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RealTek USB Card Reader 2.0 Update

Anonymous
2020-07-07T17:32:43+00:00

Today (7/7/20), Windows updated the RealTek USB Card Reader driver from version 2.0 to 3.0.  Can anyone shed light on what's in the new version. I'm not interested in obvious generalities.  In particular I need to know if the update addressed the issue of unwanted disconnects (ejects, dismounts) of a storage device.

[Skip to my jaygourley July 10 post: The new RealTek card reader driver probably has the same Surface integration problem as the old one.]

I and many other users on this community had persistent problems with the card reader in several successive generations of Surface Pro (including my 4 and 6).  Windows would spontaneously disconnect (eject, dismount, etc) a microSD card.  For those of us who were using the cards as mass storage for critical files, this was a crippling defect that could cost hours each time it occurred. 

The unwanted storage drive disconnect problem was easily "solved" by replacing RealTek driver with the Windows USB Mass Storage Device driver (see https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/forum/all/sd-card-still-randomly-disconnects/e2f4b3f2-954b-4b1b-8a02-81029880edd0 for details).  I switched to mass storage driver a few months ago and can assure people with the same problem that it solves the problem.

Now Windows Update has replaced the mass storage driver with a new version of the RealTek driver.  So I am faced with a difficult choice between reverting back to the known safe mass storage device driver and taking a chance on the new RealTek ver. 3.0 driver.

I assume Microsoft would not distribute the specialized RealTek driver for the RealTek card reader unless it had some advantage over Microsoft's generic mass storage device driver.  On the other hand, the Microsoft Surface folks left the RealTek Version 2.0 card reader driver for years even though it clearly did not work in the Surfaces for any application that needed reliable access to a microSD card.  I do a lot of work on battery power.  So if the specialized RealTek driver saves energy, then I want to try it.

Further complicating my dilemma is that the failures of the old RealTek card reader driver were not simple to diagnose.  I would typically get two or three failures per week but would often go two or three weeks without a failure.  In other words, it would take weeks for me to be certain that the new driver was safe to rely on.  And the inconvenience of a failure is not trivial.  It can take hours for the Surface to rebuild corrupted databases.

If I can get some assurance that the new RealTek card reader driver solved the disconnect problem and that it has some meaningful advantage over the generic mass storage device driver, then I'll leave it in place and hope for the best.  Otherwise, I'll have to switch back to the known-safe mass storage device driver without ever knowing if the new version would have been better.

So in summary, What's new in the Ver 3.0 RealTek card reader driver?

Surface | Surface Pro | Install and update

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  1. Anonymous
    2020-07-07T23:26:49+00:00

    I agree with everything you said, JosephT71.  But my personal purpose is to avoid being the one to find out whether the problem has been fixed.  The great thing about these forums is that fraidy cats like me can learn from bolder users. 

    I still hope someone can post some specific information on the reason for the RealTek update.  If I don't learn something specific like that, then I'll revert back to the generic mass storage driver and just monitor the issue to see what's learned by more adventurous souls and by those who don't realize the new driver has been installed on their systems. 

    I'm not sure what you were searching for that didn't turn up threads on this.  But here's a thread with posts from February 2020 through May 2020: https://answers.microsoft.Feb 2020.  Here's another from April 2020 through June 2020: April 2020.  

    The search algorithm doesn't seem to see any of of the pre-2020 threads.  As I said earlier, I've followed this issue for awhile.  With two different Surface Pros and three different microSD cards, Windows was never able to hold onto a microSD storage device until about two or three months ago when I switched to the generic mass storage driver.

    As you can see from my description and these threads, the problem is not easy to identify.  There are probably other users who experience this and haven't figure out that the problem is in the card reader software.  That was way down the list when I first started troubleshooting the problem.

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  2. JosephT71 9,210 Reputation points
    2020-07-07T21:48:10+00:00

    Your initial linked post is also from Jan 2016 when Windows 10 was barely 6 months old.

    A bunch of the same people, who never updates their drivers, having the same old issue --- following the same evasion techniques --- is a rather meaningless gauge of whether the issue has been fixed or not.

    You could have someone talking about this problem in a forum in 2020 --- with a 2017 realtek driver --- but what does that mean?

    The frequency of this problem in the discussion forum from someone with a relatively current realtek driver --- that should be the gauge of whether the bug has been fixed or not.

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  3. Anonymous
    2020-07-07T21:26:54+00:00

    Hi, JosephT71. 

     A few of the threads, like the URL in my initial post, mention RealTek.  Most just talk about "Surface" and "eject" "unmount" "disconnect" "dismount" "losing" "disappearing" the microSD card.

    I think the standard scenario was like mine.  The microSD card disappears from Windows.  Removing and reinserting it or restarting Windows would recover the card.  So most victims probably weren't adversely affected by the constantly vanishing microSD.

    But I keep my Outlook .ost file and my local OneDrive image on a microSD card to the unwanted abrupt disconnects were a big pain for me till I changed drivers.  Both those datasets would have to be rebuilt after a disconnect.  Thankfully, that all occurred automatically.  So it wasn't a crippling if I had AC power.  But if I was on battery, the demand basically eliminated my ability to work.  The battery would be almost gone by the time those datasets were rebuilt and indexed.

    The issue plagued me through a Surface 4 and into a Surface 6 and through three replacement microSD cards.  It ended only after I switched the card reader driver to the generic mass storage driver.  I don't know what advantages I may have lost in doing that.

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  4. JosephT71 9,210 Reputation points
    2020-07-07T20:53:11+00:00

    I just did a quick search (first 3-4 pages of results for realtek card reader) on this forum, I didn't notice much discussion in the past year about realtek card reader having problems.

    So the assumption is that realtek fixed the problem and therefore there has been not much discussion about this problem on this forum.

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  5. Anonymous
    2020-07-07T20:40:46+00:00

    Thanks, JosephT71.  I appreciate the instructions on getting the most current driver.  But I'm not certain I understand the full meaning of your reply.  Are you implicitly saying that the RealTek driver is better than the generic mass storage driver?  If so, why?  Why in general?  And why specifically is it better than the previous RealTek driver that caused unwanted eject problems for so many Surface owners over recent years?

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