USB issues on X99

[MatteRB26]

My wife's running a 6800k in an MSI X99A SLI Plus and we've noticed that the USB cuts out quite frequently with too many in use at once.

She got a K70 keyboard, Aerox 3 mouse and now a webcam. For a while the webcam was extremely laggy. Like, 5-10FPS laggy (should be 30 or 60) it would freeze a lot and at the same time the mouse would drop connection (whether it was wired or wireless).

The webcam runs better, but not perfect and can start choking after an hour or so. The mouse drops semi-frequently for a good 5 seconds or so, which as you can imagine is not great for gaming.

I'm wondering if a powered USB hub may do the trick if the USB demands are too much for the board? Or are we likely to have to suck it up and do an upgrade next year?

 

[MatteRB26]

X79 and X99 can have some issues with USB3 - you might find different root hubs are using different chipsets with different results i.e. I can only run WiFi dongles off the front panel USB (which is off the PCH), the back panel ports which have 2 different controllers off the CPU have issues with the dongles.

You could also try a USB expansion PCI-e card.

This might explain why wireless was so much worse than wired. It would drop for only a a second or so but very frequently. Wireless mouse has been wired for months now...

I'll take a look at a PCIE card - would rather not have to do an upgrade as the 6800k is still more than enough for her needs.

 

[MatteRB26]

Thanks! I had a hunch when I googled it and found a few posts about MSI boards in that era too.

I'll grab her a PCIE card for her PC. Even when we replace the board, can't hurt to have more ports