crunch8,
Burning out your USB port is nonsense. It makes no difference if it is "charging" your device or if it is "powering it". Either way, the spec defines how much current is allowed to be provided to a bus-powered device. If it's not exceeding this, then there is no danger.
The availability of bus powering and power usage information is provided by the USB initialization protocol. So, the host could not be using the bus-powered function or maybe there is a higher powered bus-powered USB function that it's not using. This could be because of a jumper, because of outdated drivers, or because your USB bus simply is designed not to provide that much power.
A couple of things:
Update your computer (XP SP2 if you don't have it)
Update your motherboard drivers
Do a google search on your mobo and USB together and see if you can find anyone else with any issues