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I got an Benq Joybook 5100G to take care of:

All at once, the USB devices (mouse and printer) stopped working. A few days later, Windows didn't boot anymore. After a fresh installation, Windows is ok again, but the USB devices still don't work.

Now since I haven't found any USB device that works with the ports (although one caused an error message, telling it requested to much power), I wanted to know whether there is some Software to check for Hardware faults (like there is for HDD or RAM). Is there any way to absolutely tell for sure whether the ports are broken?

OS: Windows XP Home edition

3 Answers 3

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I'd be inclined to check that nothing is switched off in the bios and then boot with an ubuntu livecd and see if you get anything... do you get lights on the usb devices when you plug them in?

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  • BIOS has few but sensible config params. Ubuntu live CD showed nothing special. I have no devices with lights around ... sorry.
    – roesslerj
    Nov 6, 2009 at 16:47
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  • Check that any USB-related BIOS settings are sane.

  • If it can boot a linux LiveCD, use that to see if any of your devices work with the linux kernel. lsusb will probably be the most useful tool, but be sure to check the kernel logs as well. If USB devices generally work with Linux, it points to a driver problem on Windows. Conversely, if they don't, it points to a hardware problem ... but error messages in Linux's kernel logs might prove more helpful in proving it.

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  • I don't understand most of what lsusb showed... but Ubuntu kernel logs showed nothing peculiar. No devices worked under Ubuntu. It didn't even recognize them being plugged in... so my best guess is for a HW fault. Thanks already!
    – roesslerj
    Nov 6, 2009 at 16:50
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    well, you could post the output into your question to help us help you... Nov 7, 2009 at 4:08
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Open the Device Manager form the System Properties window, plug the USB in if the devices reflects that means the ports are working if not then have some fault or they need the driver.

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