Since I switched over to my new computer, an HP ENVY Phoenix 810-430qe Desktop PC, I have been plagued with “not enough USB controller resources” popping up in my system tray when I take advantage of your hubs to get up in the range of 10-12 devices connected. It seems to happen quickest when I use the 10C2 USB 3 hub plugged into a USB 3 port. But it happens eventually with all combinations of my Plugable USB 3 10 port hub, my Plugable USB 2 10 port hub, and then USB 2 or USB 3 ports on my computer. I don’t know what these “controller resources” are that there’s not enough of, but I’m pretty sure it’s not power / amps. All of devices are either powered or plugged into a powered hub, except for the mouse and keyboard. All devices work fine if I unplug something else. And both hubs work fine on my old computer.
I read that some Intel motherboards / chipsets have problems with USB 3. Could that be what I’m seeing here?
Could I possibly get around this by buying a high end USB 3 PCIe card like Highpoint’s RocketU 1144C? If I do that, would that put me into a completely different set of “controller resources” for devices? They say each port on their card has its own controller, and that they support hubs.
Any thoughts / suggestions / help would be greatly appreciated. I am shocked that my new high end computer seemingly can’t handle as many USB devices as my six year old computer could.
Thanks for contacting us. This sounds exactly like the Intel USB 3.0 XHCI controller issue as most commonly found on the Microsoft Surface 2 and 3 tablets, but we’ve also hit it here and there on other Intel based systems as well, just not as quickly.
We’re working on a blog post that explains this issue and why it occurs, but until that is published, I’ll give you the basics of what may be happening and why.
The overly simplified answer is that the Intel USB 3.0 controller just supports less devices and the reason our 10 port USB 3.0 hub seemingly makes the controller resources error show up quicker is that USB 3.0 hub chipsets only support 4 ports. To get a 10 port USB 3.0 hub, it has to have three internal 4 port chipsets daisy chained together. This means that the hub itself is using more resources, essentially taking away resources that could be going to attached devices. USB 3.0 hubs also use double the resources of USB 2.0 hubs.
Also, we would highly recommend against the Highpoint controller. It’s just using the old ASMedia ASM1042 USB 3.0 chipset which has been problematic over the years with poor driver support.
Thanks, Josh. I read through all that. It sounds like there’s not anything I can do until when and if the “fix” comes out? And it also sounds like you’ve been working on the fix with Microsoft for a long time. So I don’t think I can count on there being a fix soon. Can you tell us how likely it is if there ever will be a fix?
What should I do, then? If you don’t recommend the Highpoint, is there a PCIe USB 3.0 card that you would recommend that would help me get around this?
Do the PCIe cards have their own controllers that would give me a completely separate second pool of resources to play with?
Or should I just return my new computer and get another one? I’m still within the 21-day return window.
If I opt to get a new computer, would you be able to help me find a model with a motherboard / chipset that won’t have this problem? Everything I’ve seen talks about Intel. Should I look for a PC with USB 3 support and an AMD processor?
My worst nightmare is returning my computer, getting a new one, and after spending 20 hours copying files, configuring and installing software and devices, finding out that I have the same problem. Anything you could do to help me avoid that will be greatly appreciated.
Sorry for my delayed reply. We’ve had generally good luck with the Renesas μPD720202 chipset on add on cards. An add on card should not share the same USB resources as the on board USB 3.0 controller.
For a “fix” from either Microsoft or Intel, we honestly have no idea.