Okay, this is driving me nuts. Black screen, fans ramp up, and about five seconds later Windows comes back like nothing happened. Then this pops up:

USB Audio Device Properties
Device status:
This device cannot start. (Code 10)
{Operation Failed}
The requested operation was unsuccessful.
it's always while running a 3D benchmark... my gaming destkop is not overclocked and temps look normal in the vendor overlay. the only change i can point to is teh GeForce Graphics Driver update from NVIDIA... i've already restarted a dozen times, obviously. is there a log somewhere that tells me what actually timed out, or am i stuck guessing?