mrbookend said:
In a last final effort to ensure that I have dead ports, I downloaded UBUNTU and ran from USB stick on my one good USB port. Ubuntu also wouldn't recognize a device plugged into the two ports on left side. Guess I'll live with one port. Hopefully, it doesn't die. Thanks for help..
Did I miss something here? Did you enable or disable the USB settings in your BIOS, as I suggested in post #25? What made you determine that both of the side USB ports are toast?