USB Port packed up

[Sprogget]

One of them has stopped working. I plugged an external drive in & I got an error message, one of the usb devices attached to this computer has malfunctioned.

I've checked the wiring, tried uninstalling all ports & updated all driver software. I thhink the mobo (asus p5l-vm 1394) is otherwise ok, but the port still doesn't work - all the others are ok. Stuck.

[green granite]

Every time a usb device is connected or disconnected, the
circuit receives a voltage/current transient. An electrostatic
Discharge event is one such transient. USB is
susceptible to two main types of events: Overvoltage transients and Overcurrent events.

Whilst the circuits should be protected from the above one can only protect so far, you can easily get charged up to 15KV or so just walking across a nylon carpet. Moral is always earth yourself before you pick up the usb lead by touching bare metal on the case.

So either you have a dead part of the usb chip, just affecting that one port, or a bad soldered joint somewhere in the circuit (or both) you will have to live with it, if you are short of ports youcan always get an extender hub.

[hellsbrink]

Or, of course, you can get a PCI/PCI-E usb card which will give you up to 4 new USB ports. A better solition than a hub, imo, as unless you buy a hub with it's own power supply you can easily end up owerleading the USB port the hub is connected to

[Saab Dastard]

I'm with Hellsbrink on this - and in the case (pun) of an older PC, I even get to upgrade from USB1.1 to USB2!

I leave the mouse and printer plugged into the 1.1 ports at the back, with 2 ports on the card for scanner and HDD, and I've a cable extender that simply extends the other two of the USB ports on the card from round the back to the front of the case for plugging in mem sticks, etc.

Cheap, but very cheerful!

SD

ps - I have two internal USB ports on the card, but when I tried connecting it to the USB ports at the front of the case (just swapped the cable from mobo to card), they still only ran at 1.1 - I assume this is down to the spec of the physical port, but I was slightly surprised.

[Sprogget]

This is the case. The three ports are firewire & 2 x usb. The usb port on the right has never worked - it's got a bent pin. The four usb's round the back are all in use & innacessible in any event, and all the pci slots are in use too so I guess that leaves the firewire port. I'll have to buy a cable then I suppose. Bloody puters.

[Keef]

I had a USB port with a bent pin. I bent it back again, and it's in use.

[Sprogget]

Tried. can't.

[Sprogget]

The port wouldn't do anything with an hdd. Out of interest, I plugged in my camera, obviously a powered device. This time, the pc beeps, recognising it's been plugged in.

Device manager shows the port as an unknown device with no driver installed. Auto update doesn't find the driver. Vista doesn't recognise the driver on the system disc that came with the pc, although the only ones in the folders are for 98,2000 & xp.

Any ideas at all?

[green granite]

Try: ASUSTeK Computer Inc.-Support-
and download fresh drivers.