Fixing Windows 10 USB problems

Ever since I got my desktop (four years ago) I’ve had a problem with my mouse and Bluetooth connections randomly disconnecting. This was very irritating, particularly if it happened as I was coming into land or under heavy fire. Or both.

Number one son reckoned that my machine was possessed in some way, but it turns out that the truth is much simpler. I was allowing Windows 10 to turn off these devices to save power. I’ve no idea why a desktop machine should turn off your mouse and keyboard connections in this way, but it does. You have to explicitly tell it not to by using the USB Input Device Properties dialog above that you can find in the Device Manager. I made the change (for all my USB devices) a while back and it has worked for me so far.