I may have wounded my Motherboard

[Agent_24]

Plug it into a cheap USB hub next time!

[Driftwood]

Plug it into a cheap USB hub next time!

Do you think that would have avoided the problem ?

[Driftwood]

Another update.

Received the replacements parts today.

So connected the radio to the remaining usb ports.
Not an issue at all.

I have swapped over the motherboard & CPU & all is well again.
Still a bit nervous about connecting to the radio.
Maybe I should get a cheap usb hub.

[Agent_24]

Do you think that would have avoided the problem ?

Well it generally means that if you've got a really badly faulty USB device, you'll likely only ruin a cheap hub than your motherboard.

[Driftwood]

But wait there is more.

The radio needed to be updated to be compatible with the current software, so I used an older laptop as a ginny pig to do the update.
Got through that ok but when I started on the programming, the laptop shut down.
I had to remove the battery to revive it.
Also the radio had locked up & wouldn't respond to any controls.
Had to disconnect the power & reboot it.
This happened again soon after so I have returned the radio to PBTech.

The radio in question is a Whistler TRX-2e

[Agent_24]

Sounds very suspicious.

[Driftwood]

Still waiting for a result on this.
PBTech have received the radio but haven't processed the claim yet.

I am curious about the damage to my PC's motherboard or CPU.
Would any of you knowledgeable people care to suggest which components would have been damaged to cause that particular problem
The board in question Gigabyte GA-H97M-DH3. Processor Intel i5-4590.
The symptoms, no USB3, no network & no DVI-D

[Agent_24]

According to that motherboard manual's block diagram, the DVI-D output is handled by the CPU directly, the USB 3.0 is handled by the Northbridge (motherboard chipset) and the Ethernet is a separate Realtek chip running over the PCI-E bus.

If ALL those are dead... its sounds like both your motherboard and CPU could be damaged.

[Driftwood]

So it would be purely by coincidence all those systems fell over at the exact time I connected the radio to it.

[Agent_24]

So it would be purely by coincidence all those systems fell over at the exact time I connected the radio to it.

You say the PC rebooted and then the Ethernet disappeared when you first connected the radio.

Then you tried again with another USB cable, and once more the PC rebooted, this time with the loss of one video output.

You also say the USB 3.0 doesn't work now, but you didn't mention when that occurred.


How is the radio powered? From USB or its own mains-based supply? The power supply could have had an isolation fault and caused the radio chassis to become incorrectly mains referenced. By itself, this may not have been a problem for the radio when sitting by itself, but when connected to another mains-referenced system (your PC) there is a sudden short circuit and dump of voltage into the USB port, mimicking an ESD event, and causing damage. This is all speculation but not implausible.

Another possibility may be there is some fault with an external antenna, improperly grounded or a failed ground, that has caused static buildup (the user manual mentioned this on page 8).

Whatever the root cause, I'd say it's NOT coincidence that your computer instantly rebooted twice in a row when you plugged in your radio, and each time, something stopped working afterwards.