Re: All USB Ports Suddenly Stopped Working

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"Peggy" <Peggy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:35175338-7798-40A3-B933-872C354DEBDD@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I too, see a green light on what I'm attemting to plug my Linksys Wireless
G
USB network adapter into the USB port, but it quickly goes out and never
comes back on and the computer never recognizes that I've plugged anything
in. I've tried a 250 mb flash drive, a Linksys Wireless G USB Network
adapter and a printer. None of them are recognized by the laptop ever.
This
did work previously, but doesn't now. When I try the same three devices
on
another laptop, they are recognized immediately and added to the list of
items in the device manager under the Universal Serial Bus Controller
devices.

In Device Manager, locate the USB controller. Right-click on it and choose
Uninstall. Before it has a chance to re-detect, shut the system down
completely. Unplug the adapter and remove the battery. Hold the power
switch down for about 30 seconds. This will reset the BIOS and sometimes
also resets various ports. Your system clock will probably be reset - if
it isn't, try it again till it IS reset. Check this by going into the
BIOS, not Windows, at startup.

Once the system is actually reset, you can set the date and time properly,
and restart into Windows. The USB controller chip should be re-detected -
if it isn't, it's damaged. Check in Device Manager. Try plugging the
flash drive in if the controller has re-appeared.


Where can I a USB card and how I get directions on how to install it? I
have a Dell 600m and Dell isn't too big on giving out anything to help in
these type of things. That's why I always try to stick to a Gateway.

The 600M has one PC card slot, so get a simple PCMCIA USB 2.0 card. The
last one I bought was CDN$25, and provided four ports. Almost any computer
shop will have these. I tend to stay away from the combo cards that
provide both USB2 and FireWire ports as I have found these cards to be less
durable (I had three fail, while one USB2-only card kept working).

These cards are extremely simple to install. Take it out of the package
and plug it into the PCMCIA slot, wait a few seconds for XP to recognise it,
and you're done.

It's unlikely that you will need to install drivers. Then plug your
devices into the card. Then, you may well have to install drivers as the
devices will be seen as " new" on each of the new ports.

Here's an example of a two-port card. Four-port cards are a bit bigger,
but should be easy to find locally for you.
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=723748&CatId=511



In some articles I've found, It tallks about Dell's having problems with
the
"Power Management" and maybe sometimes enough power is not getting
allocated
to the USB ports for them to work.

The printer is powered and so doesn't use much power from the port itself.
It may be that the port itself is damaged, which probably means motherboard
replacement. I'll suggest the PCMCIA card if the system is out of
warranty.

With my thinkpad, I can disable the USB ports (and crash the machine) by
plugging an external hard disk case into one USB port. To fix that, it's
necessary to shut down, unplug the power adapter, remove the battery, and
hold the power switch down for about 30 seconds. Then the ports work
again.

HTH
-pk
<Snippage>


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