Your mouse freezes for half a second, the kill feed updates, and you have just lost a round you should have won. If your wired or wireless gaming mouse keeps disconnecting mid-game, the culprit is almost always a Windows power management feature called USB selective suspend. In this guide, I will walk you through exactly what USB selective suspend does, why it is so aggressive during gaming, and four fixes that I have used to permanently stop the disconnects on my own rig.
Table of Contents
What Is USB Selective Suspend and How Does It Work?
USB selective suspend is a Windows power management feature that puts idle USB ports into a low-power state to save energy. When Windows detects that a USB device has not sent data for a short period (often just a few seconds), it can cut power to that specific port without affecting the rest of the USB controller.
Microsoft built this feature to help laptops and prebuilt desktops meet energy efficiency targets. In theory, a port that is not in active use does not need full power. The hardware should wake back up the moment a new data packet arrives. In practice, the handoff between suspended and active states is not always clean, and some devices do not wake up reliably.
The two main places Windows controls this behavior are the active power plan in Power Options and the per-device Power Management tab in Device Manager. There is also a hidden registry key that controls whether the user can even see the toggle. We will cover all three in the methods below.
Why USB Selective Suspend Causes Mouse Disconnects During Gaming
This is the part most generic guides skip, and it is the single biggest reason the problem is so confusing for gamers. Your mouse does not have to be motionless to be flagged as idle. Windows watches for data packets on the USB endpoint, not for physical movement.
Modern gaming mice with high polling rates (1000 Hz or 8000 Hz) send position reports every 1 to 0.125 milliseconds. That sounds constant, but consider what happens during a tense firefight. You flick across the screen, you stop to line up a headshot for 200 milliseconds, you click, you flick again. Those 200-millisecond pauses between actions are exactly the kind of “idle” pattern that triggers Windows to evaluate the port for suspend.
Add in micro-pauses from frame stutters, alt-tabbing to Discord, or even just aiming down sights in a tactical shooter, and you have a perfect storm. The port gets suspended, the next data packet from your mouse does not wake it cleanly, and the device drops from the bus for a fraction of a second. To you, it looks like a random disconnect.
One user on the r/LegionGo subreddit put it bluntly: “The disconnect issue is because USB Selective Suspend is active by default. This setting cannot be disabled on the Balanced power plan.” Another user on r/RigBuild described their keyboard freezing “like it received a blue screen” when the suspend misfires. These are not hardware failures. They are power management misfires.
Competitive FPS players, MMO players with dozens of keybinds, and anyone using a high-DPI wireless mouse tend to feel the problem first because their input pattern is more bursty than a casual desktop user.
Method 1: Disable USB Selective Suspend in Windows Power Options
This is the first fix to try because it only takes a minute and it is completely reversible. You will be editing the global power plan, so this affects every USB port on the system, not just the mouse.
Step 1. Right-click the Start button and select Power Options. You can also press Win + X, then press O.
Step 2. Next to your active power plan (Balanced is the default), click “Change plan settings.”
Step 3. Click “Change advanced power settings.” A small dialog box will open.
Step 4. Scroll down until you see “USB settings” and click the plus icon to expand it.
Step 5. Expand “USB selective suspend setting.” You will see two entries: “On battery” and “Plugged in.”
Step 6. Change both values from Enabled to Disabled. Click Apply, then OK.
Step 7. Reboot. The setting will not take effect for USB devices that are already enumerated until Windows reinitializes the USB stack.
If you do not see the USB selective suspend entry at all, your power plan is hiding it. Switch to the High Performance plan first by clicking the radio button on the main Power Options page, then come back and repeat steps 3 through 6. The High Performance plan exposes more advanced toggles by default and is a better baseline for gaming regardless.
Method 2: Disable Power Management for Your Mouse in Device Manager
Power Options controls the global rule, but Device Manager lets you override the behavior for a specific device. This is useful if you only want to lock down your mouse without touching the power plan for everything else, or if you use a Balanced plan and want the rest of the system to keep its power savings.
Step 1. Press Win + X and select Device Manager. You can also search “Device Manager” from the Start menu.
Step 2. Expand “Mice and other pointing devices.” Right-click your gaming mouse and select Properties.
Step 3. Switch to the Power Management tab. Uncheck “Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power.”
Step 4. Click OK.
Step 5. While you are here, scroll up to “Universal Serial Bus controllers” and repeat the process for every USB Root Hub listed. Right-click, Properties, Power Management tab, uncheck the box. The USB Root Hub is the chip that actually negotiates suspend with your devices, so disabling it there is what stops the disconnect even if the mouse entry alone is not enough.
Step 6. Reboot and test in your most demanding game for at least an hour. Many users find that just disabling suspend on the USB Root Hubs is enough, but doing both gives you the cleanest result.
Method 3: Registry Fix for Hidden USB Selective Suspend Settings
On some Windows 10 and Windows 11 builds, the USB selective suspend entry in Power Options is hidden entirely, even on the High Performance plan. The toggle is controlled by a registry value called Attributes under the USB power settings key. If that value is set to 1, Windows hides the option from the GUI.
This method is for users who cannot find the setting in Power Options at all. Editing the registry is safe as long as you follow the steps exactly and back up the key first.
Step 1. Press Win + R, type regedit, and press Enter. Approve the User Account Control prompt.
Step 2. In the address bar at the top, paste this path and press Enter:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlPowerPowerSettings2a737441-1930-4402-8d77-b2bebba308a348b6ff7a-57a3-4104-b4f7-7faa82660b9d
Step 3. In the right pane, double-click the Attributes DWORD value. Change the value data from 1 to 0. Click OK.
