Random, sometimes rapid, keyboard/mouse disconnect and reconnect...

Zeus.:God

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Jan 14, 2012
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I've been having an issue over the past couple days which occurs at random, in which my keyboard and mouse connect and disconnect randomly. They're both plugged into the USB's on the back of the motherboard firmly and have a good connect, but they will lose power and come back on within a second. I can tell because of the DPI setting light on my mouse, and my keyboard is backlit. A couple hours ago, it started doing it to both, at the same time, rapidly- just lights blinking on and off at an inconsistent rate, with Windows blooping occasionally saying a device is connected or disconnected. I restarted it and it hasn't done that since...

Shut it down earlier, turned off the PSU and discharged the system by holding the power button, then swapped ports. Just did it again to the mouse. Makes absolutely no sense to me for this to be so random. I'd figure it would be an either works or it doesn't situation, not intermittent.

Motherboard is a Gigabyte Z68X-UD4-B3... I had power outages a couple days ago that came on and off (as it does any friggin' time it rains in my neighborhood), so is it likely that my board is screwed?

I'm going to check later today to see if some of the caps on the board are puffed or blown as I read that can sometimes cause issues...

Another, possibly unrelated problem I had about a week ago: my computer completely locked up except for the mouse. I could move it around, but nothing would respond, then the screen went black, and the mouse pointer became a huge white square. I could still move it around, etc... I restarted and haven't had that problem since, knock on wood.
 
What does the rest of your system looks like, especially the PSU? There is a good chance that the power outage may have damaged both the motherboard and power supply (especially if you didn't use a good surge protector or UPS), but we need more details than what you've given us so far.
 
The system is in my description. I've got my computer plugged into a power strip that I believe has a surge protector in it. What other information do you need?

The issue with the screen going black and huge white square cursor was before any of the power outages, and the onset of these problems was not immediate. It happened I believe, once a couple nights ago, and then only started becoming a problem tonight. I would think that if the outages had something to do with it, or actually damaged the components, it would have had more immediate results, and not the gradual onset of intermittency I'm experiencing now? Not in denial, just hoping to rule out any physical damage.
 
Logitech G-5 and a Microsoft Sidewinder X4. The keyboard is almost brand new, as I've only had it for about 3 months, the mouse is a few years old. I would suspect broken wires from my cat chewing through them, but not only have I not found teeth marks or breaks in the wiring, but the mouse will go out, then come back on without moving it after its shut off. I'm going to try plugging in my MP3 player to charge and see if that will have the same, intermittent power loss or if it's something just my keyboard and mouse are getting.

EDIT:

I suppose that it's something software based rather than hardware? My keyboard hasn't done it since the one time I had to restart because they were both flashing, but the two are on the same set of USB's (they're right next to each other, in the same "block" that protrudes off the board at the back)... Wouldn't loss of power to one USB necessitate loss of power to the other?
 
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I've noticed that it mainly does it when I'm playing games- Quake 2 from Steam in particular. When I started up my computer earlier for the first time since this morning, it had gone an hour and a half or so without doing it. As soon as I started Q2 it started again. It doesn't seem to do it in BF3, though, which makes no sense to me. Also, the kb + mouse flashing incident happened while I was on the desktop.

I dunno, this is really annoying me, and I'm getting the feeling it's not a hardware issue.

EDIT:

Just checked all the caps on the motherboard and none are puffed or expanded in any way... If the power supply were at fault here, what would be some of the symptoms? I should notice something more than intermittent USB connectivity, right?
 
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So it does it any time I play CS:S or Quake 2. I noticed in CS:S there is a bluish haze in game from the time it loads the main menu to while I'm playing. There's no weird frame rate issues at all. I just clocked my cards back down to stock clocks (I had overclocked them only slightly to maintain performance in BF3 when I switched from 1680x1050 to 1920x1080), and that didn't help at all.

PSU bad? Mobo bad? Both bad? Dead video cards as well? Anyone have any ideas? I've searched everywhere and can't find anything useful or relevant to me. I'm gonna' try swapping in my old 8800GT to see if that takes care of the bluish haze in CS:S.
 
Bluish haze present in BF3. Not in Quake 2. I think that's because Quake 2 doesn't use SLI. I shut off SLI, and no blue haze. I've had my monitor hooked up to the top card, I removed it, put the lower card in that slot, and now only a single card, no blue haze still. Going to put the other card in the bottom and try SLI again. If it does it again, I'll try a single card on the lower slot.

Bets that it's the motherboard? Really, anyone post, please, don't care if you even just use this thread to chit chat, I'd like to know that anyone has some sort of input.

EDIT:

Only SLI sucks. I made sure all connections were good, etc, etc, still only bluish haze when in SLI in game. I should just buy a new PSU (want to upgrade to modular anyway) and RMA my mobo... :l
 
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Somewhat cross posting, but I figure I should simply update my own thread as well in hopes of getting some help. I've RMA'd my motherboard a month or so ago because the issues were getting bad enough that I just got fed up with putting it off. Got the new board, put it all back together, still had problems. Just replaced the power supply and STILL have the same problems, though it's as inconsistent as it was when they first started occurring. I'm sure they will get worse as time goes on, yet again. Cables are not the issue, I'm sure, as any time the mouse dies, I can leave it alone,and it will come right back, and if it was a cable issue, there is no reason the keyboard should do it when it remains stationary, or why either of them would flash rapidly as they gain and lose power. I'm hesitant to RMA the board again, but I've heard Gigabyte has had issues in the past with sending out bad boards. I'm going to give them a call tomorrow if I have the chance in hopes of getting some help, but dammit, 2 months without my baby is killing me.
 
Sorry to bump an old thread.

I have the same issue (I hear the window device disconnect sound). Both my keyboard and mouse become unresponsive and the annoying part it totally random (Computer stays fine but when I reconnect mouse or keyboard THE unresponsiveness stays). Its really hard to replicate this problem which is why i am pulling my hair. The weird thing is I can unplug and replug a corsair 8gb voyager during the usb malfunction and windows recognises it okay with no issues so it can't be the USB controller issue cause then it wouldn't even register the USB device properly.

Z68X-UD3H-B3 Gigabyte motherboard. I doubt its a power issue cause the GPU, CPU and RAM would have serious issues and id be having BSOD's and crashes in games but nothing of that happens. Seriously I never seen weird behaviour. I suspect its a power surge or something.
 
Do you all have the sidewinder X4? I got the same issue with my Asus Z87-Pro and sidewinder X4. I start to believe it´s the later that is the culprit. I ran my old razer reclusa for some days and no problem after having major problems before. So much I after trying to disable power features in usb controllers in device manager did a clean reinstall. Both these certainly appeared to help some.

Running my old reclusa I didn´t get the issue but after connecting my reclusa it didn´t take to long for the problem to reappear. One odd thing I actually got a blue screen on my first driver install attempt for it but the second reboot the drivers installed correctly. I could however not use some of my usb controllers had to connect it directly to the mainboard. I am quite sure I had it connected to the front usb 3.0 ports before though. I also believe I had it running on my old Z87-Pro mainboard I had to rma for other issues...

Dunno if it´s it or some new windows update that is causing issues or something.
 
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