"Unknown Devices" And How To Fix Them
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- čas přidán 11. 05. 2023
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It's common to have mysterious errors in Windows Device Manager, with certain components just showing up as "Unknown Devices." Why does this happen, and how can you fix it?
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One little thing you didn't mention, sometimes it can be a malfunction in the USB controller so moving it to a different port may help.
And sometimes with newer usb3 devices, if you plug them in to a usb2 port they also have a chance to fail
Or hey im a set of headphones but im actually the cheats streamers are using
@@joshfill2513 he is right thou..usb3 woln't work in 2.0 a lot of times..and no matter how hard u simp..Linus isn't going to let u suck it
The Real MVPs are always in comment box.
@@SpaceRanger187 Yeah, with the USB amp right?
Or even the USB cable could be the source of issues. Sometimes I had to replace the USB cable if it was too old or even too long.
If your device is configured with Connected Standby or the OEM has otherwise blocked the access to the USB settings in power plan, there is a freeware tool called "PowerSettingsExplorer" which lets you dig in much deeper. If you don't want to do that, you can also futz around with powercfg /qh and find the setting there, then set it via command line.
You know there is a bug in CZcams
If you are watching shorts and open a video from the notification and go to the comments section you can't comment on the video because the comment input field doesn't exist
To fix this you close the short that was opened in the background
FUTZ
kk
@@last.journey there's also another bug with that same scenario. Background play won't work
@@last.journeystop supporting vertical video!!!
My own TLDR: For modern builds of Windows 10 and 11 if you have unknown devices then either you #1 have no internet, #2 have something blocking the install, or #3 some hardware which is really old and the vendor never bothered to release it or fix it so it works. Back in the days of Windows 95-XP there were many devices that required a very specific install procedure. Often the user had to manually dig through sub folders so that Window's "automatic" driver search found the driver. That was because the search didn't actually search, you had to tell it exactly where the driver was down to the folder with the .inf file for your very specific version of the device. This fake search feature was an absolute lie on Microsoft's part that caused so so so many tech support frustrations for me and no doubt the rest of the world.
Theres also the rare case where despite confirming windows has the driver it wont automatically detect the correct driver and require you to manually install it. Admittedly I haven’t had that happen since the early days of win10. also only changed hardware/installed windows a few times at most since.
Thought I don't remember to ever get problems with drivers on any of my PCs with WindXP...
Now windows 10 jeez so many updates kept breaking my soundcard driver and M$ eventually did a big change in sound that it broke all or most creative sound card drivers that it took quite a bit for them to release a fix and some required FW update, never had this crap with XP FFS...
Had that recently with an older xeon, that was not supposed to be attached to the internet. (special hardware)
Unfortunatelly the manufacturer only had a folder of infs and there is no way in device manager to update all.
In case you ever face that:
pnputil /add-driver c:\oem\*.inf /install
Or much fun klicking 5 times for each driver till it is installed (in my case it were ~100 unkown devices).
@@Durayne 100? Omg LOL, max I ever had was like 5 or slightly more jeez 😂
I'm on problem #3. My laptop is a 2009 HP ProBook so there's random drivers with this problem. And my PC which I built in 2013. I realize these issues and I'm planning on rebuilding soon.
This motivated me to start mucking around in my usb power settings and the bios and I think my buggy keyboard that didnt want to wake up during boot is fixed now. In addition, I realized XHCI hand-off was disabled which was probably nerfing my external ssd. Thanks Linus!
Quick tech tip, device drivers for unknown devices might show up in Optional Windows Updates. Avoid using tools that automatically install drivers as most of them might install drivers that you don't need at all or perform worse
I can't be the only one who *voluntarily* updates Windows every 1-2 weeks
Now this is the type of Techquickie's we need. More stuff like this please!
I agree, the old techquicke actually help me multiple times, helping someone or help me troubleshoot something quickly because i remember watching the related videos
Now just mostly stuff that useless like
Why game take many storage
Why cpu is getting expensive
You didn't mention the most basic thing: "Check that you installed all drivers from the manufacturer, because most of the time is just a missing driver that you forgot to install".
It happens to almost all users that come to my shop.
I'm a big fan of SDI (Snappy Driver Installer) an open source project that is designed specifically for finding the latest drivers and is especially good at finding drivers for old or rare stuff that might not have an official download anymore. It is also a great tool to change to a different version of a driver if you think that might be the issue.
