Re: All USB ports stopped working suddenly: HARDWARE * * *

Bob Epinette wrote:
Well folks, turns out it is a HARDWARE issue.

The Asus P4P800 Dlx is notorious for failing in this regard; countless threads on various forums, as well as my local hardware vendor and other tech-heads, all confirm that this is a known issue, nonetheless acknowledged by Asus but ignored by them.

The Southbridge chip on my mobo must be fried (although there is no visual indication or smell) since booting with a Linux shell (Knoppix) does not detect any ports whatsoever. Powering down the PS a long time, hoping that any "latchup" problem will be solved, is also not helping. The damage caused by USB flash storage is significant enugh to *break* the controller chip, but not enough to be visible, even to XP Pro SP2 that reports everything working fine. Even the *hotfix* provided by MS to solve this problem is not helping.

So my conclusion is: HARDWARE failure. Bummer....

The solution was to disable all mobo-USB in BIOS and add a cheap PCI-2-USB card with 5 ports for $20, but which, AFAIK, does not provide a lot of power to my USB devices, but works enough to get me by. Too bad the PCI card does not have the necessary connector to hook up internally my 5-in-1 multimedia reader; it is now sitting useless in a 3.5" bay. Maybe I'll work up the courage to cut-open a USB cable and fashion a connector out of it for my reader.

The lessons I learned? 1. DO ensure to discharge any accumulated static electricity from your body before plugging in any device.
2. DO NOT quickly unplug and replug a device, in the same or different ports.
3. DO NOT buy any flavour of Asus P4P800 mobos.
4. DO come here to seek advice and share your experiences.

Thanks so much for posting the solution. I'm sorry about your mobo, but you did such a great job of troubleshooting the problem and then posting what happened that you can be sure someone else will be helped by your good work.

My crystal ball sez there's a new motherboard in your future. ;-)


Malke
--
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
"Don't Panic!"
MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User
.

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