Problem with USB ports on Dell laptop

[Princess Turandot]

My dell laptop, an Inspiron 5160 has two USB ports. I usually use one for a mouse and the other to connect to various portable storage, usually a card reader.

In the last few days, the USB ports have gone completely haywire. It will not recognize the logitech mouse on either port. On one port, in relation to the card reader, it alternates pop-up messages telling me that the USB device cannot be recognized, that the USB device would work faster with a 2.0 USB port or simply loads the files on the card into memory. (It repeats these three messages over and over again.)

I had this problem once before and to the best of my recollection, deleting the components of the USB controllers in Device Manager along with all the USB Root Hubs, cured the problem. When I rebooted, the laptop reinstalled the USB controllers/Hubs and everything worked fine again.

I did go through the exercise of reinstalling the mouse driver; the mouse works on my desktop w/o any trouble. There is one oddity about the mouse, however. Device manager is showing a Wacom mouse connected to the computer. I do have a Wacom tablet which comes with a mouse but I use it on my desktop. A few years ago (literally) I installed the tablet on the laptop for backup purposes, but have not used it on the laptop since then.

The card readers/storage cards also work on my desktop.

Is there a step that I'm missing or are the ports likely hosed? I'm one of those people who is incapable of using a touchpad - which is working fine. There is no PS2 connector on this laptop.

I'd be grateful for any advice!

[PennDem]

1. The ports may be hosed

Have you tried booting into safe mode and testing the ports?

You could try running the Windows system file checker utility. Type "sfc /scannow" from the run window. You may need to have your Windows disk handy to do this.

Short of an expensive motherboard replacement or repair, you could resort to an add-on PC Card to restore USB function or add a bluetooth card & mouse.
http://www.amazon.com/Cables-Go-27386-Card-2-Port/dp/B0002GRTYM

RE: "There is one oddity about the mouse, however. Device manager is showing a Wacom mouse connected to the computer."
With the mouse connected, uninstall the Wacom device from device manager. Reboot and see if Windows will load the standard mouse drivers for it.

[PennDem]

2. This worked on another laptop USB issue post

Thanks to qanda who came across the potential fix.

Shutdown your system. Unplug the power cord. Remove the battery for a few minutes. Replace the battery and power cord, then startup. Hopefully you'll have USB function again.

[Princess Turandot]

3. Thanks for the suggestions..

unfortunately, they are still not working. I decided to try the ole 'battery-sicle' trick to see if perhaps boosting the battery has an impact. It's got a few more hours of defrosting to go.

I had already uninstalled my Wacom stuff then tried to install an MS optical mouse that I have. It got through the install process completely. Then it popped up a message saying that set-up could not be completed, I suspect because it could not see the mouse.

Aargh!

[PennDem]

4. Something to try from Microsoft KB

maybe try the suggested workaround.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/817900

[Princess Turandot]

5. Thanks again, Penn..

I'd already tried those steps, although I disabled the auto-power shut down via device manager, since those options were visible. I would think that was the same as their suggestion to do a reg edit to turn off the power.

On another forum, someone mentioned to me that there have been issues associated with the XP SP3 update and USB ports. It's discussed a bit more in this web page:
http://www.vistaheads.com/forums/microsoft-public-windowsupdate/318534-windows-xp-sp3-all-usb-ports-stopped-working.html

Replacing the files mentioned in the article did not help but I need to search around a bit more. However, I first upgraded to SP3 in 9/08 so I don't know why it would suddenly mess things up now. I tried uninstalling all 12/08 Windows updates based on that suggestion, but that did not help.

This particular dell laptop had a design flaw associated with the power source's interaction with the motherboard. Dell actually provided a free-of-charge post warranty repair in early 2008, likely because they lost a class action lawsuit the year before on a similar problem with a different model. So the problem could be the motherboard: my guess is that they probably used refurbished ones.

So, I'll do a bit more reading but given that this was not very expensive to begin with, it's not worth replacing the motherboard.

Thank you again for trying to help!

Turandot

[jayfish]

6. Try this:

-Add "DEVMGR_SHOW_NONPRESENT_DEVICES" with a decimal value of "1" to "System variables" section in "Environment Variables"
-Open "Device Manager", select "View" and select "Show hidden devices"
-Expand each of your device types and un-install any shaded devices (you can just focus om USB devices if you wish but I do them all)
-While still in "Device Manager" right click on your computer name and select "scan for hardware changes"
-Try the devices you are having trouble with

What you are deleting are drivers for devices that are no longer connected to your system. They can and do cause problems.

Jay

[Princess Turandot]

7. Well that was interesting!

It turned up an astonishing amount of grayed out stuff. I deleted all of the USB stuff and some of the rest of it. I thought that I was on the right track when I plugged in an MS mouse: it recognized the arrival and began the install process but then became hung up on the search for a file that I kept directing it to. (I have a vague thought that this happened in the past because I've been using a simpler Logitech one on this laptop.) Then I downloaded a more current driver (I think) for the MS mouse. It ran all the way to the end then told me that it could not complete the process. (This particular mouse Intellimouse Optical Explorer 3.0 has been resurrected by MS after several years and there are drivers for it even more current than the one I tried, because I guess the new one has some other features.) I tend to keep my installation disks as long as I have a product but did not have one for this mouse.

Then I tried the Logitech but although it ran through the set up fine, it's not working.

So, I don't know whether this is really a port failure. I will remove the the grayed out stuff in the other categories later today to see if it makes a difference. It looked like an entry had been established everytime that I connected anything to the machine. The USB category went from 8 visible items to about 30!

Thank you for trying to help.