Front panel USB 3.0 reconnection problems

Caphalem · October 11, 2015

So this was happening since the day I build this PC, however, I was so overjoyed with my first build that it didn't bother me all that much but still I should look into it.

Rig:

Motherboard: Asus Sabertooth FX990 R2.0PSU: Seasonic M12II Bronze 750WCase: Corsair Graphite Series 230T Black (no window)CPU: AMD FX-8350 (Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo)Graphics Card: Asus GeForce GTX 970 StrixRAM: 2x Corsair Vengeance 1886MHz CL9 8GBPlugged straight into the wall

Every time somebody goes to the kitchen or bathroom and turns the lights on/off (or just does something electricity related that makes my speakers fart out an unpleasantly loud... sound) my front panel USB ports disconnect whatever is connected to them and instantly reconnect. If you're playing a game and have a controller plugged in there then I hope it's not an intense fight (Dark Souls boss fight or something similar) when somebody decides to go to the bathroom because you're about to loose control for a second. When transferring big chunks of data from a mobile device to the PC or vice versa through one of those USB ports the results get messy as well. The only way to overcome it, at the moment, is to simply plug USB devices straight into the mobo (to the back of the PC).

Now, you could put the blame on the house's crappy electricity installation but my previous desktop, which is at least 8 years old, never had this problem. Is there something in the BIOS that could be adjusted to stop this from happening?

Caphalem · October 13, 2015

Guys?

0x1e · October 13, 2015

Guys?

Hmm, I would blame the wiring of the house.

You could try a different usb header on the motherboard? Or turn off Surge protection in the bios, however I personally wouldn't do that.

Is your computer / case grounded?

It could be the wiring, but because it's USB 3 it's using more power than your 1.1 - 2.0 USBs so becomes more pronounced.

Could try a surge protector or / and a UPS.

Caphalem · October 14, 2015

Hm... Tiny surges are common in my apartment and this mobo has Anti Surge listed under the ASUS exclusive features (sure). Since USB 3 uses more power, like you mentioned, turning that off wouldn't be all that wise, could fry some wires.

It has only one USB 3 connector on the the motherboard so can't try a different one.

Not sure what you mean by grounded. The case itself is only touching my wooden desk.

I think a UPS would be an awesome idea (Always wanted one) though currently I don't really have the funds to go get one and very little knowledge about them.

Thank you so much for your insight!