help!!! USB suddenly stopped working!

[edmicman]

I shut my computer down last night when I left work. I get here this morning, turn it on, and my USB mouse (mx500) won't respond. It turns out that NONE of the USB ports work. I'm running xp pro with sp2 on a dell precision workstation. The ports are providing power, but they won't recognize the mouse or a usb key or my palm cable in any of the ports. No errors are showing up in device manager or windows event viewer. I uninstalled all the usb stuff from device manager, it redetected the ports, but still no devices work. I checked the BIOS and everything looks ok, there. Nothing changed since last night. Can these things short out? Between this and everything else going on today at work I'm about at the end of my patience. Anyone have any ideas?? Thanks!

 

[MaxDSP]

is it a powered hub or a passive one? Ive had the same issue before when I didnt attach a power adapter to the usb hub, as soon as I did give it it's own power source, it started working fine

 

[edmicman]

Its not a hub; its the onboard USB ports - 6 in the rear and 2 in front. None of them work.

 

[MaxDSP]

Originally posted by: edmicman
Its not a hub; its the onboard USB ports - 6 in the rear and 2 in front. None of them work.

oh sorry, I misread your original port. Cant say anything with certainty about onboard usb ports, but I'd imagine that it is possible to short them out if they're pulling too much power. I could be wrong though

 

[edmicman]

I don't know why they'd short out - all that I had in there was a mouse and a palm sync cable. When I turned it on they wouldn't work. I plugged my palm in as soon as I got here, and it was pretty cold (it was in my car overnight in Michigan). I'm wondering if that or the fact that the sync cable was a cheap one from ebay had anything to do with it. I dunno. They're still providing power, as things light up when plugged in, it just doesn't communicate with windows or something. Anyone know of any diagnostics programs for USB??

 

[edmicman]

bump for some more ideas! its still not working!

 

[cumminspuller]

I am sort of haveing the same problem. I have a ASUS K8N-E Deluxe mobo. All my usb ports are working, just not with my wife's new palm zire 31. When I connect the usb to the computer, then the plam, XP recognizes that it is a Palm, then I get an error saying the hardware did not install correctly. Palm tells me that I need to contact Microsoft for updated USB drivers.

Did you ever get to the root of your problem?

Here is the thread I started: http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=32&threadid=1522271&enterthread=y


Jason

 

[edmicman]

It actually ended quite well. I was unable to get to the BIOS when booting with a USB keyboard and booting with a couple of linux live cds didn't show any USB support either, so Dell tech support agreed that the hardware looked to be broken. They sent a tech out to replace the motherboard; he was here all of about 20 minutes, it started up, and everything works now! I'm thinking maybe something like static electricity might have shorted it or something when I plugged things in. Who knows - good luck!

 

[DannyLove]

I have this exact same damn problem this morning!!!
I was at work Weds, and I always use my Front USB ports for my SanDisk Reader and my Kingston USB Drive.
I come into work today, boot up, and my Sandish isn't in My Computer. I thought, weird.
I inserted the Card in, nothing. I tested with my Kingston USB Drive, nothing.
Switched to USB ports, nothing.
Power to these ports are active. I used a USB hub, and saw the lights on.
I have spent over an hour on this issue with no results.
Possibly a Service from Admin Tools?

This is becoming really annoying. BTW: I too have win xp sp2
I'm getting irritated.