Thank you for your responses.
It was HX Edit that upgraded the firmware, which bricked the HELIX. I don't think it's entirely unreasonable for the software provided by the vendor to be robust enough to update firmware on its own, without needing the user to boot in safe mode and install manually downloaded patches. But that's beside the point, I can live with that. A less tech-savvy user might not.
Before I made this thread I of course troubleshot the error, and
1) Changed the power settings and USB settings (via Decide manager) to not turn off the USB hubs to save power
2) Found out who the USB driver provider was (Microsoft) and uninstalled the drivers, and afterwards checked that no new drivers were available via Windows Update
3) Ran the Windows hardware troubleshooter, no issues here.
Having done the "obvious fixes", and seeing that the issue was not resolved, I created this thread. I assumed that it would be the new thing (HELIX) that was the problem, given that I have tried the common fixes, had not had this issue before, and that I did not have the issue before upgrading the firmware.