GoodBoy

Well, just try the bios resetting method first. Reboot the pc, press F2, F10, Delete, whichever key is to get into bios setup for your model of PC. Many home built pc's bios use Delete key to get in. Mine does. HP i think is F2, IBM is F10. Anyway once you get in there, look for a reset to defaults option. Now, thing is, since the OS can move these settings around, this might only be a temporary fix. But, if you try the reset to defaults right after experiencing the problem, and it seems to help, then there is a good chance we are on the right track. If the IRQ's are not sharing properly, we can look at your IRQ settings in device manager, see what devices are sharing IRQ's with your USB root/hubs, and go from there. I would start by changing the drivers for any devices sharing IRQ's with your USB. Likely it will be video, sound, or network that is sharing. If the suspected device has the newest driver already, then we will uninstall it and go find an older version. If the driver is not the newest for that hardware, we will try up[censored] to the newest. Something else to consider (not sure is already mentioned) is to make sure your motherboard is running the most recent version of its' BIOS. You mention an ASUS motherboard for a Pentium4, but you need to find out it's exact model number and current bios Revision. Should be displayed for a second or 2 right as you power it on, on the screen where it tells you which key to press to enter bios setup. This shows how to determine your mobo and bios versions: http://support.asus.com/repair/repair.aspx?root=110&SLanguage=en-us

While I have not experienced the exact issue you guys are having, I am having a USB related problem that seems to have recently started. I think it is USB related anyway. The problem was crackling sound in Vista (and the usb keyboard and mouse would blink off and back on), or ocassional Video problems in XP where a game would goto 100% cpu utilization, and I would have to reboot to fix it. Both I think are usb related problems (The game problem in XP happens when moving the mouse quickly, and once starts persists until I reboot). I read elsewhere of users with crackling sound issues and it was an IRQ conflict (issue seen with 2 different soundcards, my X-Fi and their C-media chip powered card). Granted, IRQ conflicts are not supposed to matter anymore, IRQ's are supposed to be shareable. But I plan to try and experiment with this tonight. The things you mention about powering the pc off for awhile, sounds like something you do to try and get the irq's to reset. You can accomplish the same thing by going into your pc's BIOS setup screen and choose "Set all settings to default" or "Reset Configuration". The actual setting to change will vary depending on the make/version of your BIOS. Some custom BIOS for companies like HP may not have a reset choice at all. Also, if the problem is in fact an IRQ conflict (which is a hardware setting), reformatting will not fix that. In short, it seems that recently IRQ's for USB hub/devices while supposedly shareable with other devices in your PC, do not seem to be playing well with other devices. My pc is dual-boot XP and Vista. The OS's themselves can move IRQ's around during bootup. I think I will try to give my USB port its' own IRQ, and set everything else to other IRQ's, see how it goes. My pc uses and ASUS A8n32-SLI Deluxe mobo, an Adaptec XHub7+ powered USB2 hub (with a Logitech G5 laser mouse, Saitek keyboard, UPS, Printer, quickcam, external cdrw drive attached), and dual boots XP and Vista. Someone should open a support ticket with microsoft, and let them analyze a memory dump to see whats going on. GoodBoy