Windows 7: USB Devices Stop Working after a few minutes

Hey there,

I've been researching this issue for over a day and have yet to find any solution.

I have windows 7 installed now, upgraded from Vista and everything worked okay originally. Now, when I plug in any of my USB sticks, they work initially but end up hanging after a few minutes or when I try to replug them in, the OS says the device has malfunctioned and isn't installed correctly.



The same goes with my iPod. The only thing that works is to leave it plugged in and restart the computer, then it will work again for another few minutes before it stops recognizing USB devices. I don't have any other devices connected, so that isn't it. I tried uninstalling all the USB drivers, restarting, letting them reinstall and the same thing happens.

Any solutions to this problem?

Hi and Welcome to Windows 7 forums. Fill out your system specs what motherboard ram ect. I had this same sort of problem nothing would fix it. I ended up getting a different motherboard. Motherboard I had was from MSI.

What USB Universal Host Controller is your MB using ?

Frankly, I would try a clean install of Win 7 and see if you have the same problems. But you need to let us know what your system configuration is. What Win 7 build are you using? 32 or 64-bit? Motherboard? BIOS rev?

do i have to start another thread or i can join this?
i have a similar problem.
My External HDD stop working during coping files.
It still shows in the My computer but EMPTY (can open it but there is no folders).
It shows in disk management as RAW disk.( like it is new and unformatted)
and the most weird thing is - it will still show that way if i UNPLUG it! (until restart of the PC)

this ex-HDD was (and is) working fine in Vista using the same usb cable and slots (2 of them, for additional power. But it is working even with one slot, just not recharging fast enough. recharging - because it is also a media-player).
after restart - all is fine until i try to move some files to it again. (it is not 100% reproducible, it happens 3 times out of..may be 10)

My specs are in profile, and i am using RTM build

Both of you - can you heck to see if your USB ports are set to turn off to save power?

You may have power issues b/c of spotty motherboard / chipset drivers that Windows 7 'borrowed' from Vista....

Check for updated drivers from your hardware manufacturers respectively for Windows 7....

We're having similar problems here too - new install of Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit. USB ports worked fine on original installation, no errors detected, but then discovered a week or so later that intermittently any USB2 devices just die (external drives, mobile phone etc.) but USB1 devices (keyboard, mouse, Skype phone) continue to work.

Have looked everywhere for a solution but not found anything yet so if anyone has any pointers that'd be a great help.

We're running Biostar GF7100P-M7S mobo which has an nVidia 7100 chipset - we're got the latest nVidia chipset and video drivers installed but its using the standard Microsoft USB drivers, not nVidia ones.

This problem is only happening on Windows 7 - if I put my old WinXP Pro disc in, USB2 ports work absolutely fine for as long as they like.

I've been having a very similar problem and have been researching this for about a week now. There is alot of talk about x64 and USB power issues, and making sure that the system is set to not power down, changing memory, motherboard or computer problems, etc... But I've done everything from updating my BIOS to the latest and making sure that the BIOS does not allow for certain power saving modes, disabling Windows 7 sleep mode updating the drivers of my Logitech trackball, Changing to a wireless mouse, etc... But no matter what I try my laptop will constantly (at least one to two times a day) just drop whatever is plugged into the drive.

Once this happens you cannot get them reinitialized. The only solution is to reboot completely. There is also no information in the reliability reports.

I simply cannot find any information from any of these sites that indicate that this is anything bit a Windows 7 issue. I'm starting to get worried about the stability of the OS. I ran the RC since the first week it was available with no problems at all. I've had the actual release installed for about a week and have had ALOT of USB problems (external drives and mice) as well as 3 different BSOD - USB, and 2 that were just STOP.

I love the new features but I haven't had any issues with XP or even the Windows 7 RC.

If ANYone has any suggestions (I can only hope).

i've solved it! kinda.
On the microsoft support website there are many hotfixes that are NOT available in windows auto-update yet. The common description of them has this part: "use this hotfix ONLY if you have this problem, because it was not fully tested yet, and you cant live without it". Well, i was not scared

Unfortutately, i dont know which hotfix helped me. There is a guy in my country who distribute the packs of this updates on the local torrent tracker. I think the update that helped me was in the last october updates pack(its ~20 updates 60 mb total). So, you have several options:
a) wait until it is available in auto-update.
b) search through support section of microsoft website.
c) contact me on tohdom@ gmail.com i can upload you the hotfix packs

good luck

ps.
i want to describe my problem again (which i solved) because maybe you guys have another problem:
my USB-HDD cripple Windows 7 during file-transfers after few normal minutes of trasfer (Deferred Procedure Calls - 100% cpu). Windows 7 see the empty hdd, it still have usb connection, but without any hdd-functionality. Only reboot can fix 100% cpu issue. USB mouse, keyboard works fine.

I don't know if this will help in Windows 7 but it helped somewhat with XP.

Just a suggestion.

In device manager find the drive that is the USB drive and try to optimize it if possible. I don't know nor can test it. I went back to XP for my ATI Remote wonder that I use with ZoomPlayer to watch my videos was not working correctly without issues under Windows 7.

well, after month of using my usb-device under Windows 7 i can conclude - there is definitely a hotfix fixing this issue.
read my previous post.