100% this. However I’ve heard that SDI has been malware compromised & people saying you should use SDI Origin.
Nice!
@@Devastator0 I was thinking about that. Amazing people can push malware with open source software.
Unknown Device, it's one of the things that recently caused Linus to go downstairs butt-naked to find out!
Unknown devices are the best in windows, 2nd to windows drivers over factory ones.
“Windows drivers over factory ones” … that makes sense
This comment makes absolutely no sense.
I'm guessing this is meant to say "generic" ... but generic can be a good thing.
It can also be a faulty usb cable.
I bought a usb microphone a couple of years ago, it was cheap as it had previously been returned, showed up as a unknown usb mic from the start, but worked fine otherwise.
It then stopped working and I borrowed another usb mic from a friend and used the cable from the faulty mic, the replacement then acted like the other one had when I got it.
Bought a new usb-a to usb-b cable, plugged in the original mic and wouldn't you know it, everything worked as intended.
I'm pretty sure this is a fairly uncommon error, but thought it was worth mentioning.
Great info! Years of troubleshooting meant I knew most of those things, so it's so good to have it all in one video. Now I can send this to people when they have issues with devices rather than me having a crack!
I recently experienced this with my keyboard. Before replacing a $150 piece of hardware though, I opened it up and realized one of the power connectors inside was just barely loose. Enough power for Windows to know something was plugged in but not enough for the identifier to be properly picked up.
Another good way to identify an unknown device is to grab the VEN(dor) and DEV(ice) ID's under hardware ID's in device manager. Then lookup the IDs online. Intel has a clever Vendor ID of 8086 :)
1:28
Did you even bother watching the video?
Oops. Missed that part. Had the video on in the background while working
Intel created PCI and were one of the founding members for USB, so presumably they got to pick their vendor ID before there was a formal allocation process.
There can also be weird USB hubs, which can not take certain things, but are fine with memory sticks, for example. The USB hub of my monitor is that way.
There are also unpowered hubs and everything connected there pulls their power from the one USB port the hub is connected to, which can overload it. Kinda like with powerstrips and space heaters. Those hubs sometimes have a socket for a power supply.
This actually fixed an issue I had for years, used the hardware ID, google method ... THANK YOU
for missing drivers I would like to suggest snappy or SDI, it's free open source and works great.
Amazing, I just had a Sandisk multi card reader suddenly stop being recognised by my computer, I haven’t looked into it yet and your video pops up in my feed! Thanks.
as an IT specialist i find it very useful for everyone, thanks guys
love how linus has become so used to saying '...segway to our sponser' that when he ended it he almost said 'just like this imperfect...outro'
I just learned a hell of a thing. The looking up of a device ID solved all my unknown, thanks!
As a reviewer of drawing tablets, seeing them show the "Huion Tablet" pop up made me smile too much lol I've had to see that little thing MANY times XD
This video helped me fix a minor problem where my controller intermittently doesn't connect to my computer. Thank you for the tech tips.
The guy who read the sponsor ads should wear an old brown suit with a yellow shirt and a loose tie to complete the used car salesman or 80's salesman picture. It's his voice. And this would make me want to buy more from your sponsors.
You're imperfections are really enjoyable
I didn't know a lot of these tips, thanks !!
Stepping through every item in the Device Manager and checking each for a driver update is tedious. But, in rare occasions, I have had it find a driver update for a device that did NOT have the yellow exclamation point. In at least one of those rare occasions, it helped with the issue I was having. There's probably a better way to diagnose things, but if you have the patience for it, there might be times when it could help.
They forgot to mention that windows often installs older drivers from its own libraries. And these drivers don't always have the correct release date on them. Which can lead to the hilarious situation that windows keeps overwriting your manually installed working and up to date driver with a 10 year old driver, that was ported over from windows 7. Because it was dated last year, so it must be more up to date and thus better than a driver from the manufacturer manually installed by the user 🫤 And the only way to block this is to revoke the systems write access on the driver file(s).
