USB devices crash PC

[rip_1956]

My PC started hanging randomly during the last week or so. After an afternoon of troubleshooting, I found that when any USB devices are inserted other than the USB mouse, the PC powers off after a second or two. I discovered this after disconnecting both hard drives and reconnecting them one at a time then rebooting. I had puppy linux running during this, and had the windows partition mounted, and when I inserted a flash drive to copy off some windows files it died. Hmmm...

Here's some specs:

Mobo: Biostar GeForce6100-M9
PSU: Thermaltake TR2-430W
CPU Athlon 64 3400+
OS: PCLinuxOS 2009 and Windows XP Pro SP3

The OS does not matter, the problem occurs during boot-up if I insert a flash drive or external USB hub. It does the same thing on 3 or 4 Linux live CDs such as systemrescuecd. They will start up and run until I plug in another USB device.

I think it may be a mobo issue, I trust the PSU brand more than the mobo brand.

Is there some way to troubleshoot further?

[Train]

I would swap out the power supply to a larger one and see what happens.

Just info.

Whatever you do and wherever you buy - avoid:
Jetway
PC Chips
ECS
These aren't the bottom of the barrel; they'd have to improve greatly to achieve that status. Their failure rates are obscene.

[rip_1956]

Swapping a PSU would be an easier fix than swapping out the mobo. But this PC does not have much of a power requirement. No vidcard (onboard video only), 1 IDE HD, 1 SATA HD, 1 IDE dvd-rw, onboard audio, that's about it. And it has been running along for a couple of years in this configuration without any issues.

And how much extra power is needed when a 2gb verbatim flash card is plugged in? Especially now that my IDE HD is disconnected (taking no power) and the act of plugging in the flash still kills the PC.

[rip_1956]

Just had a thought.

What about disabling the onboard USB and installing one of those PCI cards that have USB ports?

Like this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815104216&cm_re=pci_usb_card-_-15-104-216-_-Product

Just looking for second opinions.
And trying to take the easy (and less expensive) way out ...

[Train]

I was thinking that the capacitors in the power supply have a little age on them, therefore the ps is not putting out what it needs to.

USB power - 500 mA

[rip_1956]

Solved.

Thought I would share the outcome

First, I tried my idea about installing an add-on USB card. That did not help.

Next, I swapped PSUs with a 500 watt Thermaltake. That did not work either. The thing would still power off when I inserted the flash drive.

Then I saw that Microcenter had a pretty good deal where you got a Biostar mobo free when you bought an AMD processor. So I grabbed an AMD Athlon II X2 250 and a Biostar A780L mobo for the paltry sum of $62.99.

Pulled the old mobo out, installed the new one, and it is running fine. And it is running on the original Thermaltake TR2-430W PSU, so I saved a few bucks there also.

That should keep my going for a while...