Windows 10: USB Power settings - WHY!???

OK a little bit of a rant and reporting and issue that should never have happened.


This happened to my son who depends on things like live streaming for his income as a professional musician.

I'm a former MSFT consultant and assisted with this troubleshooting over a the course of several of days.


He is using a complex set up of several computers no laptops where battery power is an issue, and this is important tidbit to stream live playing and recorded audio using a DAW, local mixer/audio interfaces etc via USB 3.0 connections and other interfaces. All things worked fine and successfully live streaming for hours without a problem.

Following some updates 2 weeks or so ago the audio stream would no longer transmit from the audio interface via the USB 3.0 port without unplugging and replugging the USB connector cable. Then things would function for approximately 20-30 minutes and the audio feed would stop. Unplugging and replugging would make it resume. After much troubleshooting over several days, uninstalling / reinstalling this and that, removing whatever update we possibly could not all would uninstall - imagine that the problem persisted.


Finally, digging deeply into the device manager it was discovered that the USB controller setting

'Allow Windows to turn this device off to save power' was turned ON. This was the case on EVERY single USB controller item in the device manager. For this particular machine there were many. This could only have happened by one of the updates. The box was unchecked on every item and the audio streaming issue was fixed.


So here's are the questions -

1. WHY would this setting ever get turned on for a workstation where there is no battery power to be concerned about and

2. even more disconcerting, WHY would it turn the USB port off to 'save power' while it is in heavy use transmitting an audio stream?

:)

 

USB settings in Power Plan Options on Windows 10 is missing, how to restore it?

As per the below suggested steps I am trying to disable the USB in USB selective suspend setting in my Dell laptop with Windows 10 Home. however, I do not find the USB Settings at all in two modes Balanced mode or Dell (Active) mode under change advanced
power settings. How to restore it?

USB Selective Suspend Settings, follow the steps below:

1. Press Windows + X.
2. Choose Power Options.
3. Select Choose when to turn off the display.
4. Open Change advanced power settings.
5. Expand USB settings and USB selective suspend setting.
6. Select Enabled (default) or Disabled.
7. Click Apply, then OK.

 

No power at usb

Hi,

Thank you for posting in Microsoft Community. I understand your concern and I am glad to assist you.

"I have checked and followed the instructions in Device Manager, Trouble shooting , settings, update driver and audio within the computer

Also various links within this forum with no success"

What troubleshooting steps did you try to resolve the issue?

I would suggest you to run the hardware and device troubleshooter and check:

Try these steps to run the troubleshooter:

• Type troubleshooting in the search bar.
  
• Click view all in the left panel.
• Select ‘Hardware and devices' and follow the on-screen instructions.
  

If you think that it is the power that is causing this, run the Power Troubleshooter.

• Open Control Panel.
• Type “Troubleshooting” in the search bar and press “Enter”.
• In the “Troubleshooting” window, click on “View All” on the left pane.
• Click on “Power”.
• Click on “Advanced” and then click on “Run as Administrator”.
• Click “Next” and follow the on-screen instructions to complete the troubleshooting process.

I would suggest you to restore default settings of power plan and check if it helps.

• Open Control Panel.
• Click on the Power Options icon.
• Click on Change advanced power settings.
• Select the option “Restore default settings for this plan”.

Hope this post is helpful. Get back to us with the results. We are happy to help.

 

Disable "Power Surge on USB" message

Hi David,

If the system detects that a USB port is going over the power limit, the system is set to notify the user by default. However, since you mentioned that you're still getting the notification after you disabled the alerts, we suggest following these steps
instead:

• Right-click the Start button.
• Choose Device Manager.
• Click the drop-down arrow beside Universal Serial Bus controllers.
• Right-click anything that has USB Host Controller in its name, and select
  Properties.
• Go to the Driver tab and select Uninstall.
• Restart your computer. The driver will be reinstalled automatically.

Let us know if the error notification disappears after following these steps.