Oh man, this happened a few times and it's really annoying. Windows overwrote my newer AMD drivers with a super old one, which ended up causing programs to crash
uninstalling and restarting and has saved me so many headaches working in IT
I really liked this video! Love getting into the real concrete tips.
very helpful video, I learned a lot this morning it's something I didn't learn in I.S.T. school or forgot over time, very useful
Sometimes when a device isn't working properly, you don't actually need to uninstall the whole thing and reboot the PC, you can actually just disable and enable the device in Device Manager. Works most of the time especially when you are using some peripheral and it just stops working out of nowhere.
Hardware LATENCY DPC problems would be a very apreciated and AMAZING explanation!
I remember having to code a very fragile but oddly effective way to find the STM32 chip's COM port because I dont think I could make it give more info on plug in. But I feel like there is definitely a way.
Normally I skip over tech quickies videos but that is a video I want
You said to go to the manufacturer's site after finding out what the hardware ID matches to, but you just kind of brushed over it. There really should have been a sentence or two talking about the dangers of getting drivers from unknown sources, because there are tons of sites with malware-filled drivers of all kinds. Probably 90% of the first page of search results when you put in a hardware ID will be sites you shouldn't touch with a 20 foot pole.
1:43 Note that Linus explicitly says "the *manufacturer's* website". Definitely pay attention to where you download a supposed driver from. There are plenty of malicious sites that try to trick you into downloading malware this way. I'm certain almost everyone who regularly watches LTT has seen such a scam site by now, but I think it still bears repeating for those who haven't yet.
We need a new video about chipsets and their functionalities.
Had someone bring me a GPU that was crashing in games. He thought the it was borked in the middle of the GPUpocalypse. The GPU was actually fine, and when he brought me the system, the GPU drivers weren't installed, or they had become corrupted... plus, the chipset drivers weren't installed either. Had he just looked in the device manager, it would have saved him $60. Granted, I cleaned up the system and made everything look nice and new while I was at it.
This is good stuff that will come in handy. One thing though... what about the funny cat video mentioned in the "Load Driver" error at 4:22? (My hats off to whoever came up with that test to see if we were paying attention!).
Some of us here have been around long enough to remember a time before plug and play when every device was unknown. And don't get me started on IRQs and interrupts!
Thanks for the inspiration to update my WD SES unkown drivers
I appreciate that it did fetch a funny cat video.
1:06 better quote here should've been "I'm not a mouse Janice, im an External Storage Drive"
Funny, I had this issue last week after buying a new set of headphones. Just turned out be a bad USB cable. Always check your cables and check to see if device works on another computer :)
for reinstalling the windows drivers I believe you can also click something like rescan for devices.
And i find things like turning usb selective suspend off a basic requirement as if you run your pc for long it almost always messes something up.
Oldest working pc hardware “that iv tested” i have is a steering wheel controller that i need to install a decade old version of logitech’s software to use. So you might be able get a number of peripherals working with a similar tactic as that software version is just the last with compatibility.
To give an idea of the age I believe the box mentions compatibility with the original XBOX.
When Linus has a tan "Linus Sun-BASK-ion
Hehe
Surprisingly deep at the end lol the real unknown device is inside us all along, and it's beautiful
genuinely saved me. Thanks Linus!
In my experience (every one of my 12 USB slots have devices), moving from WIN10 to 11 did not cause any device manager/driver issues.
In 99.9% of cases, drivers verified for WIN10 will have no problems on 11.
And yes, I had to run MBR2GPT CMD tool and also turn on Secure Boot in my BIOS.
Hands down best tool I've ever used that's probably saved me thousands of hours over the years with drivers is IOBit Driver software. It does all of the stuff in this video for you
Yoo I love Iobit Driver software
An unknown device created white circles around Linus' eyes!
He had cosmetic surgery, some microblading or whatever it's called, to rejuvenate the skin, he spoke about it on the WAN show.
"What are unknown devices" -- a headache and gateway to driver hell 😂
This is great beginner information.
im running a 2015 build with an asus z97. i've always got those caution symbols in device manager for unknown device, and the fix was always to download the chipset and intel management engine updates from the asus software site. surprised windows never had these as it was a popular mobo. seemingly everything has always worked even without downloading that though so idk.
Another problem is when a piece of Windows 7 compatible hardware won't update to Windows 10; as the manufacturer, such as HP, won't provide an updated hardware driver for Windows 10.
It's a shame HP went that way.
Back in the days when David Packard [the "P" in H-P] was still running things, it was remarkable how compatible the hardware was with the intro of new operating systems, such as with the original inkjet printer from 1988.
