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On HP's website, I see a driver which is named "AMD USB Filter Driver". What is a USB filter driver? What does it do? What happens if I don't install it?

3 Answers 3

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A filter driver

is a Microsoft Windows driver that adds value to peripheral devices or supports a specialized device in the personal computer. It is a driver/program/module that is inserted into the existing driver stack to perform some specific function.

Written either by Microsoft or the vendor of the hardware, any number of filter drivers can be added to Windows. Upper level filter drivers sit above the primary driver for the device (the function driver), while lower level filter drivers sit below the function driver and above the bus driver.

You will find some examples at this driver development page (though, that might be more useful for a Stack Overflow question).

Here is an example at Google Groups about writing a USB filter driver. That thread gives a brief discussion on its limitations. Meanwhile, Stack Overflow question WinUSB application or user-mode driver as a filter driver for USB analysis/sniffer/trending shows a use-case.

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Quick googling suggests that it is a patch that fixes USB problems on some old motherboards. If you have no problems with USB devices, you probably don't need to install it.

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According to the ReadMe file inside the driver folder itself:

AMD USB Filter driver is an upper class filter driver that needs to be installed when using platforms that have any of the following AMD hardware: Ontario, Llano, Trinity/Richland or Kaveri APU paired with Hudson 1, Hudson 2 , Hudson 3 or Bolton FCH RS780 / RS880 paired with SB700 or SB8x0 GFX / SB chipsets There are two main functions for the filter driver.

  1. To ensure ISOC memory transactions are not affected by enablement of certain Power Management features without sacrificing overall system power significantly. To achieve this, the driver upon detecting ISOC traffic on USB OHCI, EHCI or XHCI controllers will disable the PLL power down feature of ALINK / UMI and additionally for RS880 driver enables/disables the scratch bit in the NB Configuration Space.

  2. Adjust Power Management related settings in Trinity dynamically to use optimized settings for conditions with active Bulk USB traffic. {Filter driver will adjust the related timers in Trinity when it detects USB bulk transfer.}

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