All USB Ports Have Failed!

Hi there

3 days ago all 4 of my USB ports stopped responding. (There are 2 on the side of the box and two on the backplane). At first I couldn't use an infra red device and moving it to another port didn't help. Then I realised that all 4 ports were not working (ie no printer or digital camera connections). Thankfully my KB and mouse are PS/2 connections!!

No software or hardware has been added to cause this. I have tried uninstalling all the USB root and hub drivers so that they would be reinstalled on the next re-boot. That happened correctly but I keep getting an "unknown device" showing up, yet nothing is connected to the ports on the reboot. I have attached the ss of the Device Manager USB report. The "unknown device" is highlighted.

Not sure whether this is in any way related. Why would and 'unknown device' stop the other USB ports from working. I have checked the BIOS settings to ensure USB ports are enabled which they are.

System is; P4 3Ghz, 512K Ram, XP Home, SP2.

Any ideas??,

 

Right click the unknown device>properties>
Tell us what is in all the tabs?
If you think the unknown device is the problem,rightclick it and uninstall.

 

Thanks for the advice ... Results are;

When I uninstall the Unknown Device it reappears on the next reboot!Uninstalling it doesn't affect the USB failures on the other ports.

Could this be a MoBo failure?

I've attached a doc with the screen prints of the Unknown Device properties.

 

Try disabling instead of uninstall.

 

Disabled but no difference in USB response.

After starting the pc with nothing attached to the USB ports (and still getting this 'unknown devoce') I attached the printer to one of the ports and got the very helpful(!) ballon message saying that the printer was unrecognised (it was always recognised before this issue) and listed it in the DM as yet another unknown device!

On several retrys, with different ports and differerent peripherals, everything shows up as an unknown device! It does show however that the ports are all working in the hardware sense.

Does this mean that it is more of a general driver corruption??

 

Having the exact same problem with my Dell Dimension 4700 and Dell printer and Kodak digital camera. No one seems to know what the problem is but all I know is I'm about to drop these things out my 3 story apartment.

 

Download an install the Intel Chipset Software Installation Utility. This contains the most up-to-date drivers for your motherboard, and should also include drivers for the USB ports.

 

I pretty much did everything there was to do, even going into the boot to utility partition and doing an extended test of my pc which took 2+ hours and everything was working fine. Now, Dell tells me it must be a "software issue" with something called a "handshake" and it will cost me $99.00 to get there techs to guide me step-by-step. Im so pissed its not even funny. I'm sending this damn thing back. Sorry for the language but im frustrated as H$@!