I’m getting this message on one of my USB 3 hub ports, even when I have nothing plugged in.
The exact message is, “A USB device has malfunctioned and exceeded the power limits of its hub port. You should disconnect the device.” I’m getting the message even when there’s nothing plugged in to the USB 3 ports.
This is on my Quiet PC. I’ve spotted nothing in the event logs. Windows 7 x64 is fully up to date.
Pretty sure that means there’s a hardware problem with the port. I’ve not had it happen with a port myself, but I have had it happen with a device (a mouse), and I fixed it by replacing it.
If it’s a powered USB hub and it’s plugged into AC I would definitely remove it, as it sounds like a hardware issue (and a powered USB hub malfunctioning could cause bad things to happen).
I had a similar problem about 3 months ago. It turned out that one of the “pins” (not sure what to call them) in the USB port had gotten bent. So bent, in fact, that it occassionally touched the other side; that easily explained the “power surge” in the port.
In my case, finding the responsible port was the trickiest bit, because the error message usually only came up while booting. Something about a power surge, and not much else. Fortunately I remembered that one of the USB ports was particularly difficult to use, so I started my search there. Hole in one.
Once I found that, I just pushed it back, and everything is fine. The USB Port even works, which suprised me.
Needless to say, I did the “fix” with the computer turned off and unplugged. I probably should have taken even more precautions, but I was a bit impatient to see if that USB port was the problem.
I should mention that in my case, the USB port was an in-built port and not on an external hub. I suppose an external hub I would have just replaced, like others have suggested.