Z77 extreme 6 USB 3.0 Intel ports not working

commanderdonut wrote: So yesterday i decided it was time to reformat my computer (it had been a few years since I installed windows last). I'm running windows 7 on these specs  CPU - i7-2600K @ 4.4ghz GPU - EVGA GTX 560 Ti 448 Cores Classified MOBO - ASRock Z77 Extreme6 STORAGE - Mushkin Enhanced Chronos 120GB SSD + 8.5tb HDD RAM - CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB DDR3 1600 Timing:8-8-8-24 Cas Latency:8 I installed most of the drivers from this page and to be more specific i installed the following INF driver ver:9.3.0.1019 Realtek high definition audio driver ver:6559 Broadcom Lan driver ver:14.8.4.1 Etron USB 3.0 driver ver:0.109_0220 Intel USB 3.0 driver ver:1.0.4.220 Intel Management Engine driver ver:8.1.2.1318 VGA driver ver:15.28.6.64.2857 And now my USB 3.0 ports are not working (note the Etron USB 3.0 ports work fine just not the 2 rear intel ports, or the 2 front panel ports that supposedly run of the same chipset) At first I thought i just had to run windows updates for the remainder of the night since my install disc is very old. I have installed all the windows updates that windows update could find and still my 3.0 ports are not working. I then assumed maybe i needed to install the intel drivers that i had not installed, but i didn't want to unnecessarily install drivers that i was not going to use. After doing some research and discovering what the Rapid start, Rapid connect, and Rapid storage drivers do I saw no reason/correlation between my issue and what these drivers are built for. (am i wrong and need to install these for the intel USB 3.0 ports to work properly?)  Then my next assumption was maybe the drivers i installed before doing my windows update didn't install correctly because of a missing windows update or something. So i reinstalled all the intel (and the Etron just for the heck of it) drivers to see if this would fix my issue; it did not. My USB 3.0 ports where all working fine before i reformatted, and everything i'm reading online about this issue is people having issues with the Etron ports and not the intel ports; or their issue with the intel ports is due to a loose connection from the front panel to the mobo but their back ports still work, mine do not. does anyone have any idea what might be going wrong here, or how to help me get my ports back up and running. i have a strong feeling its a driver issue because all the hardware was working fine yesterday before the reformat; also for the record i checked the USB settings in the bios and everything is enabled so that shouldn't be the issue.

Windows 7 does not have a built in USB 3.0 driver that is automatically installed. Windows 7 does have USB 2.0 drivers that are automatically installed (when is the last time, if ever, that we installed a USB 2.0 driver?), and has an AHCI driver (msahci) that is automatically installed if the SATA mode is set to AHCI, for example.

Your board's download page has a specific Intel USB 3.0 driver in the Windows 7 section:

http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Z77%20Extreme6/?cat=Download&os=Win764

Windows 7 will install drivers it does not have built in, if Windows Update is configured to allow that. It seems that you do not have Windows Update configured for automatic driver installation and update.

You said you installed all the Intel drivers, and the Etron driver. What does not make sense is it seems you did not install the Etron USB 3.0 driver yourself, yet it was installed apparently.

Have you checked Device Manager, the Universal Serial Bus controllers entries? Specifically, the Intel USB 3.0 Host Controller? If you have that driver installed, their might be an error code if the Intel USB 3.0 ports are not working.

Did you run the INF driver ver:9.3.0.1019 installation program? That is essential since it installs files that identify the Intel hardware that exists on your board. Without running that, the other Intel driver installation programs may not be able to identify correctly what Intel hardware it is trying to install a driver for.

If you ever saw all the drivers that Windows includes in an installation for hardware that you will never or likely never have connected to your board, you would be shocked.

That includes LSI SCSI and SAS drivers, AMD SATA drivers (on an Intel board!), and SATA and RAID drivers for NVIDIA, VIA, and SiS chipsets that are not even manufactured anymore, much less included on your board.

My point is, worrying about installing a few extra drivers is the proverbial drop in a bucket.

Download the sysinternals suite from Microsoft, unzip it, and run the Autoruns64 program. Click on the Drivers tab to see all the drivers that exist in your Windows installation.

So I assume you have the 2.80 BIOS version is the one you have in your board?

http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Z77%20Extreme6/?cat=Download&os=BIOS

There is also a version in the Beta Zone, although I doubt it would make a difference:

http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Z77%20Extreme6/?cat=Beta

Otherwise, I don't understand why you don't have a BIOS update.

I must say that we aren't seeing any other issues with the USB 3.0 ports on the Z77 Extreme6 board reported in this forum. So this is not a common situation.

The endless Windows 7 updates, and Service Packs, is a big reason I've left Windows 7 behind. Who knows if one of the updates is needed, but again, we aren't seeing any issues with USB 3.0 and your board.

My Z77 Extreme4 board, that has the same Intel USB 3.0 support in the Z77 chipset, works fine. But I'm using Windows 10.

Have you tried any of the USB options in the BIOS?