behavior is not consistent as there are occasions when the USB 3.0 drives work fine in the front USB ports. Rebooting doesn't consistently resolve the problem.
What I have done to troubleshoot:
- Rebooted the system
- Used multiple USB 3.0 drives from the same manufacturer.
- Used different USB 3.0 drives from different manufacturers.
- Used different capacity drives (ranging from 8GB to 64GB).
- Tested these same drives in the front USB 3.0 ports on my Z620 system without problem.
- Reseated the USB 3.0 cable at both the motherboard connector and the I/O board connection.
- Replaced the entire I/O board (note this does not include the cable, just the I/O board).
- Ensured I am running the latest firmware.
The problem does not appear to be OS related as when this issue occurs I am unable to boot from the front USB ports. The same USB 3.0 drive boots fine using the rear USB 3.0 ports.
Has anyone else experienced this behavior on their Z440 front USB ports? If so how did you correct the problem? The next step is to try replacing the USB cable between the motherboard and I/O board however I suspect that will not solve the problem. The only other thing I can think of is an issue with the motherboard.
Any help is appecriated, even if it's to say "I haven't had that problem on my Z440 system".
Configuration:
Z440, optical drive, media reader, 16GB (third party), 700 watt power supply, additional cooling, E5-1650v3, 1TB Z-Turbo drive, NVS-315 GPU, Windows 10 Professional x64, latest firmware.