USB ports not working

[cha59]

I had a problem with my USB ports not working. I plugged a flash drive in that had previously worked fine and the computer would not recognize it. Then I tried another flash drive and it didnt work either. I plugged both into a different computer and they both work fine. My external hard drive and camera wouldnt work either. I tried all of these items in multiple ports and nothing worked. The weird thing is my printer, keyboard and mouse worked fine off usb ports this whole time.

I called Dell and they were able to uninstall all my USB ports and reinstall them. When they did this, the USB devices all worked - for only about 12 hours. Now I have the same problem again.

I am aware that when using a USB device it is wise to use the "safely remove hardware" button any time you remove it from the computer.

I run McAfee anti-virus and firewall, have a router, run two solid spyware programs and it does not appear that I have any viruses or anything like that.

What else could be causing this? What should I do? I can call Dell and have them do the same thing over again, but it looks like that is not a permanent solution.

FWIW I have a Dell Dimension 8400 with Windows XP. It has a 3.2 ghz processor and 4 GB of RAM. I've had it two and a half years and never had USB problems before.

[Josem]

from the sttf censored thread, my answer there fits the symptoms (although there are a million possible causes):

However, one option you might want to try is this:

[ QUOTE ]
WinXP by default turns off USB Root Hubs to Conserve Power causing some devices not to resume correctly after Windows resumes from sleep, hibernation or computer inactivity

In the Device Manager > Universal Serial Bus Controllers > USB Root Hub > Power Management, Uncheck the box per the illustration below. Uncheck all boxes on all root hubs.

[/ QUOTE ]

[MadScientist]

Did that work Cha? If so, Josem, Amazing.
No, I'm not being sarcastic.
Also, Cha, do you have small children?
If so, check for peanut butter and/or jelly, marshmellows, and/or action figure parts lodged in the port.

GL

[cha59]

[ QUOTE ]
Did that work Cha? If so, Josem, Amazing.
No, I'm not being sarcastic.
Also, Cha, do you have small children?
If so, check for peanut butter and/or jelly, marshmellows, and/or action figure parts lodged in the port.

GL

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks Josem for the suggestion, but I just tried it and it didnt work. I guess I'll call Dell again. I have a feeling I'm going to be doing a lot of that until I get a different computer.

MadScientist - lol... I do have a 12 year old but I'm sure she's past that stage.