Passport Driver 1tb usb 3.0 strange behaviour on Lenovo w510

Did an interesting experiment with my w510 and a colleagues
w510 (spec’d exactly like mine)

  • Plugged in my 1tb WD passport drive on to the
    3.0 port to my laptop (completely rebuilt) and his and neither recognized the
    drive
  • Plugged in to the 2.0 port on the back on both
    laptops and got the “usb can perform faster” but works perfectly
  • Plugged in to a variety of usb 2.0 ports 
    on, a fujitsu stylistic (yeah weird I know) , t61p, dells etc, all work
  • Plugged into my w510 but kept pressure on the
    cable and it worked really well until my hand got tired (really, not joking)
    and got the same result on my colleague’s w510.

It looks like the device’s cable might be faulty but then
why would it work perfectly with 2.0 ports?

I’m going to go hunting for another models with 3.0 and
other thngs that are 3.0 to qualify if the device/driver or cable is faulty.

Any thoughts in the meantime?

thanks!

This has been escalated, we will look in to this and try to determinate why is happening.

In the mean time, if you suspect this is an issue with the cable, please contact our phone support, you can request a new USB cable.

To Contact WD for Technical Support

http://support.wdc.com/contact/index.asp?lang=en

well to be completely fair to you guys, I checked in on an HP Elitebook 8540w and it worked perfectly and very fast (about 90mb/s) so I really don’t think its the cable. Also why would it work on usb 2.0 fine and not on 3.0.

Seb

chebas wrote:

well to be completely fair to you guys, I checked in on an HP Elitebook 8540w and it worked perfectly and very fast (about 90mb/s) so I really don’t think its the cable. Also why would it work on usb 2.0 fine and not on 3.0.

 

Seb

Hi there, the forum guys asked that I read this over.

I agree that this is a either a  very strange problem, or it may be a very simple problem.

Just to confirm, when you hold the cable down in place in the 3.0 port (2.0 and 3.0 ports are the exact same size, shape etc. on the host) the problem goes away?  If that is the case, that sounds like your 3.0 port is physically not ok. 

exactly, what’s really weird is that it happens on the other w510 that I tried it in, both usb 3.0 ports on both machines. however on both machines on the 2.0 port  at the back it works fine (but at 2.0 speeds)

I opened a thread here reporting a somwhat similar issue with two My Passport Essential SE 1TB USB 3.0/2.0 drives.  Using them on a Lenovo X220 laptop with a USB 3.0 port.  My issue is intermittent - sometimes they work on USB 3.0, sometimes not.  Always work on USB 2.0. Problem seems to be worse if I have previously used one of the Passports on a USB 2.0 port.

I now use one of the My Passports only on the USB 3.0 port, and it has been working consistently.  Still no idea if it’s a WD or Lenovo problem / compatibility issue.

Chebas’ issues sound like a physical  problem with the ports.