Disable External Device Through USB

Question

I have an external device without an on/off switch connected to my computer that stays lit up even when the pc is locked or asleep. I would like to disable that one specific USB port when my computer is asleep so that it gets no power or be able to manually disable it so it shuts off without unplugging it every time.

I have already tried to go into Device Manager and Disable the USB ports, it makes me have to restart my computer. Hibernating the computer does not work either. The only thing that works is flipping the power switch on the power brick.

Not only does this waste electricity, but also causes light pollution. This would be a great advancement for humanity to simplify this. Please let me know if there is a software or coding logic to get around this.

Thanks,

Jack J

Answer 1

Unfortunately, you can't poweroff USB in a software environment unless the USB device itself can be turned off via driver. Because USB power is at the hardware level, it doesn't open up any interfaces for the operating system to use.

Answer 2

Hello AK,

Thank you for your speedy reply!

That was actually what I did after I posted this forum! I enabled ErP in Bios, which turns off power to all USB's when the computer is shut down. This is a lot better because now I do not have to switch the power brick off on the back of my PC.

If there was a way I could figure out how to manually power on/off the USBs when the pc was still on, that would be pretty spectacular. Let me know if there is a software or anything! No need for a hard power switch on external devices after that!

Best,

Jack Johansson

Answer 3

Hello, I'm A&K, here to help.

This is usually related to the BIOS, please go into the BIOS setup and turn off the "Allow wake from USB device" or similar feature.

You can enter the BIOS menu by pressing DEL or F12 (or other buttons, depending on the computer, please refer to the device's manual) at power on.