Oh Oh, USB problems

[jkaduk]

Last night I was plugging in my camera cable (just the cable) when the PC reset and then took forever to reboot. I guess I got it in there a little crooked. I thought that USB was pretty bullet proof and that you couldn't do any permanent damage by putting it in cockeyed.
Now I only have one port that seems to be working correctly. In the device manager the PC seems to think that all the ports are OK. I do get a message that says one of the USB ports is bad, depending on what is hooked up. The dialog box that comes up when I get this message doesn't help troubleshoot which port it is. A couple of times it thought my printer was a drive.
Should I try reinstalling drivers? Or should I just bring it to the shop and be done with it. I have 6 ports total and all of them are integrated into the motherboard.

 

[RJM62]

You can try uninstalling the USB ports (in Device Manager), rebooting, and letting Windows re-detect them, but this sounds like a hardware problem.

Also, once in a great while, Windows will fail to find the driver after a device is uninstalled. Although this is pretty unlikely with something as ubiquitous as a USB port, what I did encounter a few times with a few Intel chipsets was that Windows would install its own stock driver, but the USB port needed the Intel driver (for bugfix reasons, IIRC).

My personal hunch, though, is that this is a hardware problem. I think what ultimately will happen is that you will have to disable either that individual port (if it lets you) or the USB controller for that port (if it doesn't), and either install an aftermarket USB controller if you have an available slot, or an external hub if you don't.

You also may be able to simply not use that port anymore, but I wonder if damage was done to the controller itself, or merely that port? If all of the other ports work properly with everything that you plug into them, you probably can just not use the damaged port.

Rich

 

[mikea]

The USB port has +5 volt power on it. You prolly shorted the power when you got the plug in crooked and the PC lost power or had a spike. It's likely you didn't do any long term damage to the PC other than what Windows has to deal with when the PC didn't do an orderly shutdown.

 

[wsuffa]

Or you hit it with static, which may have damaged the computer beyond the port.

I lost a MB a while ago with the first symptom being a USB crash. Dead as a doornail.

 

[jkaduk]

Disabling then enabling everything worked with no apparent lingering affects. Thanks for the help.