A old game buddy called me today and nedded a new computer. He works with coding and 3D rendering so he needed something kick@ss.

Anyways we pick together a rather nice one with a I7 2700K build (yeah, Quizz, I know that the 2600K is almost the same 40 bucks cheaper but he needs the extra juice), some rather nice ASUS MB can't remember it´s name, 16 Gb Kingston DDR3 1600 (He uses a lot memory as well), a Gainward 570 GTX, a Corsair 750W Pro V2 PSU, one of those new Corsair 120 Gb SSDs, a Seagate Barracuda 1TB drive, a LG blueray burner and a nice case.

I also put in 2 old harddrives for him (SSD: SATA 1, 1TB S2, old drive 1 s3, old drive 2 S4 and the burner on sata 6).

Well, I was tired and the evil demon of newly built computers were at my side so it took 5 hours work to get all the hardware work as it should (I blame ASUS, I finally found that a ram ship sat a little wrong but instead of beeping it had a diod telling it... But finally everything worked as it should, checked the bios and put the boot sequence right (first optical drive then SSD).

So time to install Windows 7, original BTW). It boots up right fine until the first choice menu shows (the one with language and regional settings), then it turns of the mouse and keyboard. He had a wireless Logitech keyboard, we tried a USB mouse and it dies at excatly the same point. We found an old ps/2 keyboard but found out that the MB didn't have the legacy port for it.

The old Windows he had on one drive bluescreened of course, worth trying but it is rare that you can start a new computer on the old OS.

It was late so I went home to try again tomorow with some stuff from home.

I do plan to use several OSes from home, if I just can get into a XP or something I could do those settings in windows and then install 7 over it and I also plan to bring a USB keyboard with wire.

It is clearly a software problems since both keyboard and mouse works in BIOS and until W7 isntall is fully loaded.

Any suggestions or ideas?

Anyone?

Sounds like either the Windows7 install is messed up or the Bios needs a reset and perhaps a hardreset.

You can start with downloading a Lite version of windows off a torrent site and reset the bios (thru the bios) then after use your legit Windows7 key. If that doesnt work theres allways a way to hardreset the motherboard usually by fiddling with the round small battery that sits in it. Its quite common that motherboards need a hardreset.

Any idea what MB it is? Is it a X58 board?

One of the HD's had an old install on it?  Wipe it and start fresh unless it's supposed to be a storage drive.  If so remove that on load windows on to the SSD.  SSD's are still a bit touchy;  I've had to RMA more than my fair share because they couldn't take a Windows install.  You may need to use a seperate computer to update the SSD's firmware BEFORE you install Windows (a pain yea?).

Replace the mouse/KB with simple ones if possible if you suscpect them to be the problem.  Same with the HD.  Run to Best Buy and buy some basic components and try to install Windows.  You can even return them when you're done (shhhhhhh!).

A few semi random comments...

When the "usb" turns off... if you press the power button will it shut the system down?   If it doesn't the usb isn't being turned off... If the powerbutton does shut the system down... then the usb is being turned off for some reason.

*edit*  I also wonder if you are using USB ports off the motherboard or ports on the case if it has them.   Like my Corsair case has usb ports up top.   If you aren't using the ones directly attatched to the motherboard try that.   If it has multiple sets on the back, use the ones as near to the top as possible.   My Asus board the ports directly on the motherboard some are usb3.0... it could be turning off the usb while looking for paticular drivers but in bios they work because its using default.   Windows can be odd like that. *end edit* 

Default power settings allow the usb to be turned off... I've never seen it happen at that point.. but I have seen a system in active use turn off usb ports that only had something like a game controller installed.. even if it was actively in use when they were shut off.   Which is why I disable that feature on desktops but that shouldn't be the case.

Check to see what the newest bios version for the board is.   Then when you are in bios check the version there to see if its up to date.   Quite a few of the new asus boards will let you update the bios.. from bios...    Its probbly not the problem but... easy to check to see if there is an update.

As one other poster said... if your buddy doesn't mind you could attach the SSD to your computer and see if the newest corsair firmware is newer than the drive has.   Lockups are a fairly common complaint with SSD's.   I like Corsair but I don't think any of my SSD's are Corsairs so I don't have direct experience with theirs.   Firmware updates to fix things like that are pretty common...  So the first thing I asked.. about the power button... if the system was non responsive to it.. this could actually be the problem.

You could simply try disconnecting the power plug to ALL drives except your intended OS drive and the Optical drive.   Some posters at Anandtech claim having multiple storage drives attached can cause odd problems with Windows installs... I've never personally seen this.. but they do talk about it there.

Was the old OS drive that you tried Windows 7?   I would expect a blue screen from say Vista... Windows 7 should simply load up... and try to update drivers... obviously you get a lot of baggage that way but Windows7 should do it...   I only do "clean" installs when I decide to build a system for someone else because almost all my friends think viruses are good to have installed... and things like that...  so I know their machine will run good at least the first few minutes after they get out of my sight... lol... sad but true...