all USB devices stopped working

  • Thread starter Thread starter David
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David

Last night my computer running windows XP SP2 suddenly froze up. When
I rebooted none of the USB devices worked, neither the ones on
motherboard ports nor those on ports on a PCI card. In device manager
I see the USB ports, and it says they are working, but I do not see any
devices attached to them. I tried uninstalling the USB ports and
reinstalling them but nothing changed. Unplugging the devices and
plugging them back in doesn't do anything either (whether to the same
or different ports). The devices (printer, pen drive, modem, scanner,
card reader) all worked fine until last night and they still work on
another computer.

Any ideas?

David
 
David said:
Last night my computer running windows XP SP2 suddenly froze up. When
I rebooted none of the USB devices worked, neither the ones on
motherboard ports nor those on ports on a PCI card. In device manager
I see the USB ports, and it says they are working, but I do not see any
devices attached to them. I tried uninstalling the USB ports and
reinstalling them but nothing changed. Unplugging the devices and
plugging them back in doesn't do anything either (whether to the same
or different ports). The devices (printer, pen drive, modem, scanner,
card reader) all worked fine until last night and they still work on
another computer.

Any ideas?
Click to expand...

I would try a system restore to a date previous to the "disaster date" to
see if that works. If it does you are in business. If not, remove all USB
devices and their associated drivers and try re-installing them one at a
time following the installation instructions for each device.
 
good to try a system restore

Perhaps uninstalling the usb controllers in device manager and
rebooting (xp will reinstall them) can fix it - then reinstall all
devices.

then again, the usb controller might have given out as well.

(what were you doing when it froze up? anything happen other than a
frozen computer?)
 
Thanks for your advice. I will try a system restore, but I don't think
that has ever worked on my computer. I'm not sure why not, because I
have allocated lots of space on my hard drive. Every time I try it
thinks for a while then after rebooting informs me that the restore
failed.

Also, how can I uninstall drivers for devices which do not appear in
device manager? The drivers are certainly installed but since the
system does not recognize any USB devices other than the ports I don't
know how to uninstall them.

I was connecting the internet using my USB dial-up modem when the
system froze.

Does the fact that both the motherboard and PCI card ports fail to
recognize any devices offer any clues as to whether the problem is
hardware or software? If the power supply was a bit weak would that
turn off the devices or would there be other clues (other than the fact
that in this part of the world voltages tend to fluctuate and power
supplies periodically go bad and that high power USB devices often do
not work on this computer unless I plug them into powered hubs).

Thanks for any ideas.

David
 
to uninstall previously hooked up devices, you would use add/remove
programs and remove anything that had to do with any of the usb
devices.

However, i was talking about going to the bottom where there is
'universal serial bus controllers' and right-click remove. then when
you restart, the drivers should be reinstalled for the usb hubs. (that
is mainly for if there is a conflict detected- but I wold do it anyway)

A faulty power supply can do a million paculiar things to a pc. If you
happen to have an extra one, I would say throw it in to eliminate that
as a possibility.


For now, just remove the usb's from the device manager and reboot. you
may want to have your driver cd's handy- but I would assume XP will
find the right ones. if that doesn't work, PSU could be a culprit.
 
to uninstall previously hooked up devices, you would use add/remove
programs and remove anything that had to do with any of the usb
devices.

However, i was talking about going to the bottom where there is
'universal serial bus controllers' and right-click remove. then when
you restart, the drivers should be reinstalled for the usb hubs. (that
is mainly for if there is a conflict detected- but I wold do it
anyway)

A faulty power supply can do a million paculiar things to a pc. If
you happen to have an extra one, I would say throw it in to eliminate
that as a possibility.


For now, just remove the usb's from the device manager and reboot.
you may want to have your driver cd's handy- but I would assume XP
will find the right ones. if that doesn't work, PSU could be a
culprit.
Click to expand...

Hey David,
did that work for you? my Win Xp does the same thing. anytime i plug in
a USB my WinXP just freezes, and nothing works (not even ctrl-alt-del).
i tried removing all my usb controllers, and when i rebooted, they all
came back. but my USB still froze the cpu. i have everything serial
now. the only thing i cant use is my external HD. internally, i only
added more RAM, a 2nd internal HD, and a 2nd Video Card...but i never
changed the power supply. that might be a problem.
 
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