@brianshmrian the old days…yeah!
Haha sorry for the late response and thanks for the info – with that I managed to pinpoint some things on my end:
So on my current 11th gen mainboard which I’ve been rocking for probably over a year, my Dell monitor with built-in KVM switch/USB3 hub has been plugged into the top left port most of the time. Single USB-C port for power/video/USB hub has been working fine (though I haven’t tested its USB hub is operating at 2.0 or 3.x). When it’s first plugged in, sometimes it will need an unplug and replug, though. That also seems to be the case with the bottom left port, which I rarely use.
It appears that the left 2 ports are the “wonkiest”. The right 2 seem to work perfectly with the devices I own. I focused on my bottom left port for most of this testing as that is my “free” port. I’ve tested this with the top left port occupied with my monitor and without (so nothing else plugged into the laptop).
This is the behavior of my bottom left port (also somewhat with my top left port):
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USB 2.0 devices all seem to work flawlessly:
- A Sandisk Cruzer Blade USB 2.0 4GB drive (from ~2009! wow yikes).
- Through a Framework USB-A expansion card, doing the “halfway-plug-in” trick forces devices to negotiate as USB2, which works every time. Tested with:
- Plugging those devices into a Google Pixel USB-C to USB-A dongle negotiates them as USB 2.0 and work.
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Plugging into the Framework USB-A expansion card fully (normally, without the “halfway trick”) with the USB 3.x Sandisk or plugable SSD enclosure with its USB-C to USB-A cable very very rarely works. I have gotten it to work but I’m entirely unsure as to how or why. Basically “it doesn’t work unless the light is shining the correct way”
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Plugging the plugable SSD enclosure with its USB-C to USB-C cable directly into the USB-C port or through a Framework USB-C expansion card results in the same behavior. Rarely it will negotiate as 3.x, sometimes it negotiates as USB 2.0, and most of the time it just isn’t recognized.
I can confirm that this happens on both Linux (Fedora 38) and Windows 10 (thanks for the tip @brianshmrian!). Windows does say Device can perform faster when connected to USB 3.0
when a device is recognized but connected as USB 2.0 or Unknown USB Device (Port Reset Failed)
when a device is not recognized.
For those on Linux, there’s probably an easier way, but here’s what I followed (note this is a direct link, because the marked solution is apparently misleading):
https://superuser.com/a/1628883
Also, when a device fails to negotiate, the journald logs will say usb usb2-port3: Cannot enable. Maybe the USB cable is bad?
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TLDR
In summary, it seems that my bottom left port works/negotiates with USB 2.0 devices every time. USB 3.x devices rarely work. And similarly (less tested) with my top left port.
It’s interesting this is happening on the same side, as my two ports on the right side both seem to work perfectly.
I’ve also taken the Framework USB-A card out of its enclosure to test if it worked plugged into the USB-C “upside down”. That made no difference.
So it does seem that my (i7-1165G7) mainboard (and prior ones) have some USB 3.x flakiness regarding a subset of its direct/onboard USB-C ports, and by extension devices that are connected to them, like the Framework USB-A expansion card.
For me, with my Framework HDMI expansion card (1st gen), HDMI does seem to work perfectly. So maybe your wonky USB-C port is causing the Anker hub’s HDMI capability to fail?
Yes! Good call, this matches my findings as well. Nice to know I’m not the only one, at least haha
Thanks @Matt_Hartley, glad to know this might not be a problem on the later gen Intel boards. I’ll be thoroughly testing my AMD board when it arrives (and am aware of the current state of its ports – I very much appreciate the transparency!)