Dell/W11 Pro - Copy data to USB drive in USB-A port only causes Internet/network disconnections and computer freezes (very strange problem)

Dell 16 Plus DB16255 (System 1 specs)
Windows 11 Pro 26200.8117

Problem that keeps occurring with the laptop:

When you copy any data from the local NVME drive to any USB drive on the USB-A port (right side of the laptop and there is only one USB-A port), during the copy process Windows will experience the network/Internet disconnect and very briefly intermittent lock ups during the copy. If I try to access any web sites or anything on the Internet, the errors indicating no Internet connection available until the copy completed. If I tried to open any program or app during the copy, it would not open. Refreshing any web page in any web browser just indicated there was on Internet connection.

In short, what is Windows 11 would cause this to occur?

I have CachyOS Linux on the same laptop, dual-boot setup, and Linux experiences no problems with any USB port on the laptop. I have copied 256GB of data straight from the laptop to the USB port while using the laptop in Linux. No problems at all.

If Dell Support would have told me that they used Ubuntu Linux for their testing months ago, this would have helped me. I only found out because the Dell Engineer that had been involved with this problem from September 2025 to now accidentally included me in their internal email.

Any thought or suggestions on what causes this problem in Windows 11?

Tried:
* Windows 11 Pro reloaded many times, same result.
* Installed from a Dell and Microsoft ISO image for the laptop, same result.
* Updated AMD drivers from AMD web site, same result.
* Device Manager - USB Controllers - unselected 'Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power' on all USB ports, same results.
* Dell had me try a lot of stupid things where they were not even related to the problem, same results.

Update -

After I figured out what was actually causing the problem and found someone else with the exact problem (different laptop), and found the solution:


I am copying 120GB of data from the laptop to the USB drive without experiencing any problems now. Wow! 8 month old problem finally corrected!

Refs:
Enable or Disable USB Selective Suspend in Windows 11
How do I turn off USB selective suspend on Windows 11 Laptop

According to Copilot, here's the skinny on those two GUIDs from the Registry:
That registry path decodes to two nested GUIDs:

• 2a737441-1930-... = the USB Settings power subgroup
• 48e6b7a6-50f5-... = the USB Selective Suspend setting within it

What the Attributes value does​

It doesn't directly change USB behavior — it unhides a power setting that Windows 11 buries by default: value 1 makes it hidden, value 2 unhides it and makes it visible. So changing Attributes to 2 is step one of a two-step fix:

1. Set Attributes = 2 → unhides "USB selective suspend setting" in Power Options
2. Open Power Options → Advanced → USB Settings → USB selective suspend → set to Disabled (for both "On battery" and "Plugged in")

Why disabling selective suspend improves USB behavior​

USB selective suspend lets Windows power down individual USB ports it considers idle — even momentarily idle. For a thumb drive you access once an hour, that's fine. For a TB5 NVMe enclosure, a VR headset, or any always-on peripheral, it's catastrophic:

• Drives disconnect and reconnect mid-transfer
• Latency spikes as the port wakes back up from suspended state
• Intermittent device not recognized errors
• Compounding effect with the write-caching issue you just fixed — the port suspends, wakes, and then writes hit the no-cache penalty on top of the wake-up latency

And FWIW, this intelligence helped me understand why I kept "losing" a USB-attached NVMe drive I was using for backup on my Beta Channel test laptop: a 2018 vintage Lenovo ThinkPad X380 Yoga. It would get suspended when the unit went to sleep, then never "wake up" when the PC itself did. Now fixed, so thanks!
--Ed--

Ed Tittel said:

Why disabling selective suspend improves USB behavior​

USB selective suspend lets Windows power down individual USB ports it considers idle — even momentarily idle. For a thumb drive you access once an hour, that's fine. For a TB5 NVMe enclosure, a VR headset, or any always-on peripheral, it's catastrophic:

• Drives disconnect and reconnect mid-transfer
• Latency spikes as the port wakes back up from suspended state
• Intermittent device not recognized errors
• Compounding effect with the write-caching issue you just fixed — the port suspends, wakes, and then writes hit the no-cache penalty on top of the wake-up latency

Click to expand...

Great information, Thank you. I read some of this elsewhere vaguely described, but you provided some great information on this feature.

Ed Tittel said:

And FWIW, this intelligence helped me understand why I kept "losing" a USB-attached NVMe drive I was using for backup on my Beta Channel test laptop: a 2018 vintage Lenovo ThinkPad X380 Yoga. It would get suspended when the unit went to sleep, then never "wake up" when the PC itself did. Now fixed, so thanks!
--Ed--

Click to expand...

I noticed my USB NVME reader would some time disconnect. I do backups on USB-NVME readers, much faster than a USB drive.