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USB ports stopped working

This morning the USB ports stopped working. I had a Logitech mouse in the first port, a USB router with a Logitech sound system in one port, a Belkin Bluetooth dongle in another and a Jabra headset charger in a nother. The third USB port was not used. So, these ports are located in two seperate areas of the motherboard.

I uninstalled the USB drivers by deleting all Universal Serial Buss Drivers from the Device Manager tree and rebooting to force windows to reinstall the drivers and find all hardward. This did not work.

Jason Watkins

Can you use a restore point to recover Windows to a point yesterday when the USB ports worked?

SOLUTION

TheTechGuysNYC

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jamietoner

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ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

nobus

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JCtheWizard

ASKER

Thank you for the comments to date.

Answers: this computer is a few years old - released with XP SP1.

The USB problem is occuring in 2 of the 3 available connections The two that are not operating are close to each other on the MB - the working one is on the opposite side of the board. This may rule out a driver issue?

Also, downloaded and ran Toshiba's Diagnostic Utility, which indicated the USB service 'Passed'.

The USB router is really a 1 to 4 splitter - It is a Belkin model F5U218-MOB 'Thumb Hub'.

Have not tried going back with a set point or using the (Knoppix) Lynix start up disk - I am traveling and do not want to risk further problems on the road.

That is my update - I'm thinking it may be the MB -

SOLUTION

jamietoner

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nobus

you can always add usb ports with a pci usb card :
http://www.ciao-shopping.nl/Sweex_4_Port_USB_2_0_PCI_Card__624626

Jason Watkins

Adding a USB 2.0 is probably the best option, with the least amount of agro...

/F

jamietoner

Where this is a laptop a pci card wont work you would need a pcmcia usb card like this one.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815124011

JCtheWizard

ASKER

Well, I hoped someone would know a way to check the board to verify if the ports are bad. Like I wrote eariler, the Toshiba Diagnostic Utility says they pass. But, of course, that may be based on testing the drivers only. I don't know.

So I will take the machine in to a shop when I get back home to see if I can just get the port controller for the two bad ports repaired - seems a waste to change out the mb.

nobus

>> a way to check the board to verify if the ports are bad. << connect to a mouse, or ram stick, or buy this
http://www.passmark.com/products/usbloopback.htm

JCtheWizard

ASKER

Further to my last comment I took the machine to the local authorized toshiba repair facility - there they have access to internal parts drawing - and it turns out this USB port is a seperate card - thus the reason the Toshiba Diagonistics Utility showed the USB service running (the remaining port that is on the MB).

I split points between those with solutions and surrender this question.

Thank you all for your help.