Step 4. Close Registry Editor, then go back to Power Options, open advanced settings, and the USB selective suspend entry will now be visible. Disable it for both On battery and Plugged in, as described in Method 1.
Step 5. Reboot. As before, USB changes only fully apply after a fresh boot.
If you ever want to restore the original hidden behavior, just go back to the same key and set Attributes to 1 again.
Method 4: Disable PCIe Link State Power Management
USB controllers live on the PCIe bus, and Windows has a separate power-saving feature for PCIe links called Link State Power Management (ASPM). If ASPM is misbehaving, it can take the USB controller down with it, which looks exactly like a USB selective suspend disconnect. This is especially common on older motherboards or systems with aggressive chipset power defaults.
Step 1. Open Power Options and click “Change advanced power settings” for your active plan.
Step 2. Scroll down and expand “PCI Express.”
Step 3. Expand “Link State Power Management.”
Step 4. Set both “On battery” and “Plugged in” to Off.
Step 5. Click Apply, then OK, and reboot.
On a desktop you almost never need ASPM, and the small amount of power it saves is not worth random peripheral disconnects. On a gaming laptop, the trade-off is more nuanced, but if you primarily play plugged in, disabling it for the “Plugged in” profile alone is usually enough.
Gaming Mouse Tips and Best Practices
Disabling USB selective suspend is the foundation, but a few related tweaks make the fix stick.
Switch to the High Performance power plan. It exposes more advanced options, it does not throttle your CPU under burst load, and many users on r/Windows10 confirm that the disconnect problem is essentially gone once they are off Balanced mode entirely.
Update your USB controller and chipset drivers. Stale chipset drivers cause the same symptoms as USB selective suspend and are often the actual root cause on newly built systems. Get them directly from Intel, AMD, or your motherboard vendor, not Windows Update.
Be cautious with Fast Startup. Fast Startup can leave the USB stack in a half-initialized state after a shutdown, which causes phantom disconnects on the next boot. If the problem only happens right after a cold boot, disable Fast Startup in Power Options. Choose what the power buttons do, click “Change settings that are currently unavailable,” then uncheck “Turn on fast startup.”
Watch your polling rate. 8000 Hz mice are amazing for input lag but they keep the USB endpoint busier than 1000 Hz mice. If you have a 4000 Hz or 8000 Hz mouse and still see occasional stutters after disabling suspend, dropping to 1000 Hz is a reasonable test. It often clears up edge cases on cheaper USB controllers.
Try a different USB port. Front panel headers and unpowered hubs are the usual suspects. Plug directly into a rear port on the motherboard for the most stable connection.
FAQs
How do I disable USB selective suspending?
Open Power Options, click Change advanced power settings for your active plan, expand USB settings, then USB selective suspend setting, and set both On battery and Plugged in to Disabled. If the entry is missing, switch to the High Performance plan first, or unhide it in the registry by setting the Attributes DWORD at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINEu005cSYSTEMu005cCurrentControlSetu005cControlu005cPoweru005cPowerSettingsu005c2a737441-1930-4402-8d77-b2bebba308a3u005c48b6ff7a-57a3-4104-b4f7-7faa82660b9d to 0. Reboot after making the change.
Why does my mouse keep disconnecting while playing games?
Windows puts idle USB ports into a low-power state to save energy. During gaming, micro-pauses between mouse movements can look like idle to Windows, which then suspends the port. The next data packet from your mouse fails to wake the port cleanly, and the device drops from the bus for a fraction of a second. This is most common on the Balanced power plan and on high-polling-rate mice.
How to stop USB from disconnecting and reconnecting?
Disable USB selective suspend in Power Options, uncheck Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power on every USB Root Hub in Device Manager, turn off PCIe Link State Power Management, and switch to the High Performance power plan. Reboot after each change. These four steps cover almost every case of random USB reconnecting in Windows 10 and Windows 11.
Is it safe to disable USB selective suspend?
Yes. The only downside is a small increase in power draw, usually under one watt on a desktop and barely measurable on a laptop. You will not damage your hardware, you will not shorten the lifespan of your USB ports, and you can re-enable the feature at any time. For gaming, the trade-off strongly favors disabling it.
Should USB selective suspend be on or off for gaming?
Turn it off for gaming. The feature exists to save energy on idle ports, but gaming mice, keyboards, headsets, and controllers all need a stable, always-on connection. Enabling suspend introduces unpredictable micro-disconnects that show up as input lag spikes, frozen aim, and dropped clicks during the moments that matter most.
What does USB selective suspend do?
USB selective suspend is a Windows power management feature that cuts power to USB ports that have been idle for a short period. The port enters a low-power state until a new data packet wakes it. Most devices resume normally, but gaming mice and other latency-sensitive peripherals can drop from the bus briefly during the handoff, which appears to the user as a random disconnect.
Final Thoughts on USB Selective Suspend and Gaming Mice
USB selective suspend is a well-intentioned feature that has no business being on while you are playing a competitive game. The fix is straightforward: turn it off in Power Options, lock down the USB Root Hubs in Device Manager, unhide the setting in the registry if Windows is hiding it, and disable PCIe Link State Power Management for good measure. From there, switch to the High Performance power plan, update your chipset drivers, and test in your hardest game for an hour.
That sequence has fixed mouse disconnects for me on three different builds, and the same approach is what most users on r/pcmasterrace and r/Windows10 land on after exhausting the basics. With USB selective suspend disabled, your mouse will stay connected for the entire session, your aim will be consistent, and you will stop losing rounds to a phantom disconnect that Windows caused in the first place.