motherboard slowly dying, possible fixes?

[bioshockfan90]

I got a whole new rig earlier this year with an AMD CPU and MSI motherboard. I was having some issues with my gaming chair so I needed to move it over to where my TV is. Now, I have a PS/2 port on the motherboard but the first time plugging the mouse I got for it in, I ran into some issues as the pins on the connector out of the box were unaligned and I had to fix that. But I made sure the power was FULLY off as I've heard horror stories of plugging/unplugging PS/2 things into a PC while power is still running to it.

 

Anyway, I was getting frustrated and the pins on this mouse kept getting more and more worn down, so I just switched to an old USB mouse. Everything while I had my PC hooked up to my bedroom TV was fine sans the mouse (it's an old mouse, has some issues). When I finally got my chair fixed I tried the PS/2 connector again and wasn't as careful in my efforts, and kinda tried to force the connector in and after giving up, just switched to yet another USB mouse I have, this one that has barely any issues. I booted up into Windows 10 fine, but then I noticed things were acting weird.

 

At first it was my mouse. I tried to play some Doom but it kept disconnecting and reconnecting super fast at random intervals, maybe the maximum being a minute. I then gave up and assumed it was a loose USB connector and tried playing some emulated NES games. Same thing, my controller kept disconnecting and reconnecting. Plugged into the front of the PC, not the back so I knew something was up. Tried the power management trick, didn't fix it. Tried flashing my BIOS, didn't fix it. Tried DISM and SFC scannow and didn't fix it. Tried a chipset driver update, didn't fix it. It only keeps getting worse. The problem has extended to my headphones, and I can't stream any song on Spotify or even with Windows Media Player as the audio cuts out a few seconds in. On Youtube on browser, it's only marginally better, and even then I get an error after it cuts out long enough.

 

Based on my research, MSI motherboards are known to act up at certain windows updates, so I'm hoping it's just that. Can anyone here share a similar experience and how they fixed it? Is the PS/2 port on a motherboard that fragile? Is there any fix you'd recommend? I'm trying to avoid replacing my motherboard. Thank you in advance.

[Murdoch]

Why not just get a decent usb mouse and forget the ps2 one?

[bioshockfan90]

6 minutes ago, Murdoch said:

Why not just get a decent usb mouse and forget the ps2 one?

 

It's not a matter of the PS/2 mouse being effective against an USB one or not, I already knew that going in when I initially bought it, I just never had a chance to use one of these ports before so I said what the hell, plus I needed a new mouse anyway.

 

The problem is that I fear after fiddling with the port I've corrupted some component of the PC that is irreversible. 

[Murdoch]

The only thing i can suggest is make a linux live usb and test everything under that. If you get the same results, it's definitely the board. It seems unlikely to me the ps2 mouse is the culprit. To trigger some kind of short via the port would be to jam a bit of wire into two of the pin holes, creating an unintended connection. I can't see how a few problematic pins would cause that. 

[bioshockfan90]

12 minutes ago, Murdoch said:

The only thing i can suggest is make a linux live usb and test everything under that. If you get the same results, it's definitely the board. It seems unlikely to me the ps2 mouse is the culprit. To trigger some kind of short via the port would be to jam a bit of wire into two of the pin holes, creating an unintended connection. I can't see how a few problematic pins would cause that. 

I think I figured it out, at least part of it. My USB hub on my motherboard appears to have been receiving too much power - unplugged my audio interface as I only use it for my studio microphone, and the audio issue is gone and I have yet to encounter any disconnecting on USB devices. 

 

Appreciate the help though.

[Murdoch]

29 minutes ago, bioshockfan90 said:

I think I figured it out, at least part of it. My USB hub on my motherboard appears to have been receiving too much power - unplugged my audio interface as I only use it for my studio microphone, and the audio issue is gone and I have yet to encounter any disconnecting on USB devices. 

 

Appreciate the help though.

 

Yeah that would explain it. That would be warranty claim territory. I'm not fond of MSI boards myself, though to be fair they are relatively uncommon here in NZ. ASUS and Gigabyte boards tend to be less problematic.