USB ports not working

[kerm362]

My laptop usb ports suddenly stopped reading my jump drive and external hard drive. When I plug one in my computer freezes. Does anyone have any ideas it would be greatly appreciated. Karen

 

[tigsounds]

Hi Karen [:tigsounds:4]

You can delete all the USB drivers and restart the computer and it will put them all back.
Yea, it sounds like a dumb thing to do, but it works.

Unplug all USB devices.

Click buttons or tabs in this order:

Start>Control Panel>System>Hardware>Device Manager

Down at the bottom of the list will be Universal Serial Bus Controllers.
Click the little plus sign to make them all appear.
Start at the bottom and right-click each one and select "Uninstall" and do this for all of them except the very top entry, the "Universal Serial Bus Controllers".. it stays.
When completed, close device manager and restart the computer.
It will display "Found new hardware" and install everything again, a few times.

Try your USB devices again after the computer completely finishes starting.

 

[kerm362]

I hate to tell you this but I did do that already and it didn't work but thanks anyways.

 

[kerm362]

My laptop usb ports suddenly stopped reading my jump drive and external hard drive. When I plug one in my computer freezes. Does anyone have any ideas it would be greatly appreciated. Karen


Thanks for the quick reply but I did do that already and it didn't work. Karen

 

[tigsounds]

I'm back to the think tank.

 

[kerm362]

Will be back to see if the think tank worked. Thanks for trying.

 

[tigsounds]

I find it strange that nobody has ever publicly showed a definite solution to this problem.
My own suspicion is that Windows is not to blame. I think it is a problem with the BIOS, or maybe an interrupt or a hardware problem such as a chip went bad and Windows doesn't get affected until it tries to use it.

Microsoft does acknowledge there is a problem with some computers and has a type of test that you can perform.

I don't want to re-type what they have to say so I'll provide links.

What you'll be doing is HERE

How to do it is HERE, go to method #2.

I am disappointed that they said: "If these steps helped you start your computer in a clean-boot state, you are finished."
But in that state, nothing works and if you go back to "Normal" the problem will return. I suppose it's a way to see if something went bad in Windows or not. I find the test will be inconclusive because as I said, a hardware problem may not affect Windows until it tries to use it. If doing the "clean boot state" does not stop the problem, then I think my suspicion of a hardware problem is correct.

In my researching of this problem I saw where people were completely re-installing Windows and the problem persisted, again pointing to a hardware problem.

 

[kerm362]

I will look into what you posted and would like to thank you for still trying to help.