Question Over current on USB detected - very strange behaviour

doesitmattermusic

Commendable
Feb 26, 2018
12
0
1,520
Today, I had a strange problem with an 'over current on USB'.
I have had this problem once in the past, it turned out to be a little moisture on the mobo where the USBs were.

MSI B360-A-PRO
INTEL i5 8500
MSI GTX 1070Ti
16GB RAM
1TB HDD
EVGA - 700W PSU

However, today in the morning I went to boot up the PC and received this exact same problem with an over current on USB.
I thought I knew what to do, and it was just to check if there is a little moisture that gathered on the mobo again, but there was no moisture.
I have tried multiple 'fixes' mentioned throughout the forum to no avail, as none of them have worked for me.

  • (steps weren't taken in order mentioned)
  • Cleared CMOS - 3 times,
  • Tried running MOBO out side of case
  • Tried using hairdryer to properly dry out any moisture in the PC case, if there was any there.
  • Disconnected any peripherals from USB ports. (none of my peripherals are faulty or damaged)
  • Checked for any damage/dust/metal particles inside of all of my USBs - nothing but dust
  • Disconnected USB3/2.0 connectors from MOBO
  • Cleaned all dust from the whole case (Case looks spanky new)
  • Even took out and disconnected my GPU/CPU and all other external cabling/devices just in case for any electrical discharge
  • I tested all USB ports on PC case and back of the mobo with a bluetooth dongle, and all USB ports worked (it has a blue diode, which helped with diagnosing any faults)

Now here is the biggest cookie of them all, after I tried all points mentioned above and tried to boot my PC, the problem was still there - so I've given up on trying to fix the problem.
I swing by an hour later to turn on the PC, hoping the problem was magically fixed, and it was; my PC just turned on without any problem.
It booted onto a screen where I could either, 1. Setup. or 2. Continue. I went with setup and it took me to the BIOS where I configured some minor settings, then I saved and exit.

I am currently typing up this post on my PC. But the real question is -

What the sh*t has actually happened to my PC, and why wouldn't it boot past the error message even after all I've done, and it magically just fixed itself after an hour of nothing.

Hit me with your best guess, or if there is an absolute genius in the crowd, then boy you better come up with something good.
Cheers.
 

Ralston18

Titan
Moderator
How many USB devices/peripherals are connected?

Are all being powered directly via motherboard USB ports or are some of them on an independently powered USB hub?

Also: Where is the moisture coming from? What was the original source?

There should be no moisture at all and if there is it could be getting into other places as well.

Could be corrosion somewhere. Causes an intermittent short as temperatures and humidity change.
 

doesitmattermusic

Commendable
Feb 26, 2018
12
0
1,520
How many USB devices/peripherals are connected?

Are all being powered directly via motherboard USB ports or are some of them on an independently powered USB hub?

Also: Where is the moisture coming from? What was the original source?

There should be no moisture at all and if there is it could be getting into other places as well.

Could be corrosion somewhere. Causes an intermittent short as temperatures and humidity change.

Usually I only have keyboard and mouse, usb microphone and a Bluetooth dongle plugged in. Bluetooth is always plugged at front of my case, the rest at the back. I know for certain that none of the peripherals are the cause of the problem.

The moisture unfortunately came from vapour smoke, but that was roughly 5 months ago when it all happened, ever since then I wouldn’t vape in the room, and I’ve thoroughly cleaned the PC. And ever since then I also never had this problem until now.

And I also do not see any corrosion anywhere, not the screws, or any components.

Also: I restarted my pc 15min ago. It was running for good 3 hours without any problems. And I’m back to square one - with the usb problem.
 

Ralston18

Titan
Moderator
Okay.

You need more information.

Look in both Reliability History and Event Viewer for error codes, warnings, or even informational events that can be associated or correlated with the problem.

Reliability History is much more user friendly than Event Viewer so start with Reliability History so start there.

However, I would be remiss if I did not ask about the EVGA PSU - age, condition, etc....
 

doesitmattermusic

Commendable
Feb 26, 2018
12
0
1,520
Okay.

You need more information.

Look in both Reliability History and Event Viewer for error codes, warnings, or even informational events that can be associated or correlated with the problem.

Reliability History is much more user friendly than Event Viewer so start with Reliability History so start there.

However, I would be remiss if I did not ask about the EVGA PSU - age, condition, etc....

I cannot access those. Since I cannot get past the error message on boot up. If I get lucky and manage to get it running I will get those up.

Right now I took out the mobo and double checking for any damage/burns/corrosion etc

And the PSU is 700w bronze rating, and around 1.5yrs old, never had any problems with it and it was bought brand spanky new. Don’t know any more info about it
 

doesitmattermusic

Commendable
Feb 26, 2018
12
0
1,520
Update - After carefully examining the mobo, there wasn’t any sign of damage etc.

This morning however the error still persists, “Over current has been detected on USB device”. I tried to reset CMOS again, hoping I could access bios at the least, but no solution seems to be working.
 

doesitmattermusic

Commendable
Feb 26, 2018
12
0
1,520
I finally managed to boot into Win10 (took a half of day) and gain access to both Reliability History and Event Viewer and there are no crashes/warnings relating to the USB problem.

Now whenever I restart my PC, or shut down and run it again, the problem still persists.