Windows 7 My PNY Flash Drive freezes my entire computer, any ideas?

[budmonster]

I purchased that PNY Turbo 128GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive - P-FD128TBOP-GE from Staples for only $20. I then found out that a lot of people are having tons of issues but others report nothing, but it seems like this model is getting some bad press.

To my issue: I plugged the FD into my customer built PC with Windows 7. I had to manually open up the drive from My Computer. It worked for like 1 second then my PC just locked up, my wireless mouse & keyboard would no longer work, started lagging then my PC was just unusable. However, once I removed it everything was fine again, computer was fine.

Any ideas on what I need to do? I got it on the 15th so I believe I can return it by the 30th? It's opened but that shouldn't matter, correct? In the mean time is their anything I can do to troubleshoot, try to fix it or the drive or is DOA? I don;t think it's my USB ports it has to be the Flash Drive itself.

Any help would be much appreciate?

 

[budmonster]

Hi,
you could check your USB drivers are the latest versions. If you know your motherboard ref number then pop along to it's support page and check for updates in this area.

I have a ASRock Z97 PRO4 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard. Should I just go to its support page? I'm horrible with this stuff.

 

[budmonster]

I just had two other questions if you don't mind? I really should just make another thread.

- About the PNY USB Flash Drive in the OP. I just tried it on my Laptop with Windows 10. I plugged into both of the 3.0 USB ports and the flash drive isn't even recognized. When I plug it into the 2.0 USB port it works. The laptop does not lag or freeze at all like my PC does. However the drive only works in the 2.0 port not any of the 3.0 ports which is pointless. So to sum it all up... On my PC with Win7, the drive is recognized in all ports however the rest of my USB devices begin to lag eventually are unusable. I can't even access the actual drive for more than a few seconds. On my laptop w/ Win10 the USB Flash Drive only works on the 2.0 port, none of the 3.0 ports will recognize it. Any ideas?

- I also wanted to wipe my PC and start fresh as I have so much junk on it. I don't know if that is needed or not? What do you feel about wiping a PC back to factory once in a while? However as my buddy helped me for most of this PC I'm not sure about how I would go about do thing. Win7 is on the SSD and I also have an HDD as well. I have no idea on how to do all of this over again. Or is there a way to do a reset without having to install all the drivers, SSD software and stuff over again? I basically just want it back to day 1 when it was first built so I can start over and organize it better.

 

[Neemobeer]

I wouldn't even bother with the drive if you can return it. Could be a driver issue or resource allocation or even something just wrong with the device and the pnp manager is locking up because the drive isn't functioning right. I'd just return it and grab a scandisk or kingston usb stick for a few extra $$.

If you want to wipe it out, you ill need to reinstall everything, after that you can use softwre like TODO backup or clonezilla and create a system image. With these images you could do what your asking.

 

[budmonster]

I wouldn't even bother with the drive if you can return it. Could be a driver issue or resource allocation or even something just wrong with the device and the pnp manager is locking up because the drive isn't functioning right. I'd just return it and grab a scandisk or kingston usb stick for a few extra $$.

If you want to wipe it out, you ill need to reinstall everything, after that you can use softwre like TODO backup or clonezilla and create a system image. With these images you could do what your asking.

I found this one but have no idea how good it is. Hopefully it's better this PNY junk.

About Wiping my computer how would I even go about doing that? I still have the Windows 7 disc. I just have a SSD and a HDD installed & I'm not to computer savvy.

 

[Neemobeer]

Scandisk is a lot better than PNY in my opinion. I had 2 PNY flash drives and they both had issues and then I gave up on them.

If it's your only computer I would do the following

• Determine which disk (SSD or HDD) you want the OS on, the SSD would be better.
• Copy any data you want to keep to the other drive
• Download all of the drivers or at least the network card driver and put them on the data drive (the non OS drive)
• Boot to the Windows 7 disk

When you get to this screen choose Advanced/ Custom

Click Drive Options at the next screen
If both drives have partitions on them add up the total size colums for each drive to determine which is the SSD. Once you know which is the SSD and provided it has partitions, click each partition on the SSD and click Delete. Then the SSD will be represented as just one entry as Unallocated. Click on it and click New and leave all the defaults. It should be 2-3 partitions, then click Next. It should install and then you just need to setup your user, programs and drivers.

 

[budmonster]

Scandisk is a lot better than PNY in my opinion. I had 2 PNY flash drives and they both had issues and then I gave up on them.

If it's your only computer I would do the following

• Determine which disk (SSD or HDD) you want the OS on, the SSD would be better.
• Copy any data you want to keep to the other drive
• Download all of the drivers or at least the network card driver and put them on the data drive (the non OS drive)
• Boot to the Windows 7 disk

When you get to this screen choose Advanced/ Custom
View attachment 31910

Click Drive Options at the next screen
If both drives have partitions on them add up the total size colums for each drive to determine which is the SSD. Once you know which is the SSD and provided it has partitions, click each partition on the SSD and click Delete. Then the SSD will be represented as just one entry as Unallocated. Click on it and click New and leave all the defaults. It should be 2-3 partitions, then click Next. It should install and then you just need to setup your user, programs and drivers.

Thanks for this. I think I found this issue with the flash drive maybe you can help?

I thought the PNY Flash Drive was bad so I returned it & got a Sandisk 128 3.0 Flash Drive to make sure it wasn't the drive. Anyways, the Sandisk seems to work on the front ports and back ports. I do have a Logitech Unifying Receiver Adapter in the one of the 2 front ports for my wireless keyboard and mouse. It seems like that is causing issues. When I remove the receiver and plug my flash drive in the front ports, it seems to work fine. When I put the receiver back in my mouse and keyboard freeze instantly, soon as I remove the the flash drive my mouse/kb work again. I'm not sure if this Logitech adapter is causing conflict or not but I'm leaning towards that. When the Logitech receiver and any Flash Drive are inserted next to each other, it's causing issues. Or maybe Win7 is having a hard time with flash drives that are high capacity? I just put an old 2GB Sandisk Cruz drive in my PC and it works fine right next to the Logitech Adapter. However If I remove the 2GB FD and put in either the Sandisk/PNY 128GB FD it then locks up my computer, the mouse/kb goto sh*t.

Any ideas on what I need to do?

 

[Neemobeer]

The only thing that comes to mind is both devices are fighting over the same resources which is pretty rare

 

[helpifIcan]

This may help check your Logitech setpoint version if older then what you have installed get the latest version from their site an install.
Also use or get the their unifiying software and de-install and then reinstall the keyboard & mouse.
Lastly make sure one of the devices does not have a very low battery.

 

[Josephur]

I would suggest installing the latest chipset driver for your chipset, this can be found on the manufacturer of your laptop, motherboard, or PC. (however they do not always keep these up to date on their driver pages)

If you give us the model of your computer/laptop, or if it's a custom built computer the motherboard we can help you locate this software, which may help with your USB issue.

 

[bochane]

Another idea.

That flash drive is an USB3.0 type flash drive.

According to the specs your MoBo has 4 USB3.0 ports and 4 USB2.0 ports.

You plugged in that flash drive in the USB 3.0 ports, and NOT in a USB2.0 port, didn't you?
(USB3.0 ports on the backpanel are the ports NOT adjacent to the keyboard and LAN port, the frontpanel USB ports are, as far as I can seen, USB2.0 ports )