That printer started off with DOS; then with Windows 3.1; then with Windows 95; and was still functioning with Windows 98 when I gave it away.
Going from DOS to Windows 98 was a HUGE jump with operating systems for that H-P inkjet printer; and it still functioned.
Over the past decade, good luck getting a piece of Windows 7 hardware to work with Windows 10.
Thanks for the video!
Beware of Amazon sales of really old hardware that is actually new old stock. That means a lack of proper drivers for modern builds of Windows.
Make sure your release is using an updated kernel with all the drivers baked in =P
I use a program called "snappy driver installer". Works great and saves a ton of work!
I remember having issues back in the day with a Windows 7 install with the FTDI US232R. The auto driver thing could be hit-and-miss. The trick was to install the driver (from the website) as admin and then insert the FTDI US232R device, and then it would fully install.
Updating the BIOS can also sometimes fix weird stuck boot issues, where the BIOS doesn't (or occasionally doesn't) know what to do with some USB devices, and gets stuck at a black screen. Remove all USB devices and hard reboot to test this. (Note: This is a different issue than DDR5 long RAM training time we have now.)
This has happened to me with UPSes that use USB for monitoring, and a friend who has various USB devices plugged in all the time.
if you're getting this issue with any amd gpu or onboard graphics, try installing the newest software for the device, it tends to just be a software not properly updating and so the drivers and software is out of sync and it breaks.
I've been living with the weirdest USB driver issue on Windows 10.
1. When I connect any USB device or USB storage or even a Wireless Keyboard USB connector, it is not recognised, showing a yellow warning on the device.
2. The only workaround I found is to uninstall it from Device Manager, then click on Search for New Hardware to refresh the list.
3. The irony is that, this will have that device working until I restart Windows! On Bios the devices work perfectly, I can even use my wireless keyboard without any problems (Plug-and-Play), but once I enter Windows it goes to Yellow warning ⚠️.
4. Every time I restart I need to manually stop the Windows Audiopoint Service and start it manually, and start the WLAN Auto Configuration service.
Have you ever seen that? How do you think it can be solved?
I think a quickie about found.000 would be amazing. Focusing on what it is and how to remove it. The removing it part is what is getting me.
It's very simple, stop using fat(32) in 2023.
i’m interested to hear your feedback on micro-needling!
Can you guys do a tech quickie on printers? I feel like my family buys printers all the damn time instead of troubleshooting I can't be the only guy wishing you guys had a video to send.
I had a third-party Xbox 360 wireless controller hub that my PC refused to recognize. Solved it by manually editing the OEM 360 hub driver and adding the hardware ID for my hub to it.
0:10 the exclamation point is actually black and it's in a yellow triangle
I usually fix missing drivers by installing the "optional updates" in the Windows Update window.
Thank you. I've just been ignoring them for years. Now I have a valid solution(s). Thanks Linus.
Awesome tips!
Damn you Linus, you gave me hope for something that I've been dealing with since I started building PC's to no avale. Gj though now I can just show this vid to my family when they need help
If you plug in a broken USB device that the port cannot fully recognize you will see a notification in the bottom right of the screen. Of course if the device is totally dead you may notice no feedback at all when plugging it in.
wow that was super useful.
the thumbnail showed an icon from windows vista and i just now got onto my old vista family computer just to test something with it (yes im sending this from windows vista)
o7
PCI lookup is a handy tool if you have an unnamed device that you only know the ID of. once you know what the device you can look up the driver from its vendor/company site.
So used in seeing those with setting up 2005s era mobos.
For me it was built in fingerprint sensor in my laptop.
I recently did first reinstall on the laptop (not my first windows installation overall thought) and everything else was recognized automatically except for that sensor.
For whatever reason it just gave me error 10 ( device cannot be started) error.
I did even copy paste the hardware id and just found the same but newer drivers that Windows update gave me.
For whatever reason HWID says that it is Synaptics WBDI fingerprint reader.
But only way to get it working was to install Kensington fingerprint key driver.
Windows did warn me that "this device might not work with this driver" but after clicking "install anyway" it has been working just fine.
Weirdly enough even pc specialist's website where i bought this Clevo laptop, they also host that Synaptics driver that correspond with the HWID but doesn't work at all.
