Question

Can I repair USB Ports not working?

Asked by: MainerZ

Is my Motherboard's USB system dead?  I have a Foxconn 6100K8MA-RS Socket 939 NVidi GeForce 6100 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard with Athlon 64 X2 3800+ processor and 2 GB memory.  Everything has been running smoothly, but at startup yesterday morning the USB mouse would not function.  Testing the mouse n another computer proved nothing wrong with the mouse, but it would not work dispite trying it in every USB port (4) on the back side of the mother board as well as a separate USB connecter mounted on the front of the computer case and cabled to a front side location on the mother board.  I Installed a PS/2 mouse and the computer functioned perfectly.  Noticed that the USB printer and a scanner also attached to the computer were not visible on MyComputer.  Tried a thumb drive in the five USB ports which produced a continuously flickering light on the drive (even with the computer OFF if the case power toggle switch on the power supply was on!  This is not normal.  On other machines  the thumb drive flickers only momentarily on insertion)  The thumb drive appears not to have been damaged.  
Accessing Device manager tells me that the 2 Host controllers and the 2 USB Root Hubs are "working properly" but obviously they are not.   Have you any suggestions that might enable me to fix this problem?  I am thinking that the simplest solution will be the buy a PCI board with USB ports installed and plug it in.

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Asked On
2007-04-08 at 09:22:09ID22498624
Tags

usb

,

ports

,

repair

,

working

Topic

Computer Motherboards

Participating Experts
3
Points
125
Comments
7

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Answers

 

by: PUNKYPosted on 2007-04-08 at 10:00:41ID: 18872842

You can remove all of usb entries in device manager, then let windows automatic detects them again. If it does not detect, you might check in bios see if any incident changes recently there.

 

by: MainerZPosted on 2007-04-08 at 12:29:10ID: 18873143

Good Idea Punky.  Trouble is after removing all USB entries and then restarting the computer I am now back to exactly the same situation. I leafed through the BIOS entries as well, but did not identify anything missing or incorrectly set. The USB entries in device manager as before say "working properly"  but the mouse won't operate from any USB port.

What do you think about the fact that my thumb drive flickers continuously in a USB portwithout the computer being turned on by the on-off button.  To me that says there is a short circuit in the USB system.  If I replace the current non-working system with a new PCI-USB card will I be free of the existing circuitry?

 

by: jamietonerPosted on 2007-04-08 at 12:29:40ID: 18873146

Boot to a live os cd like knoppix (www.knoppix.org). Test a usb device (mouse would be easiest). If it works then its an os issue. If they dont work here either then its a motherboard or bios issue. Post the results and we can provide more info on what to do next.

 

by: MainerZPosted on 2007-04-08 at 12:45:22ID: 18873178

I have a knoppix CD and will give this a try tomorrow.  Unfortunately I have some social mattrs t take care of for the rest of this evening. I''ll be back to you on this tomorrow (Monday) morning (EDT-USA)

 

by: nobusPosted on 2007-04-09 at 00:26:05ID: 18874591

Did you install some software recently? then a system restore can help you out.
you can also try this :
copy the USBSTOR.SYS from a working PC to the bad one.
normally located at c:\windows\system32\drivers
or :
copy C:\Windows\Inf from a working pc to the bad one.

 

by: MainerZPosted on 2007-04-09 at 05:56:04ID: 18875433

Fired up the computer with Bootable Knopix on a CD and found the same situation as booting up with Windows.  The operating system finds the USBdevices, but a mouse still does not work in any of the slots.  According to "jamietoner" (and I agree) the problem is then mother board or BIOS.  Noting the strange behavior (continuous flickering) of a thumb drive when in a USB socket (see my post to "PUNKY" above) I'm pretty convinced that the problem is in the USB portion of the mother board. A BIOS failure seems highly iunlikely to me.  I will order a PCI-USB board this morning.

To answer the query from "nobus", no new software had been installed, and the USB does not work under Linux either.

 

by: jamietonerPosted on 2007-04-09 at 06:12:25ID: 18875506

When you get the usb pci card disable the onboard usb ports in bios.

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