Replies

Rick, thanks for the info and links on Lightshot and Rocketdock. I’ll remember them for the next time I see them on someone’s computer.

I just wanted to clarify that I didn’t mean to come off as overly critical. I was just trying to contribute what I thought might be some missing info. I agree with your approach and I think you’re doing a pretty good job so far. I’m inclined to stay mostly out of the way as I’m pretty busy with other things and I think that too many cooks can spoil the pot. So, keep up the good work.

In my opinion, that unknown device remains the next main thing that should be addressed. If it has anything to do with USB controllers or hubs, it could very well be the reason the external harddrive isn’t able to run at full speed. And even if it isn’t the cause, it’s still probably something that should be taken care of, anyway.

One other thing just occurred to me: the cable being used to connect that one particular drive that was mentioned might be damaged or worn, and the loss of speed right when the drivers were messed with might be just a coincidence. Has a different cable been considered, assuming it’s detachable? This seems like a lower probability cause, but I thought I’d throw it in if the other stuff doesn’t pan out.

Down the road, I was also considering suggesting to maybe uninstall the HP printer stuff temporarily as their drivers are known to be a bit temperamental, especially if a bit of registry corruption has occurred. The Logitech stuff may also be relevant, but seems even less likely. Or maybe you could try a “safe” registry cleaner like the one that comes with CCleaner, which I believe I saw the OP already had installed. Oh, and it might be a good idea to use System Restore judiciously between steps to create new restore points, in case something makes things worse. You might even consider using System Restore to go back to a time before the problem showed up, but that can sometimes cause new problems. I would only consider it as a second-to-last resort before doing a clean re-install of Windows altogether.

But I’m not suggesting doing any of those yet – one thing at a time! I only mention them now because I don’t know when I’ll get back to reading this forum. Good luck!

– Jon

Hi guys, first time poster. I just have a few things to add.

First, you should be more careful when plugging/unplugging PS/2 devices. They weren’t designed to be hot-pluggable like USB devices, and if you’re unlucky, you could ruin your PS/2 mouse, keyboard, the port itself, or the motherboard as a whole. Only plug or unplug them with the computer’s power completely off (meaning sleep mode may not be good enough.)

Second, it’s common for a motherboard to have more USB ports available than what are physically available on the machine. To save on costs or provide for future expansion, available USB headers on the motherboard may not be plugged into anything externally, or there may be a soldered header with no socket to plug into, or the microchip controller may simply support more ports and not have had such support programmatically disabled. So don’t worry about the mismatch between 10 ports showing in Windows and 8 ports being physically available.

Third, malware infections cause all kinds of problems, including driver issues. As an IT professional, I spend around half of every work day cleaning up after that stuff. I’ve run across some particular Potentially Unwanted Programs (PUPs) that do exactly that on purpose, with the intention of trying to get you to pay for their driver update or maintenance program (which you shouldn’t do, of course. They’re the cause of the problem in the first place. Never give in to extortion, it only encourages the bad actors to do it more.)

While looking through your speccy log, I saw two running processes that I thought were suspicious:
C:Usersr3b3lw0lfAppDataLocalSkillbrainslight shot5.1.0.15Lightshot.exe
C:Program Files (x86)RocketDockRocketDock.exe

The first one is running from your user profile, which is a giant red flag to me, though I’m not familiar with it enough to know up front if it’s OK. The second one I think I’ve seen before on other infected computers, but I’m not sure about it, either. If you don’t know what either of those are, try uninstalling them from Control Panel and seriously consider some deeper anti-malware scans. It looked to me like you didn’t have any anti-virus software running other than Windows Defender, so a stealthy rootkit infection may have a higher probability of being an issue here than usual.

After deciding what to do about those processes, and taking care of that Unknown Device that Rick covered, if you’re still having issues with your USB devices, there’s more that can be done.