USB Port Stopped Working after Power Surge

Hi

After a power surge on hub port when attaching a card reader to a front USB port one of my external hard drives disappeared.

The drive works fine and is now on another USB port.

The non functioning rear USB port has the following properties (image 1) and the location address looks weird compared to the functioning USB port below it (image 2):

1



2


I have tried uninstalling/reinstalling the driver and disabling/enabling, rebooting etc and it still will not work.

Any suggestions are welcome.

Thanks

Tim


My system specs:Windows 7 Professional 64 bit 6.1 Build 7601
Intel i7-3770 @3.40GHz
ASRock B75 Pro3-M
Memory: 32.00 GB
(1) Hitachi HCS5C1050CLA382 ATA Device
(2) WD 10EADS External USB Device
(3) WD Ext HDD 1021 USB Device

After a power surge on hub port when attaching a card reader to a front USB port

How do you know there was a power surge at this time?

I am not sure your first screen shot is of the port, I note it says device. But I agree, the location looks bad.

I have tried uninstalling/reinstalling the driver and disabling/enabling, rebooting etc and it still will not work.

Have you totally shut "off" your computer? Not just reboot, or "shutdown", but totally off by unplugging from the wall (or setting the master power switch on the back of your PSU - IF it has the option - to off). This is the only way to totally remove all voltages, in particular the ATX Form Factor required +5Vsb standby voltage PC power supplies supply when the computer is simply shutdown (which is really standby mode).

Note there are several "Wake on..." commands set in the BIOS Setup Menu that use this +5Vsb voltage to keep various circuits and settings "alive" when the computer is in standby mode. These include Wake on Mouse and Wake on Keyboard - which obviously rely on USB. That means USB ports are still alive even when you have exited Windows and shutdown the computer.

If me, I would uninstall your device and the drivers, shutdown, then remove power from the computer for 10 - 15 seconds to ensure all standby settings are released. Then connect and boot and see if the device is detected, drivers load, and it works.

I am assuming you have inspected the interior to ensure the necessary wires from the front panel USB ports are securely connected to the motherboard.

That said, if by "power surge" you mean the USB connector for the card reader was not perfectly aligned when you tried to connect it and you "shorted" the +5V that was present in the computer's USB port to another contact (possibly seeing or hearing the "zap"), then the controller for that pair of ports may now be bad.

Thanks for the reply..

I managed to grab a screenshot of the power surge warning (1) but forgot to post the image.

1


I will try the steps you outlined when I'm back home and will post back the results.

That is telling me connected devices are attempting to pull more current than the port is capable of delivering. That is not a surge.

Generally, using USB devices that have their own external power supplies is best to prevent these type errors.