Disabling USB Selective Suspend is more of a solution if your device sometimes disconnects and reconnects without apparent reason, usually it doesn't get in the way of advertising device ID and/or drivers in case of plug and play hardware. The system can choose to "shut off" a device when it feels like it, but Windows NORMALLY won't do so unless the initial device solicitation is done.
Finally! I had no idea why my PC was so slow. Now after installing nuclear reactor drivers everything seems to work fine.
1:08 i had the exact same external harddrive for so many years and it malfunctioned just over a month ago so i got a bit of a Deja vu after seeing that drive and hearing a word "malfunction" at the same time🤣
I've seen new, out of the box laptops have half a docen of these, and not from small brands, things like HP, Dell, ASUS, Lenovo, then you make all the needed updates (including the ones from their propietary software) and most of the time, they're all gone.
I remember as I was setting up my friends pc I had to manually install the network drivers during the oobe because it didn't get recognised properly and I couldn't get past the account creation thingy because of microsoft😅
Other possibilities are older devices that can't run on your os, totally unrecognisable devices (like my old usb bitcoin miners), misidentification (or malformed id's) for the device, or even out of date (or not installed) motherboard or controller drivers.
Of course trying the device on another machine to see if it's the device or you pc is another option as is testing it with a live linux distribution on your own machine to see if it works.
gracias me ayudaste!
I support a line of industrial printers. These are not recognized automatically by Windows. A common support call is when a customer has bought a new computer and cannot get their RIP software to see the printer, because it needs the manufacturer's PNP driver installed through device manager.
After installing a new asus z690 (in my case) motherboard, you get 4 unknown pcie devices and one unknown controller. Installing intel chipset driver resolves all but unknown controller device.
It looks like it needs intel raid storage driver which is at Asus website.
BUT, a search reveals this should be installed before the O/S.
Copilot states that you can install driver after but there is a chance it will destroy the O/S.
Is it safe to install this with O/S installed already???
On my lenovo legion 5 17ACH6H, the built in camera usually does not function, and it will appear as the yellow device in device manager. Sometimes though, it will function for a little bit off bootup but then later on it will disconnect and appear yellow again unrecognized
I had a similar issue when I upgraded my mobo, I got the x570-e and the wifi and Bluetooth drivers didn’t work at all, there were no other drivers related to it however I had a software related to my usb wifi stick I use to use and uninstalling it fixed it, had to get in contact with asus and they suggested everything mentioned and it took me an extra 2 months to figure out what was going on
Great advice, been doing this for so many years before I even used CZcams lol. I recently had an issue with a wireless dongle that I couldn't fix. the drivers for windows 10 (unfortunately) RIP so I broke it to piece (Rest in Pieces) 😂😂🤣🤣
Thanks for continuing to take the time to make these types of videos.
I think it was a bit too hard to get the Arduino Nano drivers on Windows, but I still got it because "I'm computer pro"(slight sarcasm).
There was nowhere any signs that what you should do for that and even just what drivers to install.
I remember calling Pakard Bell in 1994, calling them about this on my 1st PC. They tried to tell me it was a Ghost Port LOL.. Last pre built I ever got.
Take a USB plug, connect the 5V and D+ to a 1.5k resistor, and connect the D+ and ground to a 3.3V Zener diode. That's enough for it to be identified as an unknown device in Windows. The actual CPU of whatever you're plugging in can be completely dead and it will still make that "USB device inserted" sound.
Sometimes, as weird as it sounds, it's also the motherboard's fault. For whatever reason, some motherboards have reliable ports and unreliable ones, independent to firmware. Some ports will run flawlessly forever, others keep reconnecting and disconnecting the attached device constantly, and it's so annoying. I always need to made sure not use those ports, at least for something that is supposed to be used for longer than 30 seconds. I should look into getting USB dummy sticks, just to have the port occupied with something, that doesn't actually do anything.
0:20 he's an osu player for sure
update: 2:59 he's definitely an osu player
Don't need to restart after uninstalling a device, just click scan for hardware changes in the quick toolbar on device managers window and it will pick it up again
that hardware id search learnt years ago that i have my learn in IT xD
I'm just hearing "reinstall windows every now and then" which has been the solution for the last few decades
i JUST was looking at this in the middle in the night wondering why i had 2 unknown devices when switching to new parts