Problems with the new Core i5

This morning, I was trying to transfer data from the Phenom 9650 Windows 7 Pro computer to the Core i5 Windows 8 Pro computer.  I used a WD Passport USB 3.0 hard drive connected to the Phenom and it was transfering data at 39 Mb/s (using the PCI-E USB 3.0 card I installed in it - NEC chipset).  When I plugged in the WD Passport into the new Core i5 mainboard USB 3.0 port, it didn't show as a drive, but just showed up as a device in Devices and Printers.  I updated the Intel drivers and it still didn't work.  I updated the BIOS on the mainboard and it still didn't work.  I plugged the WD Passport into a USB 2.0 port on the mainboard and it was recognised as a drive.

When I was searching for a solution "Asus USB 3.0 driver" on Google, I was directed to a site that looked like it was from Asus (Driver Tuner).  I downloaded and installed it, but when I found out it wasn't from Asus, I uninstalled it and then did a Google search "DriverTuner malware" to check if it was malware - luckily, it wasn't!.

I also plugged in a Verbatim USB 3.0 hard drive into the Core i5 USB 3.0 port and it worked.  So, I plugged the Verbatim USB 3.0 hard drive into the Phenom 9650 USB 3.0 port to transfer the files again.  However, it was only transferring at USB 2.0 speeds of about 7 Mb/s.  Hmm....  Now, I think the Verbatim drive did operate at USB 3.0 speeds on the Phenom 9650 because I went to check on the progress of copying 50 gig of data and it was done.  So, I took the Verbatim drive and plugged it into the Core i5 to transfer the data to the new computer.  It is transferring at USB 3.0 speeds while simultaneously doing a Windows update for Office 2010.  It has peak transfer rates of 83 Mb/s and that would indicate the Asus USB 3.0 SpeedBoost is actually working!  Now these were the numbers Windows was reporting during the file transfer.  This site gives much higher number.  Anyways, it is clear that USB 3.0 is about 10x faster than USB 2.0.  I did a Google search "wd passport not recognised usb 3 asus" and found this as the second link.  It might be the fix!

These USB 3.0 issues are very annoying!  It's great when it works right though!

Next, I had to install the network printers.  I bought a 3 port HP parallel printer server from Kijiji a few years ago.  One of the problems is when you run the HP Install Network Printer utility, it won't work unless there is a printer driver already installed.  So, I install the needed printers to print to file, then I reinstall the printers with the HP utility and select the drivers already installed. Our house is wired with 9 ethernet ports, so we don't need to use wireless to connect to the internet.  I turn on the wireless router only when laptops or the tablets need it.