USB Ports not Working

[S1nF1xx]

I've got a customer with a P4 2.8 with an Intel D865GBFL mobo and Win XP with SP2 (which was on there quite a while before the problem started).

The USB ports just stopped working correctly out of the blue. When a printer or USB flash drive are plugged in, the USB icon pops up in the system tray, the add/found new hardware icon does not show up. In device manager under USB, it shows up as an unknown device. It has the USB icon, not the yellow question mark.

I've tried uninstalling all the USB ports/hubs and reinstalling them, it didn't help.
I've checked for updated chipset drivers, there weren't any, but I redownloaded them and installed anyway, that didn't help.

Any suggestions welcome.

Thanks.

 

[uvi]

well not all usb hardware is recognized by windows, sometimes you need to get actual drivers from the manufacturer. Although you said all these devices used to work, and now they dont? Have you fooled with any USB options under bios? You might want to try enabled/disabling legacy/hispeed support.

 

[MrWoot]

well, some USB devices have exact orders on how they should be installed, perhaps they were installed wrong. Anways I'd go back and make sure you have drivers for the devices you want.

 

[S1nF1xx]

I know it's not a problem with the USB devices themselves.

The key part is that when the device is plugged in, normally in the system try you get the little found new hardware icon, then the hardware wizard pops up or it just says "found new hardware".
Well, on this computer, the USB icon shows up in the system tray instead, then it just disappears. The device shows up in the Device manager under USB as an unknown device. Like I said before the icon isn't a yellow '?' , it has the USB icon.

I'm puzzled. In 5+ years I havn't seen anything like it.

 

[The Bryophyte]

If it's behaving exactly like you say and the Intel chipset INFs don't help, you might be looking at a severe windows problem. Have you tried doing a repair install of windows xp? I know it's a bitch and you have to reload updates, but it seems like the next thing to try. It's possible that it's a hardware issue, but it seems pretty unlikely.

 

[havenoclu]

I have seen this issue before. However, the only time I have seen it is when the device is going through a hub or going through the front USB ports that connect to the header on the motherboard. I actually had this issue with an 865GBF, but it stayed the same when I switched the mobo to a K8V SE Deluxe. The solution for me was to get a replacement Front USB board (On the front of antec cases..dunno what exactly you call it). It sounds to me like this is happening for you when you plug the device into the back ports directly off the motherboard...if that's the case, then I guess the only thing you can do to test would be to load an OS to a temp drive or swap out the motherboard. I'd be hard pressed to believe an Intel mainboard has bad USB ports, but I guess it's always possible.

 

[uvi]

Author, why are you positive this is not an issue with the usb devices themselves?

 

[t00thless]

do you have an old pci usb card? or access to a cheap one? plug that sucker in and try the devices. my usb ports went bad out of the blue and thats what i had to do.

 

[S1nF1xx]

Author, why are you positive this is not an issue with the usb devices themselves?

Because I can plug them into any other machine and they work as expected.


Any other ideas? I really don't want to have to send the customer a new machine if I don't have to.