USB ports failing?

[pmv]

Posting in this sub-forum because my suspicion is that it's a motherboard failure...but don't know for sure. Would much prefer it was the psu.

All the USB ports (4 front, 6 back, usb 3 and 2) became unreliable, almost overnight.

They will no longer work for flash drives (or digital music players), but still work for mouse and keyboard and external HDD (which has own power supply).

At first they would work _once_ when a flash drive was first plugged-in, but then after ejecting it, they would not work again till a hard-reboot. Then after a day of this they stopped working even on first insertion.

Tried umpteen flash drives.

A big problem is if I _do_ plug a flash drive in, not only is it not accessible (though it is identified as a drive, the volume just can't be 'populated') but from then on other things malfunction - hardware monitor won't run, nor will disk manager, both just display blank pages, windows explorer stops refreshing automatically after a file is renamed or deleted (requires manual refresh to update the window) and the PC can't be restarted or shut down, it needs a hard reboot. Only a hard reset will get things back to 'normal' again.

As long as I don't insert any usb flash drives the PC works perfectly well.

After a flash drive access failure event viewer shows 'user mode driver crash' and 'WSearch timed out' errors.

My suspicion is that some capacitor or something on the mobo has given up the ghost, and hence the USB ports can't provide enough power for flash memory devices (but can still manage keyboards etc). It would be far better if it were just a dying PSU, but when hardware monitor does run it shows all voltages being perfectly normal.

Anyone have any ideas whether it is likely to be the mobo or the psu?

Thanks.

(I've tried everything I can think of wrt to drivers and windows update, to no effect - I don't think it's a software issue).

 

[UsandThem]

It could very well be. It wouldn't be the first time USB on a motherboard quit working, or started flaking out.

Could you list your current hardware, and how old are they?

 

[Elixer]

My suspicion is that some capacitor or something on the mobo has given up the ghost, and hence the USB ports can't provide enough power for flash memory devices (but can still manage keyboards etc). It would be far better if it were just a dying PSU, but when hardware monitor does run it shows all voltages being perfectly normal.

Anyone have any ideas whether it is likely to be the mobo or the psu?

Are you testing the PSU under load to see if the voltages are within spec?

As a general rule, if your keyboard & mouse are working, then it doesn't seem like a hardware issue.
For the USB ports, on the mobo (what mobo is this exactly?), you could hookup a multimeter to the correct mobo pins and see if what it outputs. Obviously, you must be careful, you don't want to short anything out, but again, if mouse & keyboard are working, I don't think this is the issue here.

What happens when you stick a boot USB stick and try to boot from that?
If that works, then I would get a linux boot USB stick, and run that, and then plug other USB devices in, and see what happens. This sounds more like a corrupted system file(s) that is going on.

 

[pmv]

Thanks all.

Pretty much all components are 4 years old. The mobo is Asus Z87-A. Windows 10. Did notice the problem started right after a big windows update a few days ago, but no messing with drivers or updates seems to make any difference (though when I try to roll back that update windows just says 'unable to remove update, an error has occurred', in it's usual helpful way, and windows update troubleshooter identifies problems, claims to have fixed them, and then immediately finds the exact same problems again).

System file checker, as usual, finds nothing wrong at all (in my experience it never does and is generally useless).

As far as I understand it, mice and keyboards are less demanding of USB ports than are flash drives? As I say, the external hard drive works, presumably because it doesn't take much/any power from the port?

Those USB ports have had a _lot_ of use over the 4 years, (have a modded music player that can take nearly 24 hours for a complete sync.) so my suspicion is that something expired under heavy use.

Can't physically peer into the case to check capacitors or probe voltages etc just at the moment, not enough room to get at the hardware without a lot of rearranging furniture!

Am considering a workaround of getting a powered USB hub or a PCIE USB card, so devices won't pull so much power from the motherboard USB. Replacing a motherboard is not an enticing prospect.

PSU is a corsair TXM-750 V2-80 plus. Also 4 years old.

i5 4670

The disconcerting thing is how inserting a flash drive then makes the whole system unstable (as described in OP). Don't understand why that happens, especially as the rest of the time it's perfectly solid.

If CPUID hardware monitor is to be believed, the various voltages never fall below spec, even at 'minimum'. But I'm not sure where it is monitoring those voltages - could it be something is causing the 5V line to drop only at the USB ports, not wherever HWM is reporting it?

 

[pmv]

If that works, then I would get a linux boot USB stick, and run that, and then plug other USB devices in, and see what happens. This sounds more like a corrupted system file(s) that is going on.

That's a good idea. Have some linux boot cds around, maybe could boot from one of those? But I fear immediately gettting emeshed in linux driver issues.

 

[pmv]

Also - Windows update trouble shooter always says:

Potential windows update database error detected - fixed
Windows update components must be repaired - fixed


But if you run it again immediately (or after a reboot) it finds exactly the same issues. Clearly it is lying about fixing them. Windows 'troubleshooters' never actually work, do they?

There's also a 1703 to 1709 update pending that has failed to install 3 times already, and telling it to install it again just bogs down my internet connection for a couple of hours before failing again.

And attempting to remove the update immediately before the problems started - KB4048954 - just gives a useless 'an error has occurred' error message and fails.

Edit - at least finally managed to fix this and get windows update to actually complete the update. Makes no difference to the USB problem, though.

 

[Elixer]

That's a good idea. Have some linux boot cds around, maybe could boot from one of those? But I fear immediately gettting emeshed in linux driver issues.

Sure that will work.
No need to worry about loading drivers on any good distro that isn't ancient. You can download more recent ones if you want.

 

[eton975]

Grounding problem/standoff mounting issue, perhaps? And yeah, PSU sounds like a likely culprit, if there's any way you can scavenge another one to test.

 

[pmv]

Have yet to test with linux - got distracted into setting up old PC as an Ubuntu box and then finding Wine quite tricky to get working.

But am pretty sure now it's not a software issue.

Unplugging 4 unused USB ports that were connected to a PCI back plate socket seems to have improved things, was able to detect a flash drive after that for first time in days, but needs more testing. That could possibly be a grounding issue, come to think of it, maybe that back-plate usb port thing had issues?

Edit - that seems to have made the problem go away. Either disconnecting those ports has reduced the stress on the power supply/motherboard to the point where it can cope, or those rear sockets were shorting out somehow and destabilising the USB circuitry.