Internal USB3 card reader problems

[Rhossydd]

Update:

So having ordered the Silverstone recommended by John, two days later the cheap no-name reader (that I've left plugged in and not working) starts to work without any intervention on my part. It continues to work.
The Silverstone has arrived and seems slightly better engineered than the cheap one, so I change them over and still everything is seen and working.

So, I try some tests:-
Copy a large 750mb file onto a fast CF card and also a USB3 memory stick.
Copying the files onto my Lenovo netbook with USB3 and I see about 120 mb/s reported in Windows explorer when copying the files. It's using a Fresco Logic controller.
Copying the same files from the same devices to the desktop and I only see 30 mb/s on both the VIA & Intel USB3 controllers, the same speed as the USB2 controllers on the system work at.

So it seems that both USB3 controllers aren't working at the proper speed.
Gigabyte finally got back with a new bios too, although it took three attempts for them to send an uncorrupted one to me. I've loaded that, but nothing has changed as far as I can discover.

Yes, all the drivers are up to date and loaded, no warning in device manager, just doesn't go as fast as it should.
Any ideas of what to try now ? Not much on the web about this that I can find yet.

[John.Murray]

Frustrating!  So if I understand you correctly, no USB 3 port on the Gigabyte MB is delivering full speed?

[Rhossydd]

Frustrating!  So if I understand you correctly, no USB 3 port on the Gigabyte MB is delivering full speed?

Yes, that's right.
Waiting for a reply from Gigabyte again on this.
If all else fails my dealer has offered to RMA it as faulty, but a warranty replacement could take a month. Just in negotiation with them about getting a later revision board to swap it out for immediately and get them to take back any warranty replacement in exchange.

[Rhossydd]

Not much progress on this. Tried a new rev 1.0 board and it displays the same problem, so it's either inherent on the board's design or a OS issue. There seem to be a few people around with similar problems with USB3 ports on various boards, so it's looking rather like the later, possibly related to the driver installation process.

Gigabyte are totally useless for technical support. The replies are so poor it's pathetic.

[Steve Weldon]

Not much progress on this. Tried a new rev 1.0 board and it displays the same problem, so it's either inherent on the board's design or a OS issue. There seem to be a few people around with similar problems with USB3 ports on various boards, so it's looking rather like the later, possibly related to the driver installation process.

Gigabyte are totally useless for technical support. The replies are so poor it's pathetic.

This reminds me of my 1366 board from Gigabyte, the UD7.. but is applicable to all their 1366 boards with the Marvel 9128 SATA III controller.  To make it short, you only get so much speed from this combination and it's not the full rated SATA III speed.  The controller caps at roughly 400mbps on reading and 275 writing.. There's enough settings, drivers, etc,, to keep a top notch technical support team like Gigabytes (please recognize this as sarcasm) asking you to jump through hoops for weeks or longer.  Other than this issue it's been a reliable board.

[John.Murray]

Definately not an O/S issue here, using various Intel boards, all solid (with capable devices connected).

[Rhossydd]

Definately not an O/S issue here, using various Intel boards, all solid (with capable devices connected).

I'm sure Windows itself is OK, it's more what's happening with drivers and how Windows is seeing them which seems related to the installation proces.
The USB-IF test suite from usb.org throws a xHCI stack not found error. I'm guessing that the xHCI configuration is significant, but haven't got much further in diagnosis.