Kanped
New member
Hey, guys. I've been running my current rig for a while now but I've run into some problems and I know this isn't a place for troubleshooting but I didn't see a specific area for that and I trust you guys to know your stuff. If the hardware's buggered (as I suspect), then I would also like some build advice.
Anyway; running an AsRock Extreme 4 Z77 board. For a long time, I was getting error notifications saying 'The last USB device you connected has not been recognized' but everything seemed to be working OK so I just disabled the notification and carried on. Then a little while ago, I hit the power button and nothing happened; like the PSU was switched off. Removed a few USB devices and hey presto, it booted as normal.
Except then, my web browsers started crashing constantly and the PC would deadlock while gaming fairly frequently. Now, I use a USB audio interface for sound so I was guessing that it was the USB controller on the MoBo that was causing the issue. Next time the 'USB device not recognized' error appeared, I went into device manager and noticed that the AsRock USB controller host was not responding; the driver had crashed. I also then noticed that my Crossfire was disabled and while Windows (and AMD's CCC) recognized both cards, the option for it was missing, like the crossfire bridge was missing but I checked it and it was installed fine, same as always.
Now, since updating to Windows 10, I'd had a bunch of weird bugs like different redistributables refusing to install (had to edit the registry to even update Windows because Silverlight wouldn't update to the latest version on 8.1). So, I reformatted my drives, reinstalled Windows 10 to a clean install, then it deadlocked again in about 5 minutes. So, I formatted again and installed Windows 7. Seems more stable but in 2 days I've had 5 bluescreens; USB errors. The web browsers still crash from time to time, too.
So, I reckon the MoBo is buggered but it could be the PSU. I've tried using different external hardware, to no avail (switched to an old Firewire audio interface, different mouse, PS2 keyboard). Is there any way to diagnose this any further and find out for sure?
Secondly, if it *is* the MoBo, there doesn't seem much point in trying to get a Z77 board from somewhere; things have moved on and that. I really don't have much of a budget but I can save up for a while.
So, I'm running 16GB DDR3 RAM at 1600Mhz, 2x PowerColor 2GB 7850s and a 750W Silverpower PSU.
If I'm getting a new MoBo and CPU, what should I get? I don't need something that's going to completely be overpowered for the existing rig and end up with a bottleneck elsewhere. I was running a 3570k OC'd to 4.5GHz, so something a wee bit better than that would be nice. Looking for the current standard gaming setup, basically but I do audio production as well so single-core performance is also a consideration for me.
Thanks for reading the long post and for any help anyone can provide.
Anyway; running an AsRock Extreme 4 Z77 board. For a long time, I was getting error notifications saying 'The last USB device you connected has not been recognized' but everything seemed to be working OK so I just disabled the notification and carried on. Then a little while ago, I hit the power button and nothing happened; like the PSU was switched off. Removed a few USB devices and hey presto, it booted as normal.
Except then, my web browsers started crashing constantly and the PC would deadlock while gaming fairly frequently. Now, I use a USB audio interface for sound so I was guessing that it was the USB controller on the MoBo that was causing the issue. Next time the 'USB device not recognized' error appeared, I went into device manager and noticed that the AsRock USB controller host was not responding; the driver had crashed. I also then noticed that my Crossfire was disabled and while Windows (and AMD's CCC) recognized both cards, the option for it was missing, like the crossfire bridge was missing but I checked it and it was installed fine, same as always.
Now, since updating to Windows 10, I'd had a bunch of weird bugs like different redistributables refusing to install (had to edit the registry to even update Windows because Silverlight wouldn't update to the latest version on 8.1). So, I reformatted my drives, reinstalled Windows 10 to a clean install, then it deadlocked again in about 5 minutes. So, I formatted again and installed Windows 7. Seems more stable but in 2 days I've had 5 bluescreens; USB errors. The web browsers still crash from time to time, too.
So, I reckon the MoBo is buggered but it could be the PSU. I've tried using different external hardware, to no avail (switched to an old Firewire audio interface, different mouse, PS2 keyboard). Is there any way to diagnose this any further and find out for sure?
Secondly, if it *is* the MoBo, there doesn't seem much point in trying to get a Z77 board from somewhere; things have moved on and that. I really don't have much of a budget but I can save up for a while.
So, I'm running 16GB DDR3 RAM at 1600Mhz, 2x PowerColor 2GB 7850s and a 750W Silverpower PSU.
If I'm getting a new MoBo and CPU, what should I get? I don't need something that's going to completely be overpowered for the existing rig and end up with a bottleneck elsewhere. I was running a 3570k OC'd to 4.5GHz, so something a wee bit better than that would be nice. Looking for the current standard gaming setup, basically but I do audio production as well so single-core performance is also a consideration for me.
Thanks for reading the long post and for any help anyone can provide.
Last edited: