Intermittent "Unknown usb device (device descriptor request failed)" Windows 10 on Intel chipset

[bombom]

I've lost days to this issue already. Modern computers seem to become worse and worse with every year. Please fix it. This strongly looks like a bug in RST driver to me. And maybe this text will help somebody. I hope it's the right forum as I don't see anything chipset-related.

Symptom: "Realtek USB 2.0 Card Reader" becomes "Unknown USB device (device descriptor request failed)" and won't read TF cards. This is an internal card reader, I can't replace it!

Frequency: once a month or two

How long: this always happened since I bought the laptop about 16 months ago, a lot of driver updates happened since then to no improvement

Product: Laptop ASUS Zenbook Flip UX562FAC

Chipset: Comet Lake i7-10510U

How it happens:

- I play music from the TF card after some time of not accessing it (it always stays inserted), and it stops working

- I play music and it's working and then during playback it just stops working

- No other action from me, it just happens totally at random

Likely related observation: often (like 50%), when I continue playing previously played but not closed file after a period of inactivity (hours?), the player says that file is corrupted although accessing it just a second after will be just fine

Solutions:

- None of the solutions I could find on the web work. Uninstalling, reinstalling anything USB-related is a dead end, all drivers are up to date.

- What works is: Uninstalling "Intel(R) Chipset SATA/PCIe RST Premium Controller" and rebooting always fixes it. Until it strikes again.

Versions:

- Windows 10.0.19043.1466

- RST driver 18.36.3.1019

- Realtek card reader 10.0.18362.31248

I attach SSU output as described in another post.

[Alberto_R_Intel]

bombom, Thank you for posting in the Intel® Communities Support.

In order for us to provide the most accurate assistance on this scenario, we will do further research on this matter, but first, we just wanted to confirm a few details about your system:

At some point, was the "Realtek USB 2.0 Card Reader" working fine before without having to "Uninstalling "Intel(R) Chipset SATA/PCIe RST Premium Controller"? 

If that is the case, when did the issue start?

Did you make any recent hardware/software changes that might cause this problem?

Does the problem happen at home or in the work environment?

Any questions, please let me know.

Regards,

Albert R.

Intel Customer Support Technician

[bombom]

Thanks for the answer. I'll try to help with what I can.

At some point, was the "Realtek USB 2.0 Card Reader" working fine before without having to "Uninstalling "Intel(R) Chipset SATA/PCIe RST Premium Controller"? 

I'm using this laptop every day for... 17 months I think (this includes every day usage of the card reader). Card reader almost always works. But when it stops to, I have a painful shamanic session ahead of me which takes hours.

If that is the case, when did the issue start?

Issue was always present.

Along with lots of other issues: leaking like hell video driver (fixed this december thanks god) periodically dying wifi module (I think latest driver actually nailed it down too, but we'll see), randomly not working camera, random hard shutdowns of the laptop or only the screen when powered on or during sleep, keyboard randomly starting to treat digits and F-keys as letters, and so on.

All those problems including the Card Reader issue occur with no discernable pattern.

Did you make any recent hardware/software changes that might cause this problem?

No. Laptop is as it came from the factory.

Does the problem happen at home or in the work environment?

At home.

More funny info. As I was writing the original post, card reader died again! (shortly after fixing it with RST driver reinstall). This time for good. I then reinstalled RST 2-3 times (+ shutdown/poweron cycle), it didn't work, then reinstalled it again, also all the USB stack and disabled fast startup and selective suspend for USB then shut it down again, and it works for ~24 hours since. I don't know what exactly fixed it, but RST reinstall worked at least 3 times for me before so it's still the best guess. Will add more observations once I have them.

[Alberto_R_Intel]

bombom, You are very welcome, thank you very much for providing that information.

"then reinstalled it again, also all the USB stack and disabled fast startup and selective suspend for USB then shut it down again, and it works for ~24 hours since". So, just to make sure, the problem with the "Realtek USB 2.0 Card Reader" is not happening anymore at least for the last 24 hours?

