USB Ports are not working!

[goku5000]

Hi I have a Window Vista Home Premium and all of a sudden all of my USB ports stop working

None of my USB devices work but still get power from the USB ports

And I can't do anything because my computer has no PS/2 ports for a Mouse and Keyboard, only USB mouse and USB keyboard.

So I can't login to my computer at all.

I talk to Tech Support and they said to order a restore CD from them for 60$

But I don't want to lose all of my Data ether is there anything I can do?

Thanks!

 

[jjnguy13]

Welcome to the forums!!

You might want to try borrowing a PS2 keyboard and boot into your BIOS. You should check to make sure that you USB ports are enabled in the BIOS. Beyond that I am not sure what to do.

A list of your computer's specs might be helpful too. See my signature for what we might wanna see.

 

[goldragon_70]

He has no PS/2 ports on his computer, how is he going to use a ps/2 keyboard? 8O

Can you use your USB keyboard to get into your Bios?

 

[jjnguy13]

Oops, I thought he said that his keyboard and mouse were USB. And he didn't have and PS2 mice or keyboards.

Aren't there serial keyboards and mice?

 

[bc4]

I'm not sure if this will work but if your looking for suggestions this is what i'd try:

Unplug the Hard drive and then throw in the Vista Dvd into the Dvd drive, if your bios is set correctly, it will look to boot to the HD (and not find it) then boot to the DVD drive (and start loading vista and with it USB drivers)

To me this sounds logical but more experienced people might be able to say that you need to hit Install for this to work or not ( and thus needing USB keyboard)

You might also try this with another bootable disk but I don't have suggestions for that (that would be helpful as far as installing and checking usb drivers)

to OP, let me know if this works
to everyone else: let me know if this is dumb @ss idea

 

[jjnguy13]

I don't think you can just put a Vista DVD in your DVD drive and let it install itself.

That could lead to some problems.

I'm prety sure that you would need to use a keyboard to install Vista.

But its good thinking to reinstall the drivers.

 

[tarkenstar]

turn off the computer. unplug the power cord(flip the power switch too), wait 10 seconds, plug it back in, flip the switch back on. turn on the computer.

do you get an error message when you plug in a USB device? "unrecognized device or device has failed" something along those lines. does anything happen at all? does say num lock light up for half a second or so and go back off?? or does nothing happen at all?

 

[Zorg]

As said see if you can get into BIOS with the USB KB and mouse. There may be a setting in there for USB keyboard legacy support, although I'm not sure it will help. If you can't get into BIOS, then check the manual for defaulting the BIOS. It usually involves moving a strap temporarily to some shorting pins and then moving it back while the computer is off.

Which company is charging you $60.00 for a restore disk :?: That is outrageous :!:

If you want to save your data you will need to put your drive into a another PC as a slave and burn some disks, or buy a new HD and keep the old one as a 2nd HD.

 

[goku5000]

I brought a PS/2 to USB adapter and try that with my PS/2 mouse and keyboard but it didn't work

I'm might just buy other HD drive and try using my old one (with all of my data) as a Slave
Oh and sorry about my given my Info of the computer

Oh I can't even Log in to my account(can't do anything) and I don't have a Power switch on my computer

Acer Aspire L100
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3800+
RAM: 1 GD DDR11
HDD:160 GB SATA
BIOS: R02-A3

Thanks!

 

[goldragon_70]

OK, here's the problem. If you can't get into your BIOS then you can run anything, because a keyboard and mouse won't work on the computer Period. So Either you would have to reset your bios, or get the mobo replaced. That reinstall CD won't work if you can't select what you need to do, unless it can fix the bios. If you can get into your bios, it may be as simple as turning on Legacy or usb keyboard and mouse.

Understand now?

 

[goku5000]

Still I can't go into the BIOS option I'm going go buy a other Hard Drive and use that as the Main one and add the other on as a second on but how do I do that?

And can I just buy any Hard Drive

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=529086&CatId=134

 

[eric54]

Goldragon has nailed it. If you're looking to save a penny, try buying a pci-card providing usb ports. If your usb ports are fried this may be a good workaround and save you the cost of a new mobo or whatever else you may need replacing. If this works there are settings in the bios for legacy and usb keyboards, and if not enabled you wont be able to use usb keyboards.

However, your mobo doesnt even HAVE ps/2 ports so why would the bios include this setting? Logically it shouldnt even be in the bios, let alone the default setting. I suggest you buy a pci usb card first, try it, and if it doesnt work return it. Its cheaper than buying a new hdd and really its your only shot at getting things to work. such a simple problem but a huge PITA!

What mobo do you have?

