Steelseries Apex flashes off randomly

[boias_john]

Ok I've been using this new PC build of mine for a bit over a month now, yet there's one problem that continues to plague me. My Steelseries Apex keyboard simply doesn't work 100% of the time. At random intervals the backlight will turn off for half a second and come back on, except when it does, the keyboard has 0 functionality. The only thing that kind of helps this issue is not using the Steelseries Engine software, and the only thing this does is prevents me from having to unplug/reconnect the keyboard to regain functionality, it'll recover on it's own this way, but the problem will still occur regardless, extremely annoying in the middle of gameplay when you suddenly stop moving or attacking. Not using the software also reduces the keyboard's overall functionality since I rely on the macro keys for convenience.

I've done extensive tests on this to try and determine the cause. The problem persists when the keyboard is plugged into ANY of the USB ports on my PC, either the front or rear ones, USB 2.0, 3.0, or 3.1 (note the keyboard does have a split USB cable, it takes two ports). There's no outside damage to the USB cable on the keyboard, no damage to the ports. Other USB devices function perfectly fine as tested on each individual port. The problem persisted even after upgrading my PSU from a 600w to 750w with a higher voltage rating, so I doubt it's an issue of voltage. I unplugged every USB device from my PC to see if it was hardware confliction, that wasn't it. Rebooted into safe mode to see if it was software confliction, that wasn't it. The keyboard seems to work perfectly fine on other devices, my sister's laptop and my mom's basic HP desktop.

The only thing I haven't tested is reinstalling Windows 10 from scratch, which I refuse to do since I'm extremely stubborn to do so since reinstalling personal programs and such is a pain.

I can't figure this one out, the only thing I can think of doing at this point is just buying a new keyboard and praying that this isn't actually a motherboard issue.

Specs:

Mobo: Asus Z170-A
CPU: Intel i7-6700
GPU: Nvidia Geforce GTX 760 EVGA
Chassis: This one
PSU: Corsair CX750M
HDD/SSD: 119GB Samsung 840 PRO SSD (OS Drive)
465GB Seagate ST3500418AS HDD
Optical Drive: Unknown brand, basic CD/DVD drive from an older PC.

 

[boias_john]

So my solution to this was to reformat my SSD, which is my OS drive, cleaned it, deleted all partitions, and reconfigured it from MBR to GPT since I hadn't done that upon building the PC, now my keyboard works. I urge anyone with functionality issues linked to Steelseries Apex keyboards to try this.