Solved USB ports no longer working

[rosawoodsii]

I have a Toshiba Satellite laptop which has an ELAN touchpad. Since I detest touchpads, I've always used a mouse instead. Today, my mouse stopped working. I checked the batteries, they're good; even changed the batteries. The mouse won't work. So, I plugged in a wired mouse that I know works. That's not recognized either. Okay...then I plugged in, one after another, three different flash drives in two different ports. Not recognized.

When I go into Device Manager, it says USB hub, controllers, etc, are all working properly, but obviously they're not. I've rebooted twice, but that doesn't clear the problem either. I'm not sure what to do at this point.

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
If it has batteries it would be a Bluetooth device not a usb device although it uses a usb port the signal is not working anymore.
How to fix ?
Try a wired mouse ?

 

[Mellon Head]

When you plug the wired mouse in, can you see the mouse in Device Manager? It will be an HID device and be listed like this:



Note the HID devices, and then the line with my actual mouse. Your actual mouse may not show up like that. It may only show as a HID device.

One thing that you could try is to reinstall the USB drivers if you haven't already.

 

[alphanumeric]

Power down, unplug the power pack and remove the battery. Also unplug all USB devices. Now press and hold the power button say 5 seconds or so. This will completely drain any residual power left in the system. Now put the battery back in, plug the power pack in. Boot up and see if it works now. I would test with the wired mouse first. USB ports have an overcurrent protection circuit that when tripped, requires a complete power removal to reset.

 

[rosawoodsii]

Hmm. Never got any notices of replies. Thanks for taking the time to respond.

The USB devices are now working---sporadically--after I powered down for the fourth time and left the computer off for a half hour. I'm going to do the powerdown recommended by alphanumeric and hope that clears it up. If not, I'll reinstall the USB device drivers, but...exactly how do I do that?

 

[alphanumeric]

USB drivers are universal and included with Windows, as far as I know. One way to force the reinstall is to go to the Universal Serial Bus Controllers section in Device Manager and right click - uninstall what's listed. That could be tricky as your mouse is going to stop working at some point. Other than that, reinstalling your chip-set drivers maybe?

 

[rosawoodsii]

Hi,
If it has batteries it would be a Bluetooth device not a usb device although it uses a usb port the signal is not working anymore.
How to fix ?
Try a wired mouse ?

I am curious enough about this that I had to respond. My Toshiba doesn't have Bluetooth. I've used battery powered USB mouse since they came out, and when I bought this one, it said nothing about Bluetooth. So, why do you think that all battery powered mice are Bluetooth?

 

[Layback Bear]

Knowing exactly what mouse you are using would help.

This is a good read for some extra info.

Wireless Mice / Wired Mice: Optical, Laser, Bluetooth, Nano and USB Options for Notebook & Desktops | Verbatim

Not all wireless mouse are Bluetooth.

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
Yea wireless it's still not a usb wired mouse which has been advised to test one with the usb port.

 

[alphanumeric]

There is true blue-tooth and proprietary blue-tooth. My Logitech keyboards and mice are advertised as Blue-tooth but won't work with anything other than the unifying receiver that comes with them. Logitech uses their own proprietary communication. As far as the PC is concerned though, they appear as a wired device. The Unifying receiver just emulates the normal signals a standard USB mouse or keyboard sends to the PC. It has no idea if they are wireless or not. No special drivers needed. The bonus to that is they work in the BIOS, and on other devices like my Raspberry Pi. The downside is I can't link them directly to the Blue-tooth receiver in my laptop, I have to use the Unifying receiver dongle. If I install the unifying software I get battery status and I can link and unlink devices. It's not needed for normal use though.

In my earlier post, I recommended using the Wired mouse first, in case it was the wireless mouse that caused the USB ports to shut down in the first place. Namely the USB receiver. If it's failing and shorting out the ports you don't want to plug it in until you know they are working with something else, like a standard USB mouse. Then plug it in and see what happens. If they go down again chuck that mouse in the bin.

 

[rosawoodsii]

The problem occurs with both wired and wireless mice, and all that I have are Logitech. I had a hub that I plugged into one of the USB ports, but everytime I plugged it in, the mouse (whichever one I was using) would stop working. I also have a USB external speaker--USB used for charging--and when I plug that into the second USB port, the mouse also stops working. So the problem seems to be the ports themselves, not the mice.

I did the battery drain, and for the time being, everything seems to be working, at least for the last 24 hours. I tossed the hub since it was a pain in the butt anyway, I have the speaker plugged in so it can charge, but it won't charge (brand-new), so I'm not sure if I have a problem with the speaker or whether the USB port isn't doing its job.

 

[alphanumeric]

If you open Device Manager, then go to Universal Serial Devices and right click USB Root Hub. There should be a Power Tab. In there it will show you the current being drawn by devices. It sounds like your USB ports may have been damaged or are failing? I'm not sure how to confirm it one way or the other though?

 

[rosawoodsii]

There are 6 USB Root Hubs listed. Snips attached, but I'm not really sure what this is telling me. I have 2 places to plug in, so I assume those are the USB Composite Devices.

 

[alphanumeric]

If you saw one with a high current draw, it would be an issue, and tell you what device was overloading the USB ports. I'm not sure why you have so many listings with only 2 ports to plug into. Laptops will use some USB ports internally for things like the keyboard and trackpad. That's still a lot though? I only have two USB Hubs listed on this desktop PC? It has 10 USB ports total. I'm running out of ideas and things to check.

 

[rosawoodsii]

Since I never got back to anyone, I thought I'd just fill you all in. Apparently it was the particular device I was trying to use, an external XBOOM speaker. I even got a new one and it did the same thing. When I bought a different brand, the problem went away. Both the old and the new XBOOM speakers are completely nonfunctional, as if they completely shorted out inside.

I'm not sure this is a resolution, since before the start of this thread the speaker was working just fine, but I'll mark it closed anyway, and thank you to everyone for your suggestions.