"Will add more observations once I have them", sure, no problem at all, take your time and let us know if the issue got fixed permanently or if it started again so we can continue with our research on this scenario.

Regards,

Albert R.

Intel Customer Support Technician

[bombom]

You are correct, yes.

Do you want me to not fix it when it appears next time so we can investigate it in the broken state?

[Alberto_R_Intel]

bombom, Thank you very much for clarifying those details.

"You are correct, yes.", perfect, excellent, it is great to know that the problem got fixed and not it is working properly.

"Do you want me to not fix it when it appears next time so we can investigate it in the broken state?", Keep in mind that on a laptop or any other mobile device everything is customized by the manufacturer of the machine, they can enable/disable BIOS settings as well as features and functions of the computer and they also handle the validation of drivers and application on the system.

Hopefully, it will not happen again, but if it does, what we recommend will be to get in contact directly with ASUS support to report this scenario, make sure the BIOS is up to date, confirm if they have a permanent fix or this problem, if they can replicate the issue using the same computer model you are working with and for further assistance on this matter, their warranty options may apply if by any chance there is a hardware problem with one of the components in the laptop, including the "Realtek USB 2.0 Card Reader":

https://www.asus.com/support/

Regards,

Albert R.

Intel Customer Support Technician

[bombom]

OK card reader is down again. What can be done?

[Alberto_R_Intel]

bombom, Thank you very much for your response.

"OK card reader is down again. What can be done?", we are sorry to hear the issue persists. 

As an alternative for this scenario, if there is no RAID configuration nor RAID volume in the computer, there is the option to uninstall Intel® RST tool from "Add and remove programs" in Windows* and verify how the "Realtek USB 2.0 Card Reader" works after that. Before removing any programs or applications we advise you to back up any important information you might have on your computer.

Otherwise, the next thing to do will be to contact ASUS support, to confirm if some programs can be removed without any problems and for further assistance on this matter since there could be a hardware problem with some of the components in the laptop.

Regards,

Albert R.

Intel Customer Support Technician

[bombom]

"there is the option to uninstall Intel® RST tool"

No tool installed in the first place. Only the "Intel(R) Chipset SATA/PCIe RST Premium Controller" driver which cannot even be disabled (I figure SSD is on it).

"next thing to do will be to contact ASUS support"

Unfortunately they weren't helpful so far. Told me to reinstall drivers, BIOS and Windows. I have all the latest drivers and BIOS.

Am I getting it right that no one on this forum is qualified to help debug the driver issue?

[Alberto_R_Intel]

bombom, Thank you very much for letting us know those updates.

"Am I getting it right that no one on this forum is qualified to help debug the driver issue?", normally the way it works is that if after installing the Intel® Rapid Storage Technology driver version V17.8.8.1072_17672 tested and validated by ASUS the problem persists, then, the next thing to do will be to get in contact directly with ASUS support, if it is necessary to do a driver debug, once you report this scenario to them they will work internally with Intel® in trying to add the fixes to their driver.

Still, we will do further research on this matter. But first, just to confirm, is driver version V17.8.8.1072_17672 the one currently installed in your system? If not please try to install it and let us know the results, it is located under "Chipsets" tab:

https://www.asus.com/Laptops/For-Home/Zenbook/Zenbook-Flip-15-UX562/HelpDesk_Download/?model2Name=ASUS-Zenbook-Flip-15-UX562FAC

Regards,

Albert R.

Intel Customer Support Technician

[bombom]

I'm using driver 18.36.3.1019 right now, but for sure the problem was present in all the previous driver versions, including those validated by ASUS. I used their drivers then they stopped updating them but most problems persisted, so I started to update manually with DriverEasy, hoping for fixes (and in fact a few other things were fixed).

Realtek also made a new driver recently "Realtek USB 2.0 Card Reader 08/21/2021,10.0.22000.31270", but the latest downtime of it happens with this new driver. Moreso, I believe their driver is not the culprit because once it switches to "Unknown USB device", card reader driver is not active anymore.

[bombom]

Please let me know if there's any helpful info I can collect while it's in the broken state.

