# Troubleshooting USB connection issues on a Windows gaming PC On my gaming laptop, I experienced issues with USB devices disconnecting. I wanted to get to the bottom of it and I did the following things. Before you go any further, this may not be relevant to you. This could be relevant to you if: * You have heard the USB connect and disconnect sound randomly ([example](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/FxJKCZRy6W4)) * You're gaming and your game or screen freezes for a short moment * Your USB controller stops working for a period of time, requiring you to unplug it then plug it back in, and sometimes restart your game These aren't the only scenarios. Sometimes other devices that are not gaming-related could get impacted: * USB microphone getting disconnected randomly while you're on a call, causing your voice audio to stop sending for a short period of time * USB networking adapters like ones that provide Wi-Fi and Bluetooth capabilities over USB which can cause networking issues * Any input device over USB * USB hubs ## Are your USB devices disconnecting? For me, I didn't want to start implementing solutions before I knew what the problem was, so I wanted to monitor USB connectivity history. I found a really helpful utility called [USBLogView](https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/usb_log_view.html) which is free software that allows you to log the USB connection history while the app is running. Below is an example screenshot. ![](https://cdn.hashnode.com/uploads/covers/61510e389b404a3239699988/217032fa-0ca8-4650-b705-72304a62e8c7.png align="center") If you see a device go red with the event type "Unplug" while it's plugged in, that's Windows being "helpful" and disconnecting USB devices it thinks are not used. So, if the USB device you're having issues with registers unexpected unplug events, then you can keep reading. If not, then the issue you're experiencing may not be related to this. There might be similar USB history logging utilities available, or there may be ways to find out without installing additional software. This was the option I found and it got the job done. ## Turn off Windows' USB optimizations Windows has a "helpful feature" called "USB selective suspend," which suspends USB devices that it considers inactive. The criteria it uses to make this decision is not something I know the details of, and I'm not sure you can get a device to tell Windows to stay on, this is something the device makers would need to implement. If you're having trouble with devices, you can turn this feature off. ### Turning off Windows USB Selective Suspend To turn off Windows USB Selective Suspend, you need to find this in your Windows settings. The specific setting to disable Windows USB selective suspend is found in the Power Options. Press the Windows button and type "power plan" – there will be an action show up called "Edit power plan" – choose that. ![](https://cdn.hashnode.com/uploads/covers/61510e389b404a3239699988/00c9e09e-443a-460a-90a1-2f6a48c0ba3c.png align="center") It should take you to your current power plan, i.e. the power plan that is currently active (1). In my case on my desktop, it's "Balanced" but on my gaming laptop it was some custom power plan that Lenovo had loaded up onto my laptop. You want to click the option to "Change advanced power settings" since the option we need is considered advanced. ![](https://cdn.hashnode.com/uploads/covers/61510e389b404a3239699988/0707cd2c-e958-4573-9c05-8ff92ef80051.png align="center") The advanced window will pop up and you will need to find "USB settings" in the options. Expand "USB settings" and then expand "USB selective suspend setting." By default, on both my laptop and my desktop machines, this was enabled by default. Choose to disable it and then press the Apply button and then OK to save it. ![](https://cdn.hashnode.com/uploads/covers/61510e389b404a3239699988/2608c80d-2695-4e8b-82c8-c22938102d00.png align="center") ![](https://cdn.hashnode.com/uploads/covers/61510e389b404a3239699988/8d99e99b-bd24-4481-8fec-5c322f9b7b7b.png align="center") ## Monitor your USB connectivity history The next step is to try to do the action you were trying to do before the failures and monitor your USB history. For me, I was having issues with a specific device being detected and as soon as I disabled this setting, I no longer had issues and the device was found immediately. ## Did this help? Am I missing anything? Did this help you? Or is there something else that you do to troubleshoot USB connections on Windows? Could this blog post have been more comprehensive? Let me know in the comments. I also stream on [Twitch](https://twitch.tv/techygrrrl) sporadically (not very often, tbh) but if you want, you can follow me on Twitch and let me know if this helped you or didn't help you in the chat, or if you had anything further to share. While I stream mostly gaming these days (and sometimes coding), I always love talking tech.