 

[eric54]

I might have an old pci usb card for an ancient computer lying around somewhere in my house. If you want to try out this solution i'll mail it to you for the cost of shipping, i have no use for the card, just pay for shipping and i'll give it to you. i'll let you know when i find it (the computer is somewhere in storage).

EDIT
Just looked up the cost for one of these and its only 7bucks at newegg, so i'll save myself some looking time and just give a link. Heres what you need.

 

[techgeek]

I concur, if you can't use your USB keyboard to enter the BIOS buying another HDD isn't going to help. If the keyboard doesn't work before the OS loads it's not the OS's fault. Since you have tried another keyboard, it's obviously not your keyboard. This means something is wrong with your USB ports. I would try to reset your CMOS, if you don't know how to do this check your motherboard manual. There's usually a jumper near the CMOS battery. Once you clear the CMOS see if you can get into the BIOS. If you still can't, your USB ports are screwed. I have seen this (just recently) on an MSI board. The USB ports were supplying 5V (I measured, I am an electronics engineer), but it wasn't communicating. Furthermore Linux was enumerating the USB ports (finding them and assigning resources) so everything looked fine, but they just wouldn't work. Luckily the motherboard had PS/2 ports or I wouldn't have discovered this.

So you have two options if the USB ports are hooped:
1. RMA the board (or system if it's prebuilt as it sounds since you have the option of getting a Restore CD).

2. As someone mentioned, buy a PCI USB adapter. This maybe advisable anyway. If you have to send the entire system away, as you'll want to retrieve any data you don't have backups of.

One other thing I just thought of. Have you tried ALL of your USB ports. USB ports come in pairs, two ports per channel. Try all of the ports, you may just have one bad channel. Even try the ports on your front panel (if you have them), just to be sure. It's not good enough to try just one other port as you may have tried the other port on the same channel.

 

[goku5000]

OK I will try the PCI USB adapter first but what if I put my hard drive in a other computer will that work?

 

[techgeek]

OK I will try the PCI USB adapter first but what if I put my hard drive in a other computer will that work?

Depends on why you wish to do this. If it's to boot the other computer with it as the main drive, forget it. It will likely BSOD before getting to Windows unless the computer you are placing it in is exactly the same as the computer you took it out of. If it's not, Windows will trip up on the new hardware and fail to load properly. You might be able to go into Safe Mode. No real reason to do this though.

If you intend to slave it to the drive that's in the other computer already, yes you could do this. The only reason to do this would be to get any important data off the drive.

Is this a new computer? If so, just RMA it. If you can't get the USB ports working as I mentioned by clearing the CMOS, you shouldn't have to live with a workaround. Your system must still be on warranty! Get your data off the HDD and get them to repair or replace it.

 

[goldragon_70]

One quick question: Is your computer under warranty?

 

[goku5000]

I believe it is but only with Circuit City, I at work so I can't check right now
but with Acer no Only 3 months and I got it on Feb 17 2007.

 

[goku5000]

OH and Do I have to logging to add the PCI USB adapter or does it automatically works?

 

[eric54]

hrm. anyone know the answer to that one? not sure if it needs drivers installed for it to work. Try your luck on it, let us know how it works out.

 

[techgeek]

I would imagine that windows would have a basic driver built in that would get the card working before login. He may have to wait a bit at the login screen until the card is recognized and windows finds the keyboard and mouse (like if you switch ports for mouse and keyboard). I think it should work before he logs in. Just a guess though.

 

[PCD]

If you reset your BIOS it will set the USB to default which is Enabled. If that doesn't work then USB has died. Data and Power for USB are separate so you can easily have light in periferals you connect without them actually working.

 

[goldragon_70]

most computers have a jumper for this so take out the batter and use the jumper. And if the usb card is recognized by the BIOS then the keyboard and mouse will work, if not, then....

 

[goku5000]

Sorry about not posting early and was in CA

I just find out that my computer doesn't have PCI card slot so the PCI USB Adapter is useless.

And I receive my restore CDs for 44$ not 60$ but I have to start it with the mouse and keyboard and the Tech agent said All I had to do was
put it in then restart my computer That a Load of crap

Now I'm pissed

 

[Crashman]

OEM support techs always assume it's a software problem. If no standard USB keyboard or USB mouse works at all, there is no software fix.

If you can't access BIOS because it's an OEM PC and you're "locked out", you could still try booting from a bootable CD to see if the keyboard works.

Any bootable CD would work for that. Bootable CD's don't care about what's on your hard drive.

If your keyboard doesn't work after booting from a bootable CD, your USB ports are probably fried. Yes, you could toss your hard drive into a system as a secondary drive and retrieve data.