Phantom USB device keeps reconnecting and causing annoying sound – How to disable or stop it?

Hi everyone,

I’m experiencing an issue on my Manjaro system where a “ghost” USB device keeps reconnecting and disconnecting, causing an annoying sound every time it happens. The device is not physically connected, but it appears to show up in the system and causes these constant notifications.

I’ve tried various methods to resolve the issue, including:

  • Adding udev rules to ignore the device
  • Trying to disable the device using commands like echo '3-7' | sudo tee /sys/bus/usb/drivers/usb/unbind
  • Adjusting notification settings and audio preferences to mute the sound

However, the device still keeps connecting and disconnecting, and the sound persists. I would like to know if there’s a way to permanently disable this “phantom” device or stop it from causing these disconnect sounds.

Has anyone encountered a similar issue or found a solution to prevent this from happening?

Thank you for any help or suggestions!

First step would be to identify the device.

If the device is not physically connected - understood as a physical port - depending on your system - it could be an internal device becoming defective.

That is a guess - as you have provided no usable intel.

Please provide output from - copy the text from your terminal and past it into your original topic - please ensure you select the text and format it using the code tags </> button in the topic toolbar

inxi -Fxxxc0
lspci
lsusb
1 Like

Thank you for your response! I understand that you need more information to help diagnose the issue.

Here’s the output from the commands you requested:

inxi -Fxxxc0:

Summary
System:
  Host: martin-manjaro Kernel: 6.1.119-1-MANJARO arch: x86_64 bits: 64
    compiler: gcc v: 14.2.1 clocksource: tsc
  Desktop: KDE Plasma v: 6.2.4 tk: Qt v: N/A wm: kwin_x11 vt: 2 dm: SDDM
    Distro: Manjaro base: Arch Linux
Machine:
  Type: Desktop Mobo: ASRock model: H81M-VG4 R2.0 serial: <superuser required>
    uuid: <superuser required> BIOS: American Megatrends v: P1.30
    date: 04/24/2015
CPU:
  Info: dual core model: Intel Core i3-4170 bits: 64 type: MT MCP smt: enabled
    arch: Haswell rev: 3 cache: L1: 128 KiB L2: 512 KiB L3: 3 MiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 800 min/max: 800/3700 cores: 1: 800 2: 800 3: 800 4: 800
    bogomips: 29605
  Flags: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx
Graphics:
  Device-1: NVIDIA GM107 [GeForce GTX 750 Ti] vendor: eVga.com. driver: nvidia
    v: 550.144.03 arch: Maxwell pcie: speed: 5 GT/s lanes: 4 bus-ID: 01:00.0
    chip-ID: 10de:1380 class-ID: 0300
  Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 21.1.14 with: Xwayland v: 24.1.4
    compositor: kwin_x11 driver: X: loaded: nvidia gpu: nvidia display-ID: :0
    screens: 1
  Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1366x768 s-dpi: 84 s-size: 413x232mm (16.26x9.13")
    s-diag: 474mm (18.65")
  Monitor-1: HDMI-0 res: mode: 1366x768 hz: 60 scale: 100% (1) dpi: 85
    size: 410x230mm (16.14x9.06") diag: 470mm (18.51") modes: N/A
  API: EGL v: 1.5 hw: drv: nvidia platforms: device: 0 drv: nvidia device: 2
    drv: swrast gbm: drv: kms_swrast surfaceless: drv: nvidia x11: drv: nvidia
    inactive: wayland,device-1
  API: OpenGL v: 4.6.0 compat-v: 4.5 vendor: nvidia mesa v: 550.144.03
    glx-v: 1.4 direct-render: yes renderer: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti/PCIe/SSE2
  API: Vulkan v: 1.4.303 layers: 1 surfaces: xcb,xlib device: 0
    type: discrete-gpu driver: N/A device-ID: 10de:1380
  Info: Tools: api: clinfo, eglinfo, glxinfo, vulkaninfo
    de: kscreen-console,kscreen-doctor gpu: nvidia-settings,nvidia-smi
    wl: wayland-info x11: xdpyinfo, xprop, xrandr
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel 8 Series/C220 Series High Definition Audio vendor: ASRock
    driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus-ID: 00:1b.0 chip-ID: 8086:8c20
    class-ID: 0403
  Device-2: NVIDIA GM107 High Definition Audio [GeForce 940MX]
    vendor: eVga.com. driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel pcie: speed: 5 GT/s
    lanes: 4 bus-ID: 01:00.1 chip-ID: 10de:0fbc class-ID: 0403
  API: ALSA v: k6.1.119-1-MANJARO status: kernel-api with: aoss
    type: oss-emulator
  Server-1: JACK v: 1.9.22 status: off
  Server-2: PipeWire v: 1.2.7 status: off with: pipewire-media-session
    status: active
  Server-3: PulseAudio v: 17.0-43-g3e2bb status: active
    with: pulseaudio-alsa type: plugin
Network:
  Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8211/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet
    vendor: ASRock driver: r8169 v: kernel pcie: speed: 2.5 GT/s lanes: 1
    port: d000 bus-ID: 03:00.0 chip-ID: 10ec:8168 class-ID: 0200
  IF: enp3s0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: d0:50:99:7c:0b:f8
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 931.51 GiB used: 760.55 GiB (81.6%)
  ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Toshiba model: DT01ACA100 size: 931.51 GiB
    speed: 6.0 Gb/s tech: HDD rpm: 7200 serial: 7533DX9FS fw-rev: A750
    scheme: MBR
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 97.07 GiB used: 26.17 GiB (27.0%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda2
Swap:
  Alert: No swap data was found.
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 51.0 C mobo: N/A gpu: nvidia temp: 44 C
  Fan Speeds (rpm): N/A gpu: nvidia fan: 40%
Info:
  Memory: total: 12 GiB available: 11.63 GiB used: 7.42 GiB (63.8%)
  Processes: 221 Power: uptime: 15h 29m states: freeze,mem,disk
    suspend: deep wakeups: 0 hibernate: platform Init: systemd v: 256
    default: graphical
  Packages: 1359 pm: pacman pkgs: 1345 pm: flatpak pkgs: 14 Compilers:
    clang: 18.1.8 gcc: 14.2.1 Shell: Zsh v: 5.9 default: Bash v: 5.2.37
    running-in: konsole inxi: 3.3.37

