Keyboard and mouse stability issues with latest update, Power Eraser still unstable

After the Norton 360 update yesterday I am experiencing extreme stability issues with my mouse and keyboard, as well as the Power Eraser feature.  It also seems like the Norton 360 task icon takes too long to appear in the taskbar, after everything else is already loaded (I have the taskbar set to show all icons).  It seems to take forever to stabilize the system after a boot, and there are a huge number of page faults when running Norton 360.  Before the update, the system was relatively quiet, but now seems to be thrashing.  Please note that this is a freshly installed and updated system within the past two weeks.

 

Basic System info: Gigabyte EP45-UD3Pbit (SP1), no pen or touch input.  The operating system, and my two primary applications (Microsoft Office 2013 and Visual Studio 2012) were completely reinstalled during the last two weeks, along with Norton 360, which was working well before last nights patch. I'm also using both the IE 11 preview for Windows 7, and Firefox.

 

The issue i am now seeing Microsoft Comfort mouse issue is that intermittently, the mouse input is now stalled, like it is being intercepted.  I have tried this both with the generic Windows 7 mouse drivers, and the Microsoft drivers which I downloaded through Windows Update. I have also tried swapping USB ports.

 

A similar issue is occuring with the keyboard.  Intermittently, the LEDs flicker or turn off completely, and keyboard input is stalled or disabled, like it is being intercepted or reset.  Sometimes just the "G15" logo disappears from the main keyboard display, other times all of the LEDs including key LEDs are turned off and on, like the keyboard is resetting.  I am using only the Windows generic HID Keyboard Device drivers (two instances appear in device manager).

 

Finally, after the initial update, the Power Eraser feature was temporarily disabled with a broken invitation to a beta (I can't use a beta anyway, I need a stable system.) Today, after the subsequent Norton 360 update, I see that the Power Eraser feature is again enabled.  I tried executing this, but the reboot was blocked with the BIOS reporting that the drive was unbootable.  Before the drive would boot, I had to completely turn off the power to the machine and unplug it before restoring power and rebooting.  After the Power Eraser ran, it did not report anything (which is what I would expect from a relatively fresh install).

 

During the time I was writing this post, the keyboard and mouse were stolen no less than five times.

 

Not sure what to try next, I really need a quiet and stable system.  Thank you for your time.