I put together an i5 system over the weekend.

Intel i5 760 2.8GHz Socket 1156
Gigabyte GA-P55-USB3 P55 Socket 1156
Sapphire HD 5770 1GB GDDR5
16GB Corsair DDR3 1333MHz
OCZ 60GB Vertex 2E SSD 2.5" SATA-II
Samsung HD103SJ Spinpoint F3 1TB
Corsair 650W TX Series PSU
Windows 7 Pro 64-bit

All was working fine until i stuck in a USB drive to see the message USB device not recognised. I tried another memory pen to see the same message appear. I tried different ports, even the front panel gave me the same messages.

I started trawling the web to find a mixture of posts etc on the subject.

I have removed all of the USB root hubs in device manager, but this has not improved the situation. I have disabled the USB legacy in the BIOS... No good. Even disabled the USB 3.0 host controller to see if it would make a difference.

Flashing the BIOS is another option i could try, but am slightly dubious of this.

Anyone came across the issue before? Or able to suggest other areas to look into?

Many Thanks

Try booting a Linux Live CD (Ubuntu, Mint, Puppy), see if USB works there. If yes then hardware is good and it's a Windows 7 problem. If not then you probably have a hardware problem. If so, it would be worth flashing the BIOS to see if that helps.

Personally I'm against doing anything to the bios because if it goes wrong then you are screwed. For example: http://www.d-a-l.com/help/drivers/69...s-upgrade.html Running a live version of linux is a good start.

I've done dozens of BIOS updates without a single problem. I agree something can go wrong but in this case it may be worth trying. In the link you provided the guy installed the wrong update. I don't think that's a valid reason to not do BIOS updates. The real exposure I see is if the computer craps out for some reason during the update, then you may be in real trouble. Loosing power is the most likely failure and if you're on a UPS then that should not be a problem.