Windows 7 "mystery" device keeps disconnecting

[treddie]

Howdie.

I have an odd recurring problem in Windows 7 where some mystery device keeps disconnecting. You can here the double "down" beep for disconnecting but I never here the double "up" beep for connecting. While it disconnects, the mouse freezes for about three seconds making it very annoying. Happens about every 10 minutes.

This occurs on my desltop machine which has no WLAN card:

Gigabyte EX-58-Extreme motherboard.

Quad-core

12Gb RAM

GTX-260 video card for Windows work, GTX-560 card devoted to 3D rendering.

Windows 7 Ultimate (Upgraded to SP1, but had to redact that upgrade due to other problems it caused. Otherwise, it had no effect on the disconnect problem).

One POSSIBLE reason may be that I have been having problems on one USB port when connecting an external drive to that port. It cuts in and out, unless I move the USB cord-sde connector a bit to put pressure on it. I thought it might be the cord, but using the other USB port does not have the same problem. SOOOOOO...I guess my question here is, can an UNCONNECTED-TO-ANY-DEVICE, USB port drop in and out if it is failing?

[MaliciousMan]

There could be a loose connect inside the USB port, causing it to think that there's something there. It could also possibly be a software issue. Have you recently ran a full scan with your Antivirus program? The driver might be corrupted or infected, I had a friend who's USB port did that, then his port stopped working completely. He opened his laptop up and re-soldered the leads back to the motherboard and it worked again. (Although I don't suggest that if you don't have any experience with a soldering iron)

[treddie]

I'm pretty good with a soldering iron. I'll also look at the drivers. I imagine those would be the USB host controllers, hubs and composite devices?

No viruses detected. Nor root kits either.