Extrnal Storage droping out - Fresco Logic FL1000 USB3 Controller

[ContraShock]

For some reason my external HDDs (Seagate, Western Digital - doesn't matter) all end up getting disconnected / unmounted during file transfers.  Could be a large copy operation, or torrenting, or even just watching a video located on the external HDD.

I'm running Windows 10 (10.0) 10.0.14393 x86_64.

The USB3 controller in my laptop is Fresco Logic FL1000.  Driver support has basically stopped for this model, and has been handed over to Micr0$0ft.

I've been using this laptop in several locations, and even used to use NAS storage as the torrent storage location.  Everything was basically fine.  Now that I've moved I'm back to using external HDDs.

I used to think that some of the evident power flux happening in this room was contributing to the dismounts, except that everything has been fine for over 18 months prior to this ever starting.  I also used to think it was due to the thermal paste going bad since the CPU temp was definitely running hotter than usual.  I've actually fixed that now, but still no effect on USB3 HDD stability.

I've tried looking for firmware updates for all my drives, nada.

Here's a few other things I have figured out:

- USB2 works fine
- My new ASUS laptop seems to not have these issues using the same drives and it's all USB3 (no Fresco controller)
- these issues are not qBittorrent related - happens when qBT isn't even running

I'll post back if I ever find a solution.  Things I plan to try:

- changing the incomplete folder to a local hard drive
- thus using external for seeding and storage only
- wipe my system and reinstall Windows

I'm not holding out too much hope, just thought I'd post a hail mary, just in case someone had any ideas...