Hey Dan, if you see this before the morning, take your Spider to work… and see my email.
Dan, also another pointer that I don’t think anyone has said - steer well clear of USB3.
Has anyone checked USB3 with the new WinUSB drivers?
I just took my Spider over to the hardware labs in an adjacent Microsoft Research building (I’m a software developer at Microsoft). One of the guys in the lab over there is an active member on these forums (I’m not sure he wants me to give his name as his user profile doesn’t say anything about working for Microsoft). He spent half an hour testing out my mainboard and ultimately confirmed my suspicions that there is something wrong with the board itself. He too was unable to get a usable USB device descriptor off of the device. He looked at the board under a microscope and didn’t see any obvious soldering problems, but nonetheless was convinced that my board is pretty much dead.
Gus, would it be possible to get a replacement? It looks like this board was dead on arrival 
Yes we will hapilly replace and send you a gift as well 
There is RMA option on the contact us page. Please fill in the needed info.
Now I have the same problem with my FEZ Hydra Today I flashed successfuly firmware with ethernet support, I was able to ping the device, so I added oled module and wrote small app to display some network info on it. It did show up on the display then deadlocked for unknown reason and now windows do not recognize the device. I get message that usb device malfunctioned and see it in device manager as Unknown device. Any ideas?
Put the non Ethernet firmware back
I was able to recover from this by flashing ethernet fw again, but I have question - is it problem to use both oled and ethernet at once on hydra? If I try to display anything on the oled, it deadlocks after 2 or 3 seconds. With non-ethernet firmware it works.
Here’s a ME TOO! I get the EXACT same experience with my Spider. When I got it months ago, I updated firmware to 4.1.8.0. Loaded a couple different programs on it and played around with no issues (Windows 7 and a laptop). Then I let it sit in a box (all parts stored in original, anti-static bags). Now I’m on Windows 8 x64 running on a Samsung Series 7 Slate (tried both straight USB and through a powered hub) and I’m trying to install 4.2 and I have had the same experience as you. Device drivers not loaded correctly. Load them, start updater, detects firmware (can see boot loader on OLED screen), flip the switches, screen goes white, software can’t communicate with device. I tried one of the alternate methods and was able to get the Tiny boot loader updated, then existing firmware erased, then fails to install 4.2 firmware. Now I don’t even have 4.1.8.0 to fall back on. Really don’t want to unpack the Arduino, but I have a project that needs to get done.
Got it to work! Fiddled with the switches again, and again, and again, and finally the Spider updater software was able to run through the full process!
Doug Evans
Try a new cable,
i was having this issue and a new usb cable solved it for me
Getting my brand new computer going, due my previous laptop crashed (literally to the floor).
It has Win 8 and all 4 USB ports are USB3 (marked with SS). With the WinUSB drivers, in System Manager under other devices it shows EMX.
When I bring up MFDeploy, it doesn’t show any devices when I select USB.
When I plug in my Spider, it fires up the last installed program just fine. I only have the DP and T35 plugged up.
Do I need to go back to the older USB drivers?
This is exactly the problem I’m having. Win8 x64
lol. Maybe I’ll try that. Coming from a software world, I like determinism 
Was it random fiddling, or a specific set of switch flips?
Pete
@ mhectorgato - Manually update the driver for the EMX device and point at the GHI folder in Programs X86.
Thanks – Earlier, I had tried this path “C:\Program Files (x86)\GHI Electronics\GHI Premium NETMF v4.2 SDK\USB Drivers\GHI_NETMF_Interface” and I’m getting:
“Windows could not find driver software for your device”
I have wasted hours with the Spider. I have been able to get it to update to 4.2.5.0 but the device is not recognized by the system once the firmware has been updated. This thing showed so much promise but so far has proven to be a colossal waste of brain cells. Is appears that this is a problem for a large number of people, who like me are not newbies. I have purchased additional Spider and other GHI boards, assuming that it might be an isolated hardware issue. Using alternate boards has produced exactly the same results. So far I am in for @ $1,000.00 of components and see no likelihood of this thing working with the currently available resources. If anyone has been able to address this successfully I would love to hear about it. Thanks for your brainpower.
@ mfuriate - we are here to help, even on a Saturday night 
but in order for us to do so, we need a bit of details.
Have you seen this bold note here http://www.tinyclr.com/forum/topic?id=9388
Welcome to the community.
@ mfuriate
What operating system are you running, and is it 32 or 64 bit?
Are DIP switches in the correct position after the firmware update (you have to move them back to all facing one direction – away from the button, as I recall, but double check).
Do you have a RGB/T display on the Spider? If so, what is it showing?
Does anything show up in Device Manager in Windows?
Have you tried right-click manual installation of
C:\Program Files (x86)\GHI Electronics\GHI Premium NETMF v4.2 SDK\USB Drivers\GHI_NETMF_Interface\ghi_netmf_winusb.inf ? (That was the final thing that made my install work)
Did the firmware update finish successfully?
Pete
Thank you for the reply. I have successfully run the Spider firmware update. The DIP switches are all set back to the correct position. I have tried to run the app both with and without the RGB display connected. The display shows the following:
EMX
Version 4.2.5.0
Debug: USB1
LCD: 320X240
Waiting for debug commands . . .
The device is recognized as EMX Unspecified in the devices and printers window
The device is enumerated as a Universal Serial Bus controller: GHINETMF Debug Interface
When running the application from Visual Studio 2010 the following error is generated:
Device not found or cannot be opened – USBGadgeteer
Running in 64 bit Windows 7 Professional on Alienware // 16GB Ram
Have also tried the same process on:
Acer ApireOne 756 / 8GB RAM WIndows 7 Professional (64Bit)
Acer AspireOne / 4gb RAM / Windows XP Professional (32Bit)
The device is being recognized at some level as windows “dings” at me as I insert the USB cable. The Spider then shows as a Universal Serial Bus controller: GHINETMF Debug Interface but is not available in the DEV environment. When in “Project-Properties” the deployment transport is USB but the device is not visible to in the “Device” dropdown.
I have tried every imaginable driver for this thing, all with the same result. The last driver is the one I started with: as you have suggested. (C:\Program Files (x86)\GHI Electronics\GHI Premium NETMF v4.2 SDK\USB Drivers\GHI_NETMF_Interface\ghi_netmf_winusb.inf). This should not be that hard. Clearly some work to be done to make this stable and reliable. I am spending development time on what should be a rote task. If there is a different approach I will gladly take it. Deadlines are approaching and I have not even got the application scaffolding completed.
Thanks for any help.
What you are seeing is not normal. We heard of some difficulties in windows 8 but never on 7.
Can you please show some snapshots?
Finally, we are always here to help. We understand your frustration so let us know how we can help better. We respond to your post in minutes on a holiday weekend. Not many companies do that.