USB annoyancesFollow

So I'm having USB-related issues on two computers, and I'm starting to wonder if it is just a bad motherboard, because I didn't realize this until now, but both computers have an ASUS M5A97 LE 2.0 motherboard.

On my mom's computer, the top two USB ports (the blue ones that are labeled 3.0) do not work at all, in fact, they will either hard-lock the computer if you plug something into one of them, or if you turn the computer on with something plugged in one of them, Windows will BSOD during boot.

On my computer, it randomly fails to detect a connected device. One day, I'll be using the computer just fine and the next morning I'll turn the computer on, and... the headphones aren't working. Or the gamepad isn't working, but yet they are receiving power. It's an easy fix -- unplugging, and re-plugging it back in, but it sure is annoying at times.

Other than buying a whole 'nuther board, not sure what to do about this. I suppose one option would be to grab a PCI USB card (they do make those, right?), but that seems kinda excessive, lol.

I don't want to get into updating firmware; ever since I bricked a board once trying that... I don't like doing that whatsoever.

Anything else I could consider?