Question What component can kill all USB ports on multiple motherboards in a row?

[discourse4]

Two motherboards in 3 hours now have dead USB ports due to a mysterious issue. Half of the USB devices I plugged in are also completely dead (2 USB installers, 2 wireless adapters, 1 mechanical keyboard).

Could it have been a software issue? I was booting from the same SSD that had driver issues. Did I unintentionally create some sort of virus?

Could it have been the PSU? It had worked with about 6 other motherboards in the last few months.

Could it have been the case? One of the standoffs broke, but why did it only kill USB ports?

In any case, I am not touching these 3 components anymore so I cannot troubleshoot the issue, but I still want to at least get an idea of what was happening.

 

[Fix_that_Glitch]

Off the top of my head, if you are loading in faulty drivers from your ssd, you are going to get faulty parts of your motherboard.

 

[jay32267]

"I was booting from the same SSD that had driver issues. "
Why were you doing this?
I think this is a recipe for disaster.
I would do a clean Windows install with ANY new motherboard.

 

[Deleted member 14196]

do a Clean install

 

[discourse4]

The SSD had driver issues because I did a system restore by mistake. Since the SSD was used to boot both AMD and Intel motherboards in the past few weeks, that messed up my drivers and registry.

To be fair, I have never heard of faulty drivers killing USB ports AND attached devices before... But if that is the case, then I should be able to pop a USB expansion card on a pci-e slot and revive the boards, because I know for a fact that the PCI-E slots are working.


* I am still gonna throw out the PSU and the case just to make sure.