USB ports not responding

hi everyone, ive had my laptop for about two or three years now n for a couple of months now my usb ports in the back do not respond when i put in any usb device. i went to control panel and device manager, uninstalled all of my drivers for usb installed them again and still nothing. any suggestions?

Hi larryri42,

i went to control panel and device manager, uninstalled all of my drivers for usb installed them again and still nothing.

That was a good starting Point.
Though your USB connecting ports should still work with the original drivers, you may find updates at the Laptop manufacturer's website.
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What type of USB device have your tried in the USB ports.
For instance,
A USB mouse will probably be recognized by XP and run just fine without additional driver installation.
A Memory Stick will probably be instantly recognized but may need to be assigned a Drive Letter via Administrative Tools
A Printer or Scanner running from a USB connection, requires the USB Drivers to be installed for the Printer or Scanner….. BEFORE connecting the USB plug from the Printer or Scanner.

Which, if any, of the above or others have you had trouble with?
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Go to the website for your Laptop manufacturer and download/install the Chipset Drivers.

If you have not already, go to Microsoft to download install DirectX 9.0c
https://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details…;displaylang=en
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If the above hasn't corrected the problem then please run your System File Checker.
Run your Windows File Protection System File Checker.

Start - Run - (type)sfc /scannow - enter <– notice the required space in front of "/"

This will open a progress panel for Windows Protected Files Manager and show the progress as your Operating System files are scanned for "missing or corrupted" files.

If SFC does identify missing or corrupted Operating System files, it may ask you to insert your Windows XP installation CD so a fresh copy of the correct file can be copied and pasted into the system files.

If you do not have your Windows XP installation CD, or if errors in the process occur, please post back with specifics or questions.

SFC scan and replacements take about 8-12 minutes depending upon the size of your file tree and the speed of your CPU/RAM.
If SFC opens, and then closes within a few seconds or under one minute….. It did not complete, and must be repeated.

Sometimes, a second scan run of SFC is necessary, even if SFC completes the first time, in order to replace all missing or corrupted files. If SFC completes, you can safely run it a second time for good measure.
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Please keep us posted with your progress.

Best Regards

sorry for taking so long to respond but i have been busy. Actually i have tried a memory stick, usb mouse, and usb printer and nothing seems to work. The 2 USB slots in the back of my computer do not respond to anything. i tried running the troubleshooting solutions that you posted but none of them worked. any other suggestions? it really is a pain having to use my laptop without the use of my USB ports. what can be the cause of this?

Hi, The next things to check are; 1 That USB support is enabled in the BIOS (sometimes a wrong setting can materialise here!) 2 You have downloaded and installed up to date Chip set drivers for your laptop's motherboard. (as recommended by Doug) 3 You have checked Device manager and have no flags up in yellow or red and that you have several Items listed under USB including one that says "Enhanced" 4 The "enhanced" indicates that USB2 is installed 5 If you still have no joy then you are looking at potentially a reinstall of Windows (a quick and easy job if you have a disc image of your boot drive with your data on a separate partition) or a quite complicated one if you haven't……. 6 A workaround if you have a PC slot in the side of your machine (used to be called PCMCIA or PCMCA slot) is to borrow a card that has 2 USB2 ports (some have firewire as well) 7 If the borrowed card works and provides you with USB support you could consider buying one, they are not too costly about £15 GBP or $30 USD +P& Packing Regards paws