Windows won't recognize or install drivers on anything

vannac · July 25, 2018

Hey All,

I'm having an issue that started earlier this month when I tried to install a second GTX 960 in SLI mode. I originally installed the second GPU in the wrong slot and the kind folks over in the Graphics Cards section helped me out with that (link to that thread here: https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/949419-asus-gtx-960s-sli-troubles/) . So I installed the card in the correct slot, but then I noticed Windows refused to install drivers on the second card. I thought this might have had something to do with the card, so I swapped cards and left the older (known good) card in the first slot). However, now I'm still seeing the driver issue in Windows and it's happening on multiple devices. When I try to put in any kind of USB device, even devices that were working before, it fails to recognize them or install the driver. The errors vary from "driver unsigned" errors to straight up "Windows was unable to load the driver" errors.

I was thinking that this was clearly an OS issue and I've been planning to upgrade to Windows 10 soon anyway. However, I hooked up a backup drive that was in a known good state prior to the SLI attempt and when it booted up (with a single GPU), it had the same issue! So now I'm back to thinking it's hardware or some kind of config issue. Anyone experienced anything like this or have any suggestions? I am open to fresh Windows install, but don't want to install Win 10 only to find the same problem.

Here's my system details (if I'm leaving anything out let me know):

OS: Windows 7 Pro 64-bit

Motherboard: Asus Sabertooth 990fx

CPU: AMD FX 8120 8-core

RAM: 24 GB Corsair Vengance DDR3

GPU: Asus Turbo GTX 960

HDD: 2 Corsair Force LE SSDs in RAID 0 (dedicated RAID card)

Thanks!