Minor Keyboard Issue, Steelseries Apex turns off randomly

[boias_john]

I just upgraded my rig, my very first custom built PC, which went very smoothly for a first timer, got everything wired up correctly in one try and no catastrophic failures. After fresh reinstalling my OS and getting nice and cozy with my new rig, I noticed that my keyboard, a Steelseries Apex, has a tendancy to randomly... stop working. The lights will flash off, turn back on immediately, but after that there's 0 functionality until I reboot my PC. I can't replicate it at will, it seems to be pretty random, but happens most frequently while I'm playing a game, and less so while just browsing the internet. It's actually happened once while attempting to write this post up.

Specs:

Mobo: Asus Z170-A
CPU: Intel i7-6700
GPU: Nvidia Geforce GTX 760 EVGA
Chassis: This one
PSU: Corsair CX600
HDD/SSD: 119GB Samsung 840 PRO SSD (OS Drive)
465GB Seagate ST3500418AS HDD
No optical drive

If anyone can possibly think of anything, it'd be appreciated. Thanks in advance :>

 

[xapoc]

Locate USB 3.0 on your motherboard and switch the keyboard there, in case of a power issue 3.0 has better power capabilities, thats IF the issue is power related, but seems like it is so far.

 

[boias_john]

The keyboard's already plugged into the rear USB 3.0 ports with both plugs. The only thing not plugged into a 3.0 slot is my mouse.

 

[xapoc]

Did it work fine before you upgraded PC? Try going to into the power management in windows and set to high performance. If it happens again dont reboot PC, just reseat USB cable or try another USB port which ever gets it to work first.

 

[boias_john]

Yeah, the keyboard worked perfectly fine before the upgrade, I was using a Dell Studio XPS 8100 before, pretty old. It's a seemingly random occurance, I already have my power settings set to high performance, and I also have it set to not turn off USB to save power, and it still happens. The last time it happened I just unplugged and replugged my keyboard in, it made it work again but if that happens to me while I'm playing a game that's going to become extremely annoying.

 

[xapoc]

Did you check for any motherboard firmware updates ? Also double check if you dont need any drivers updates under device manager. Just throwing some ideas, not sure what you did so far.

 

[boias_john]

I just updated the bios, device manager is telling me that all of my drivers are up to date though. I don't feel like the device manager is ever accurate though, so I'm gonna go through and find things to update one by one.

Updating the bios and USB controller drivers didn't fix it. I'm about to try switching to a different keyboard to see if the problem persists.

 

[boias_john]

Ok I'm gonna have to double post to provide an update to this issue, since it's still not resolved.

I'm beginning to doubt that this is a PSU issue at all. My reasoning is that I plugged multiple USB items into my PC at once, occupying all available USB slots, as well as adding two 7200 RPM hard drives and an optical drive, then maxing the speed on all of my 120mm LED lit fans. Doing this along with using an older Microsoft Sidewinder X4 keyboard caused absolutely no issues in performance at all. Everything worked just as I would expect, despite having all of these new components draining power. However my Steelseries Apex still maintains this odd quirk where it just stops working for whatever reason, no matter how much or low little is plugged in via USB or into the PSU or mobo.

As a control experiment I plugged the Steelseries into my mom's PC, which is a basic HP desktop, and it works perfectly fine for long stretches of time while she's using it. It's not an issue with the USB ports that the keyboard's plugged into when it's on my PC, either, because I've had them plugged into multiple ports. I'm really not sure why it's doing this, I might have to contact Steelseries to see about an RMA.