Suspected USB hub power issues

So a couple of months after my latest new install, i stared running into this problem of my mouse losing power. It wasn't much at first, a second here and there and the game freezing up for a bit. Every now and then windows would tell me a new device had been plugged in and installed, sometimes not, and sometimes Steelseries engine would tell me my Sensei was connected.

So after a week or so of this problem persisting, my keyboard started dying as well, same symptoms as above, but with an increase in severity. Freezes got longer, sometimes over a minute, and at one point i had to reboot to get the mouse and keyboard to work. I tried a lot of things, i used to click a lot on mouse 2 while playing HoN, i mean 200+APM a lot so i was already familiar with USB-hub power settings, tried shutting that off first. That didn't do much at all, so i decided to switch to my old Logitech MX518 mouse to reduce power consumption.

This helped, for a while, but soon enough, within a week, the MX518 was doing the same thing, losing power at the most random of times. So I'm quite puzzled as to what this really is, I'm trying to play CS:GO with my buddies but not having a working mouse when we push bomb sites because "I'm not sure" Isn't really working out for me no more.

I've tried msconfig processor count, because someone mentioned they got the same problem when that was not set to the right amount or deselected. Tried disabling MS Multimedia Class Scheduler, Nothing.

I've tried setting power management for all USB human interface devices in device manager. I've also tried with the emergency low-power state setting as disabled and enabled, no difference.

There are 2 devices in device manager that have faults: SM Bus Controller and Unknown Device. Can't seem to fix either.

I've tried turning off LED's, lowering polling rate, using an older mouse for lower power consumption, didn't work.

I've looked through Event Viewer and the only thing i can see is the occasional "couldn't find device: cdrom", I don't have a CD-ROM, i only hooked one up to install windows. I lack the windows technical knowledge to know whether or not this could be an issue, but i assume not.

I tried USB deviewer, and cleaning up in drivers and installing new ones, for everything. Also deactivated all the pointless windows features that also sometimes cause mouse issues like these.

Also tried disabling USB 3.0 in BIOS if that could be screwing with things, no issue, just 2 less USB ports i don't use. Also tried the V/HScrollHighResolutionDisable 1 registry key adds.

I'm sure I've forgotten something in here as well, but I'll leave the post like this for now and hope any of you guys have some input or things i could try out to solve this. I've yet to try a new windows install or a different keyboard, but I'll be trying another keyboard sometimes in the next days.

From what i can see this has been a widespread issue since 2009, with no actual fix, which boggles my mind. Usually its introduced with a windows update, and theres some conflict with a video card update and shared irqs, no idea what that includes or how to fix it, but looks like a new install and beating windows update to death with a teaspoon is first on the list.

Steamprofile if you want to contact me directly: http://steamcommunity.com/id/Innkvart

Any and all help welcome, thanks. -Innkvart

Are you running a tower or a laptop? 

If the former, and if you're not using your mobo I/O USB ports, I'd open up the case and check your USB headers. 

If again the former, but you are using your mobo I/O USB ports, try using different ports. I've experienced these ports being intermittently failing before with at least one mobo.

Are you using an external/accessory type USB hub? A PCI one?

If you're using an external hub, remove it, and see if the issue resolves, a PCI hub, swap to mobo ports and same.

This also could be a PSU wattage issue, if you're running a tower. 

Tower, currently just a test-bench, specs in my teksyndicate profile. I'm referencing to the USB hub in device manager, the internal MOBO ones, I have 2, both have the same symptoms, both have updated drivers, so i suspect the problem to lie elsewhere.

As for PSU yes, maybe, again specs in profile but I'm running a 680, which is lightweight, with 3 screens, and all steelseries gear. Removing my keyboard doesnt seem to help, changing to lightweight power gear does not seem to help. There seems to be a fault in keyboard, mobo, or somewhere in the system.

Thanks though, any reply could point me in the direction of fixing this.

You didn't mention -- did you double check all the physical connections including the headers on the mobo?

Well its all on a test-bench now so checking all physical connections is done quick and It's the first thing i made sure of.

As far as the headers i have 3x 10pins and 1x 20pin, never touched these as the 4+2 usb ports that came with the mobo will always be enough.

How could headers or physical connections cause these issues, and what would i double/triple check?

Well, I'd change headers if you can, first of all. If the header cable is somewhat shorted, but not quite, you can get an intermittent failure, of course. If the pins or the mobo is to blame, it could be a specific header set that's out, hence the changing over to triple check.

Intermittent is the worst kind, I feel for you.

EDIT: Oops, this was incomplete. By the 4+2, do you mean the mobo I/O ports themselves?

by 4+2 i meant these: http://puu.sh/fjx7D/6fb26b5096.jpg 4, and 2 under the ethernet port. I only use the one on the picture, but i have tried all 6.

Yeah, the mobo ports as opposed to the headers, alright. 

Those will fail. On my current ASRock board 2 of them are just dead, 2 of them are intermittent. 

I'm the wrong person to ask about repairing the motherboard, but I can suggest that you buy a USB hub through whichever seller you prefer, it can be PCI, header 5.25, or whatever else is available, and use that instead -- they're often quite inexpensive for basic models, and if it solves the problems you know that your mobo USB ports are dying or dead. 

 

Well I've now tried my roommates keyboard and mouse for 24 hours, really I should try longer but everything works fine and hes coming home today so gotta give those back.

No problems, at all. My sensei mouse also works flawlessly on my laptop, but has problems with my rig for some reason. My roommate had some off-brand weird laptop-keycap keyboard that worked fine alongside his old Razer mouse, but the second i plugged my sensei in shit started going haywire again. Just the way it did 24 hours ago when i decided to try his gear instead.

As much as I want to just buy a new PSU, mobo and processor (my i5 2500K is ready for retirement i know), theres still plenty of life left in my PC; and i like this rig, so i want to fix the problem, not just bury it in the trashcan.

My old Logitech MX518 had faulty wiring so had to throw that out, disregard whatever i wrote about that in the original post by the way.

The sensei while connected to the laptop does not lose power at all, no matter how hard i whip it around or stress it, nor does it bother that i jumble the wire around like a madman while borderline coming near damaging it.

From what i can tell, the USB hub/Mobo is fine, the mouse is fine, the keyboard is fine, I've tried tens of pages worth of tweaks to fix this.

Well fuck I'm formatting and doing a new install i guess, god damnit.

Progress! 

But before you go all the way to formatting, have you tried uninstalling and reinstalling the drivers?