USB Ports Working Incorrectly, Constant Crash

[br34kthr0ugh]

Specs can be found at: Newegg.com - Gateway DX4720-03 Pentium dual-core E5200(2.50GHz) 4GB DDR2 640GB NVIDIA GeForce 7100 Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit - Desktop PCs

It was a Windows Vista 64, but I upgraded it to Windows 7 64 bit. After that, the USB Ports will recognize things in Windows 7, but the wireless adapter that is always on in the USB ports (or any other things in the USB ports as a matter of fact, both front and back) will crash within a random amount of time, which will force me to restart the computer. However, when it reaches the Shutting Down screen, it will stay there forever. I left it on for over a day trying to shut down at a point. Finally, it forces me to hold down the power button to shut it off, which I would imagine is not healthy.

The reason I know it is a USB problem and not router/adapter related is because we have 2 other computers in the house, a laptop and another desktop, and both connections are working fine. Also, I attempted to boot into Ubuntu 9.10 and Linux Mint 8 (Helena I think) to see if my little brother could use the computer without the internet crashing. His mouse and keyboard are both USB powered, and neither of them worked in either of the distributions. Therefore, it has to be the USB ports that are at fault.

Does anyone have any help? I'm so frustrated because this problem has been on the computer for a few months now, and I can't find a Vista install disk with the correct drivers to reinstall Vista, even with the old valid key.

 

[fireberd]

If it won't work in Linux that says there is some type of hardware problem, not an Operating System or driver issue. In Linux the required drivers are loaded when it's installed (at least the way it worked on my PC loading Ubuntu from a disc and running it from a disc). If the problem was only when Windows was loaded that would be a different issue (and possibily a missing motherboard chipset driver).

Try resetting the BIOS (however it's done on that machine - maybe just removing the BIOS backup battery for about 10 minutes) and see if that resets the USB.

 

[br34kthr0ugh]

Well yeah, as I was saying, it is the USB. I didn't mention it being a driver problem because I ruled it out, and figured out it's the USB hardware since the USB's didn't work on Linux.

I've updated all drivers with Windows Update and by manually looking for each of the important ones, such as the motherboard chipsets and any others.

For now, I would prefer not to reset the bios unless there is no other solution. What would resetting the bios do to reset the USB's? And how would it affect the partition and other hardware? I have no experience in what a bios reset does, so if you could explain what it does, I would probably be more willing to try it out.

 

[whest]

This fix maybe applicable :
You encounter problems when you move data over USB from a Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2-based computer that has an NVIDIA USB EHCI chipset and at least 4GB of RAM

 

[br34kthr0ugh]

Actually, that is another symptom that it has because of the problem, I just forgot about it because my little brother started using his iPod on my computer because of his not being able to update his song lists. I've applied the update to the computer, and will report back if there are or aren't any problems with it.

 

[br34kthr0ugh]

So far, there has been no reported problems whatsoever from my brother! Thank you very much, whest. I don't know how I would have found the article otherwise, no google results would work.