[Alberto_R_Intel]

bombom, Thank you very much for sharing those details.

"Please let me know if there's any helpful info I can collect while it's in the broken state, sure, at this point, we will do further research on this matter, as soon as I get any updates I will post all the details on this thread.

Regards,

Albert R.

Intel Customer Support Technician

[Alberto_R_Intel]

Hello bombom, I just received an update on this matter.

While we are still working on this case, we just wanted to confirm a few aspects:

Does the issue happen if the Intel® RST driver is not installed, not present in the system? 

How long did you check the issue without using the Intel® RST driver?

What is the purpose of the Intel® RST driver in your computer, do you have any RAID/Optane setup?

Do you have the option to upgrade to Windows* 11 and check if the issue persists that way?

Please test the latest driver version for the Intel® RST driver 18.6 or 19.2 and once you get the chance, let us know the results:

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/download/720755/intel-rapid-storage-technology-driver-installation-software-with-intel-optane-memory-11th-and-12th-gen-platforms.html

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/download/19512/intel-rapid-storage-technology-driver-installation-software-with-intel-optane-memory-10th-and-11th-gen-platforms.html

Regards,

Albert R.

Intel Customer Support Technician

[bombom]

"Does the issue happen if the Intel® RST driver is not installed, not present in the system?"

"How long did you check the issue without using the Intel® RST driver?"

Can't test any of that.

"What is the purpose of the Intel® RST driver in your computer, do you have any RAID/Optane setup?"

Only SSD rests on NVMe:

But all SATA stack (incl. card reader, touchpad, touchscreen, camera) is on Intel controller.

"Do you have the option to upgrade to Windows* 11 and check if the issue persists that way?"

No, I'm not going to ever "upgrade" to that.

"Please test the latest driver version for the Intel® RST driver 18.6 or 19.2 and once you get the chance, let us know the results:"

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/download/720755/intel-rapid-storage-technology-driver-instal...

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/download/19512/intel-rapid-storage-technology-driver-install...

Funny, though my driver was dated 3 months older than the one on the site, it has higher version number:

And the installer told me I'm downgrading to an older ver:

After I installed it and rebooted, card reader is up again. We'll see if for long.

Also some storage devices are gone, and NVMe is now handled by Intel driver, not MS:

[Alberto_R_Intel]

bombom, Thank you very much for letting us know those aspects.

"After I installed it and rebooted, card reader is up again. We'll see if for long.", perfect, go ahead and take your time to test the computer to confirm if the problem got fixed permanently. If there are any updates, please let us know once you get the chance.

Regards,

Albert R.

Intel Customer Support Technician

[bombom]

Card reader is down again.

OT: this thread takes 5-10 minutes to load on 4G conn.

[Alberto_R_Intel]

bombom, Thank you very much for letting us know those results.

We will continue with our research on this matter. As soon as I get more details I will post all of them on this thread.

Regards,

Albert R.

Intel Customer Support Technician

[Alberto_R_Intel]

Hello bombom, I just received an update on this matter.

Based on our research, this scenario may indicate an issue with the Operating System itself and not the Intel® RST application.

So, in this case, the best option and the next thing to do, would be to have a fresh re-install of the Operating System and confirm if the issue gets fixed after trying that troubleshooting step.

Regards,

Albert R.

Intel Customer Support Technician

[bombom]

> Based on our research, this scenario may indicate an issue with the Operating System itself and not the Intel® RST application.

I never claimed anything about RST application, only about RST driver.

Sorry, but your conclusion looks baseless to me given that:

- reinstall of RST driver often fixes the issue temporarily

- driver reinstall also worked for another community member (xibalba22), though his message seems deleted now

- the issue appeared on a freshly installed OS as well

- I've had a dozen or so other problems with other Intel drivers, which seems like a general tendency now

- I never had any need to reinstall Windows since W7 (think >10 years) because their Side-by-Side assembly tech now evolved enough to guarantee correct operation given system files are not corrupted

May I inquire what led you to this conclusion other than lack of success in finding the root cause?