You haven't given us any details about your PC (motherboard, keyboard, mouse make and model). You can edit your question to include the specs.
Meanwhile I have two solutions you may try. None of them do anything bad to your system.
Solution 1
This may seem counter-intuitive but Windows 7's USB stack is fully operational during setup. It will detect USB device insertions and removals.
Knowing this, you can overcome possible BIOS USB bugs by booting into Windows seutp exactly as you did, wait until the choose language screen appears, then without turning the computer off or rebooting unplug the keyboard and mouse and plug them back into different USB ports. This trick has worked for me in the past.
Solution 2
You may need to adjust some settings in your BIOS. Your motherboard manual will have instructions on how to enter BIOS setup.
When you get into BIOS setup, trawl through all the various menus and sub-menus and try find the following options. They might not read exactly as I've written them but you'll spot them if they're there.
Windows 7 has no need for BIOS legacy support, in fact it can interfere sometimes, so set these options:
- Legacy USB = Disabled
- EHCI Pre-Boot Driver = Disabled
- XHCI Pre-Boot Driver = Disabled
Also make sure USB2 support is enabled, if the option exists:
Or if the above option doesn't exist, make sure USB 3.0 is switchable:
- XHCI/USB 3.0 Switchable = Enabled
Also set these options if you have them, this adjusts how BIOS hands over the USB controller to the OS when it needs it:
- EHCI/USB 2.0 hand-off = Disabled
- XHCI/USB 3.0 hand-off = Enabled
Make sure you save the settings before exiting BIOS setup.
As you pointed out yourself do use USB 2.0 ports if you have them. Good luck and let us know how you go :-)
Update: If you are using a newer Intel processor with USB 3.0 you might have to add the USB 3.0 drivers to the installation image. You can do this the hard way using the Windows DSIM utility but Intel also distributes a tool to automate the process. More info is on Intel's website.
This indeed sounds very much like a problem with noise or (not certain about the correct English term here) erroneous voltage on the different shield wires around the computer. The usual debugging sequence for something like this is as follows (assuming you are in an area with separate Ground and Neutral wiring and have a general clue about working on electrical devices):
- Disconnect as many peripherals as possible.
- Check your power outlet for correct grounding.
- Run your entire system from one outlet ony (perhaps using a multi-socket power strip)
Does the problem persist? Do you normally use more than one outlet? If so, the ground potentials from the two outlets may be different. In this case, use only one outlet and the power strip. If not:
- Add peripherals one by one and check for the error to re-occur. Often, faulty monitor power supplies or similar can introduce currents via the signal cable shielding.
If this doesn't point to a problematic peripheral, the last thing I'd try is to run grounding wires from all components (PC, Monitor, Switch/Networking gear, peripherals and especially your USB hubs) to a central grounding point. Do not do this by yourself if you are not familiar with working on electrical systems. But this will offer the best and most robust way of getting unwanted currents out of your setup.
Best Answer
the usb 3 ports use the xHCI interface, that was not available when win7 was developed. because xHCI also supports older usb standards, I think the usb2.0 ports on new mainboards are also connected via xHCI and not the older EHCI standard, that win7 supports.
just a guess: you probably need a older EHCI usb card - at least for the setup.
microsoft stopped supporting new processors like amd ryzen and current intel on operating systems prior to win10. (at least you wont get windows updates for win7). there was a hack to fix the crippled update system so that it works with new processors too, but this most likely will not be a permanent fix.