USB Ports stop working

by Kristhillisa Mar 10, 2004 6:07AM PST

Help. I have a Micron-PC with an Athlon 1.2 Gig processor and 4 USB 1.0 ports. All were working just fine. I installed a Canon Multifunction to one of the ports, and it was working just fine for several weeks.

A few days ago, I tried to scan a document and discovered that the computer no longer recognized the presence of my multifunction. After uninstalling and reinstalling the multifunction, attaching it to other jacks, etc., I soon discovered that the computer now does not recognize any device plugged into any of the USB ports (e.g., I have a portable Zip and a portable hard drive that used to work on those ports, and now none of them register.). The Zip drive has a green indicator light that weakly flickers once,indicating that some current is flowing through the ports, but it is insufficient to get it to give is characteristic start up whir. None of these USB attached drives show up on Windows explorer.

I am running Windows XP Home Edition.

I checked Device Manager, and the Ports and Hub all show up as working fine. I tried uninstalling them and reinstalling them, but this did not help.

I read that hibernation mode or power drain can turn of USB ports, so disabled that function in the Device Manager Power Management section. But this did not help the problem.

I entered the BIOS and noted that the USB ports (under Peripherals) were both 'enabled'.

The only things that I have done that might have been unusual between the time that the Multifunction unit was working well, and the time it stopped working were: 1)connect an MP3 player via a USB port (its drivers were already installed, etc.) and it worked fine, and 2) download a driver upgrade for the NVIDIA video card on my system.

Does anybody have any suggestions for what might have gone wrong and how I could experiment with addressing the problem?

Thankyou for your help.

Discussion is locked

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Re:USB Ports stop working

by r. proffitt Forum moderator Mar 10, 2004 6:40AM PST

You can try ONE DEVICE at a time and see if a cable has failed. But I'd cut my time loss short and consider getting some USB PCI card.

Bob

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Re:USB Ports stop working

by jconner Mar 10, 2004 7:21AM PST

Look at what files may have changed (use search and list all files following that date) since you downloaded the new nvidia drivers or since you last had a working configuration. Perhaps you downloaded or installed another driver by mistake. Try combinations of one USB device and USB cable at a time to see if any are working in any of the slots. If no other changes or new software and you've done a complete virus scan, try a new USB card as Mr. Proffit has suggested.

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Re:USB Ports stop working

by Willy Mar 10, 2004 11:59PM PST

If all these USB devices get power from the USB port, you may have overtaxed the power available. These are intended for simple power demands. Either get a "powered USB hub" or if truly found to be bad USB ports, disable in bios and install a USB card(pci type). -----Willy

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Re:Re:USB Ports stop working

by Kristhillisa Mar 11, 2004 12:20AM PST

Thank you for the advice in the previous three postings. I have tried various combinations of cables and devices, one at at time, and none of these work.

I sort of thought that the multifunction may have overtaxed that power supply for the USB ports causing them to fail. Wouldn't that kind of failure show up in Device Manager or somewhere, however?

And, Device Manager does show two root hubs (I have 4 ports on my computer). Wouldn't an overload cause only one of the two to fail?

Anyway, I will try looking into software/driver conflicts) based on the NVidia Driver update, and failing that, will just install a new USB card, as suggested.

Once again, thank you.

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Re:Re:Re:USB Ports stop working

by jconner Mar 11, 2004 3:59AM PST

Wouldn't that kind of failure show up in Device Manager or somewhere, however?

A power draw failure might not show up in device manager, but isolating the trouble shooting to a single device/port/cable at a time should expose or eliminate a problem with a specific device/hub/port.

If you have been removing drivers etc. to troubleshoot, you may need to reload the motherboard drivers that came with the system or in installing a new USB device perhaps it wants USB 2.0 and you are still at USB 1.0? You may need to upgrade the BIOS for USB 2.0 support if the system is older.

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Re:Re:Re:USB Ports stop working

by Willy Mar 12, 2004 8:57AM PST

If a chip fails, it robs the path of power to the USB device and/or the power circuit itself gets toasted. The logic of the chip may not recover and stays in a false state thus preventing that USB device to work, Yes, a hub works 2 USB ports, more than likely the other port is bad if the USB logic is bad. In other words, you have dual hubs each serving thier own ports. AND no, the system still acknowledges the USB hub being there but it just doesn't work. Just like a flat tire, its there, it just doesn't roll as well.

good luck -----Willy

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Re:Re:Re:Re:USB Ports stop working

by Kristhillisa Mar 15, 2004 5:21AM PST

Thanks for the explanation about how the chip or power circuit could have failed. It sure seems to be the case, because even a system recovery to a previous period before the driver updates for the NVidia card, etc. are unable to revive the USB ports.

I think I am going to install a new PCI USB card. I'll post an update on how that works.

USB Ports stop working

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