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SD Card Still Randomly Disconnects

Running a brand new (7 days) Surface Pro 3.

WIndows 10 Home v1511

OS Build 10586.63

I have a Samsung 128Gb Micro SD.

I've been through every post I can find on this board and tried all of the suggested solutions from software/firmware updates, switching to quality of access rather than quick changeability, and all the rest of the enable/disabling of drivers.

I have made sure the card clicks in properly, I have tried to card on other devices (it works fine on every thing else), I have tried other cards of other capacities from different manufacturers. I tried a small piece of tape and paper to make the card fit tighter in the slot.

All come up with the same results. The SD card will not remain accessible for longer than about 5 minutes.

There's no indication that it has dropped (when I manually remove the card there are the descending tones from the device telling me it's disconnected). It just disconnects and is no longer accessible.

When I physically remove the card, the tones sound, when I replace the card the tones sound and the card is once again accessible for about 5 minutes.

I just got this thing and I'm trying so hard to like it.

This issue has me extremely frustrated.

Please tell me there is something that will fix this without having to ship the device somewhere, pay for shipping, pay for repair, and be without the device for a few weeks.

This seems to be a common problem over the past few YEARS.

Microsoft, Please take action to fix this issue.

I look forward to hearing a solution that will fix this once, and for all and not a bandage or temporary fix.

Thank you.

Kris Roberson

Answer
Answer

Ran into the same problem regardless of SD card manufacturer, size, etc.  Each would work in other devices but would disconnect on my Surface Pro 3.  This told me it was an issue with the reader, not the card itself.

I was able to fix this (so far permanently) by switching from the installed RealTek driver to a generic USB driver.  It's a simple, reversible process.  The directions below are for Windows 10:

  1. Press [Win]+X then select Device Manager
  2. Expand Universal Serial Bus Controller, right-click on the RealTek USB 3.0 Card Reader driver, then select Update Driver Software
  3. From the pop-up, select Browse my computer for driver software
  4. On the next screen, select Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer
  5. Make sure Show compatible hardware is selected, then click on USB Mass Storage Device, then click Next
  6. It should say that Windows has successfully updated your driver software, so you can now click Close

Once completed, you'll need to restart your Surface.

The only thing I'm not sure about is whether or not it will cause your SD card to read at USB 2.0 speeds instead of 3.0.  I haven't seen any slowdowns personally, so either it's working as a 3.0 device or the SD cards I'm using were never fast enough to take advantage of 3.0 in the first place.

Hope that helps!

Jason...

Jason

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Can you try a different BRAND card to see if you have issues? Multiple people
have reported issues with microSD cards unmounting, etc. on various Surface
devices. Especially the 128GB cards. I know that the cards work in every other
device on the planet. Microsoft knows this impacts users but it isn't a high
priority for them, apparently. I have microSD cards that mount and stay mounted
in my SP3 that won't in my Surface 3. I had NO 128GB cards (including the
Samsung Evo) that would not work correctly in my Surface 3. 5 or 6 different
ones.
 
 
 
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Last updated April 24, 2024 Views 19,111 Applies to: