I have a Microsoft Surface 2 laptop with Windows 10 Pro (64-bit)
installed.

Every time that I insert my USB external hard drive (WD EasyStore), the computer freezes for approx. 1-2 minutes. It does the same thing every
time that I use a program that needs to acces the USB drive.

For instance, when I plug in the WD drive, I have to wait 1-2 minutes
before I can access it with File Explorer. If I then launch a backup
program to copy files from my c:\ drive to the USB drive, I have to
wait 1-2 minutes before I can press the icon that starts the backup.

This does not happen with any other computer that I use. (None of them
are Microsoft Surface!)

What could be the reason that causes the Microsoft surface 2 to freeze?

--
tb

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tb wrote:

I have a Microsoft Surface 2 laptop with Windows 10 Pro (64-bit)
installed.

Every time that I insert my USB external hard drive (WD EasyStore), the computer freezes for approx. 1-2 minutes. It does the same thing every
time that I use a program that needs to acces the USB drive.

For instance, when I plug in the WD drive, I have to wait 1-2 minutes
before I can access it with File Explorer. If I then launch a backup
program to copy files from my c:\ drive to the USB drive, I have to
wait 1-2 minutes before I can press the icon that starts the backup.

This does not happen with any other computer that I use. (None of them
are Microsoft Surface!)

What could be the reason that causes the Microsoft surface 2 to freeze?

WD EasyStore seems to be a 3.5" technology, complete
with power adapter.

https://shop.westerndigital.com/products/portable-drives/wd-easystore-desktop-usb-3-0-hdd#WDBAMA0080HBK-NESN

This makes it unlikely the drive is disconnecting because
the USB3 "fuse" opened. It should be drawing a modest
amount of current, well well below the 900mA limit.

You can try adjusting the power saving behavior of your
USB3 thing.

https://i.postimg.cc/zBW2p87y/disable-usb-power-save.gif

At least some of the Surface product line, implements
S0ic, which is an alternative to S0,S1,S2,S3 in normal
ACPI. This is an alteration in the power state model for
computers. It allows the computer to be perfectly responsive,
yet only draw "sleep-like" levels of power. Other companies
at the time (Dell and HP), did not feel this tech was
"ripe-enougn" to use. So Surface ended up being the test
platform.

I think I would have a hard time, debugging this myself if
the Surface was in front of me. A USB power meter might
give a tiny bit of assurance about what state the port is in.
(Drawing exactly zero milliamps, that would be bad.) I'd be
more in favor of theories like "a problem with the NTFS
on the partition" or "the AV is doing something", but these
don't sound like good possibilities either. Repeated attempts
to reach the device, should make it "ding like crazy", and you
don't report that as a symptom.

None of my theories is looking all that good at the moment.
The S0ic is a long shot, and to boot, I have no idea how
you even guess at what the equipment is doing. Using powercfg
and doing an energy report, with the disk connected, maybe it
says something there of note. Start the energy report running,
then plug in the drive, set the duration long enough that
the drive is detected. Perhaps the worked example here had
the current working directory set to C:\ and that's why the
HTML report ended up in the root of the drive, under C:\ .

https://www.windowscentral.com/how-create-energy-report-windows-10

Paul

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On 9/13/2021 2:10 PM, tb wrote:

I have a Microsoft Surface 2 laptop with Windows 10 Pro (64-bit)
installed.

Every time that I insert my USB external hard drive (WD EasyStore), the computer freezes for approx. 1-2 minutes. It does the same thing every
time that I use a program that needs to acces the USB drive.

For instance, when I plug in the WD drive, I have to wait 1-2 minutes
before I can access it with File Explorer. If I then launch a backup
program to copy files from my c:\ drive to the USB drive, I have to
wait 1-2 minutes before I can press the icon that starts the backup.

This does not happen with any other computer that I use. (None of them
are Microsoft Surface!)

What could be the reason that causes the Microsoft surface 2 to freeze?

I don't have an Easy Store but I do have an external that has a
conventional "spinning" drive. The USB cable that plugs into the
computer is a dual type as not all computers can supply enough current.

I've tested it and it sometimes works with only one plugged in but
sometimes really requires both.

If I put an ssd in the enclosure, only the single type cable is necessary.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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"philo" <philo@privacy.net> wrote in message
news:shr8us$1kv$1@dont-email.me...

On 9/13/2021 2:10 PM, tb wrote:

I have a Microsoft Surface 2 laptop with Windows 10 Pro (64-bit)
installed.

