Are all USB 2 ports created equally?

I have heard of this sort of thing before but cannot recall it ever happening to me. I plugged in my Komplete 61 yesterday after having it unplugged for a few days. When I turned it on I got the message that Windows did not recognize the last usb device connected. Tried a few times with same result, then looked in device manager and found the driver was missing. Downloaded the appropriate driver, reinstalled and it worked. It worked until I had to umplug the USB to fixed a cable tangle. When I plugged back in, it didnt work. Tried reinstalling driver and still no love.Then realized that I had plugged in (both times) yesterday to a usb port that is an expansion off my intel bluetooth and wireless card. I disconnected and plugged into a port directly off motherboard and everything worked perfectly. Lesson learned I guess, but curious as to why the expensiin port is so sketchy!
 
Also, there is no reason why the driver was ever 'missing'. Would a bad connection at usb make windows think the driver was missing??
 
Brian

Jim Roseberry

• Is that particular USB port sharing an IRQ

how would you check that?

I was wrong in initial post. It is next to the bt/wireless card but is actually just a 2 port usb plugged into to mobo. Should have known that - i just built ghis comouter last summer. Anyway, i think Fireberd may have nailed it. I didnt remove the s61 "safely" and prob did corrupt the driver.

I've found in the past that this can happen due to a bad driver getting cached in c:\windows\inf\oem*.inf.  If you plug in certain devices without a driver, Windows seems to get confused about what it is and creates an oem*.inf file that essentially locks that specific port and device to a driver that doesn't work.  You see lots of warnings in manuals about not plugging in devices until after you've installed the driver and I suspect this is why.  For whatever reason, the good driver install works the first time but then doesn't hang around for the next port you plug it in.  I don't know if this is a Windows oddity, a USB standard issue, or just the driver developer didn't develop the driver and/or installer properly (drivers are complicated things to get right).  You can usually track down the specific oem*.inf file by matching up the file's created date/time to when you plugged into the wrong port.  If you wanted to move to that port, you could delete the .inf, rerun the installer, and then plug into the new port.  
 
I also agree with what others have said that different USB hubs can have weird behaviors.  This seems to usually be power/current related.  Some hubs seem to be designed for simple needs like a mouse or flash drive and not something as sophisticated as a Komplete.  Even two internal USB ports can be on different internal hubs -- for example, front ports versus back ports might be different internal hubs.  
 
This software is nice if you are curious about seeing what the USB device tree on your system looks like:
http://www.uwe-sieber.de/usbtreeview_e.html
 

Dave76
This software is nice if you are curious about seeing what the USB device tree on your system looks like:
http://www.uwe-sieber.de/usbtreeview_e.html
 

nice. thanks for sharing

AntManB
The (sensible) reasons behind some of these peculiarities can be found here:
 
https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20041110-00/?p=37343

Nice explanation!  That explains a lot.  I'd guess it might be relatively difficult to burn in a unique serial number at the point of manufacturing which might explain why some manufacturers don't do it. 
 

Rob[atSound-Rehab]

Jim Roseberry

• Is that particular USB port sharing an IRQ

how would you check that?

Just posted* about this:
http://forum.cakewalk.com/Handy-util-for-managing-your-USB-ports-m3542540.aspx 
*Hadn't noticed this thread at the time. 
 
Here's another handy util (in addition to the one mentioned previously this thread) for managing your USB ports
http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/usb_devices_view.html