lspsi

Summary
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 4th Gen Core Processor DRAM Controller (rev 06)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core Processor PCI Express x16 Controller (rev 06)
00:14.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family USB xHCI (rev 05)
00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family MEI Controller #1 (rev 04)
00:1a.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family USB EHCI #2 (rev 05)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset High Definition Audio Controller (rev 05)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port #1 (rev d5)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port #4 (rev d5)
00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family USB EHCI #1 (rev 05)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation H81 Express LPC Controller (rev 05)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family 6-port SATA Controller 1 [AHCI mode] (rev 05)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family SMBus Controller (rev 05)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GM107 [GeForce GTX 750 Ti] (rev a2)
01:00.1 Audio device: NVIDIA Corporation GM107 High Definition Audio Controller [GeForce 940MX] (rev a1)
03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8211/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 11)

lsusb

Summary
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 8087:8008 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 8087:8000 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 003 Device 002: ID c0f3:02a1 USB HCT Keyboard
Bus 003 Device 003: ID 046d:c246 Logitech, Inc. Gaming Mouse G300
Bus 003 Device 026: ID 14cd:168a Super Top Elecom Co., Ltd MR-K013 Multicard Reader
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub

In any case, from what I understand the problematic device is this: Bus 003 Device 026: ID 14cd:168a Super Top Elecom Co., Ltd MR-K013 Multicard Reader

Please let me know if you need any more details or if you have further suggestions on how to resolve this.

This is a hardware issue with your cardreader.

Since it is a desktop system - you can disconnect the reader from the mainboard.

1 Like

Thank you so much for your help! Disconnecting the card reader physically did indeed resolve the issue, and the device no longer connects and disconnects constantly.

I do wonder though, if there’s any way to achieve the same result from software? In Windows, I can simply eject the device from the Device Manager, and that resolves the issue. Is there a similar solution on Linux or Manjaro to disable the device without physically disconnecting it?

Thanks again for your assistance!

No, not without creating other issues.

I suppose one could attempt to write an udev rule to ignore the device, but since the device is in a loop of connect/disconnect the best approach is to remove the device.

It could be one of the reader slots having a short which causes the loop - I don’t know - simply disconnecting will remove the issue - but not the cause of defect.

3 Likes