Every time that I insert my USB external hard drive (WD EasyStore), the
computer freezes for approx. 1-2 minutes. It does the same thing every
time that I use a program that needs to acces the USB drive.

For instance, when I plug in the WD drive, I have to wait 1-2 minutes
before I can access it with File Explorer. If I then launch a backup
program to copy files from my c:\ drive to the USB drive, I have to
wait 1-2 minutes before I can press the icon that starts the backup.

This does not happen with any other computer that I use. (None of them
are Microsoft Surface!)

What could be the reason that causes the Microsoft surface 2 to freeze?

I don't have an Easy Store but I do have an external that has a
conventional "spinning" drive. The USB cable that plugs into the computer
is a dual type as not all computers can supply enough current.

I've tested it and it sometimes works with only one plugged in but
sometimes really requires both.

If you can use a USB3 port it will supply enough power so that you don't
need a 'y' cable.

--
Regards
wasbit

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On 9/13/2021 at 2:10:58 PM tb wrote:

I have a Microsoft Surface 2 laptop with Windows 10 Pro (64-bit)
installed.

Every time that I insert my USB external hard drive (WD EasyStore),
the computer freezes for approx. 1-2 minutes. It does the same thing
every time that I use a program that needs to acces the USB drive.

For instance, when I plug in the WD drive, I have to wait 1-2 minutes
before I can access it with File Explorer. If I then launch a backup
program to copy files from my c:\ drive to the USB drive, I have to
wait 1-2 minutes before I can press the icon that starts the backup.

This does not happen with any other computer that I use. (None of
them are Microsoft Surface!)

What could be the reason that causes the Microsoft surface 2 to
freeze?

I think that I found what the problem is...

The laptop has only two USB ports and they are on the left side of the keyboard, adjacent to each other. One port is used to plug in the WD
EasyStore and the other one has an RF USB dongle for my Logitech mouse.

There seems to be some sort of interference between the two plugs or
ports when both peripherals are plugged in.

Yesterday evening I removed the RF dongle and plugged in a corded USB
mouse. Everything seems to be working just fine now!

--
tb

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

tb wrote:

On 9/13/2021 at 2:10:58 PM tb wrote:

I have a Microsoft Surface 2 laptop with Windows 10 Pro (64-bit)
installed.

Every time that I insert my USB external hard drive (WD EasyStore),
the computer freezes for approx. 1-2 minutes. It does the same thing
every time that I use a program that needs to acces the USB drive.

For instance, when I plug in the WD drive, I have to wait 1-2 minutes
before I can access it with File Explorer. If I then launch a backup
program to copy files from my c:\ drive to the USB drive, I have to
wait 1-2 minutes before I can press the icon that starts the backup.

This does not happen with any other computer that I use. (None of
them are Microsoft Surface!)

What could be the reason that causes the Microsoft surface 2 to
freeze?

I think that I found what the problem is...

The laptop has only two USB ports and they are on the left side of the keyboard, adjacent to each other. One port is used to plug in the WD EasyStore and the other one has an RF USB dongle for my Logitech mouse.

There seems to be some sort of interference between the two plugs or
ports when both peripherals are plugged in.

Yesterday evening I removed the RF dongle and plugged in a corded USB
mouse. Everything seems to be working just fine now!

Well, that's a weird one.

USB3 has a broad emissions peak, when the cable
is operational (something to talk, on either end
of the cable). The emissions peak for the 5GHz data
rate, is a broad peak at 2.5GHz.

Intel wrote a white paper on this issue, and showed
attempts in their lab, to establish better filtering
on things like disk drive cabinets. As a result,
not every drive enclosure emits as strong a signal.

This can interfere with 2.4GHz radio reception.
The 2.4GHz Wifi and 2.4GHz Bluetooth, they'd be candidates
for interaction. The 5GHz Wifi is supposed to be at
roughly a null, so the 5GHz should not "see" the effects
of the disk drive.

What would normally happen, is the Wifi device would
just be wiped out, and you'd report that, and we'd tell
you to move it away from the USB3 cable if possible.

It sounds like in your case, it was doing more than
that, and the Wifi was "receiving garbage" resulting
in a lot of USB3 packets. Perhaps from a protocol point
of view, the driver for the Wifi kept doing bus resets
to try to fix it.

That's just a guess.

Another case for the "warnings file"...

Paul

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