USB & other peripherals no longer recognised

[Guest]

WinXP Pro on laptop, no USB devices work any more.
At startup Win finds new hardware, says it can't find driver and device is
not installed, appears in "Unknown devices" list.
Looks like all available connections/addresses are allocated, and are not
freed up to be re-allocated when a new device is plugged in.

Followed procedure in KB314464 "troubleshooting unknown devices", now even
USB controllers are dead!

Any idea where Windows stores it's list of devices, and how to release these?

The registry has literally hundreds of "USB" entries, but I don't know which
are the ones I want.
I fixed the same problem by a clean reload before, but REALLY don't want to
do that each few months!

Grumble! JLW

 

[Cymbal Man Freq.]

Sounds like you got 1 Windows Update too many, and uninstalling it won't ease
the corruption sufficiently. Also, many, many, many recent motherboards have
problems with I/O issues affecting USB performance. So between these mass
produced defective mobos and the crap code from M$, I think you're down & out
with the USB problems.

 

[Cymbal Man Freq.]

http://techreport.com/reviews/2006q1/asus-a8rmvp/index.x?pg=1

Asus's A8R-MVP motherboard
CrossFire on a budget
by Geoff Gasior — January 30, 2006

ALTHOUGH ATI'S CROSSFIRE multi-GPU rendering technology has become a reasonable
alternative to SLI, the Radeon Xpress 200 CrossFire Edition chipset is still
saddled with a comparatively poor south bridge chip. ATI's SB450 is missing a
number of handy features, such as support for Native Command Queuing and RAID
0+1 and 5 arrays. More importantly, though, it's plagued by I/O issues that
hinder USB and PCI performance. That latter is particularly damning, as it can
affect the performance of onboard Firewire, Gigabit Ethernet, and Serial ATA
peripherals.
Fortunately, the CrossFire Edition chipset has an ace up its sleeve. Its north
bridge is capable of interfacing with alternative south bridge chips, including
those built by ULi. Asus has taken advantage of that capability with the
A8R-MVP, a CrossFire-capable motherboard built with ULi's M1575 south bridge.
The M1575 fills in many of the features missing from the SB450, and it shouldn't
suffer from the I/O performance problems that afflict the SB450.

Of course, the A8R-MVP is more than just a showcase for a unique chipsets combo.
At under $100 online, it's also one of the most affordable CrossFire boards
around. Oh, and it overclocks like a mofo, too. Keep reading for more on what
may be the most attractive CrossFire board on the market.

 

[antioch]

Hi JLW
Its a long-shot, but try the below - they have given me help in the past.
Join their forum. Let us know the result.

http://www.everythingusb.com/

Rgds
Antioch

 

[Cymbal Man Freq.]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/CustR...&SortField=0&SummaryType=ALL&Pagesize=&Page=5


Zonet Firewire/USB2.0 PCI Combo Card Model ZUC2400 - Retail
Model#:
ZUC2400

Item#:
N82E16815106004

** This item is warranted through the product manufacturer only.

Price:
$16.99



User Reviews, Page 5 Today:

Didn't work with XP sp2

Comments: Try this card with Windows XP and service pack 2. XP wouldn't
recognize my usb devices plugged into it. Other forums say that it isn't a card
problem but a Microsoft problem with SP2 and VIA chipsets. Tried all the MS
hotfixes/patches that everyone recommends. Still didn't work. Tried an ALI
chipset card and it worked. The USB cards that most have had the best success
with is with a NEC chipset. It is a Microsoft problem, not the card. Hope MS
fixes it soon.

Reviewed By: N/A, 11/15/2005 3:54:26 PM


Comments: Very easy to install and nice to have for these older systems that
only have USB 1.0. Also to have the firewire capability and they even give you a
firewire cable. Good deal!

Reviewed By: N/A, 10/31/2005 10:54:33 AM


Fragile

Comments: This worked as advertised, but I broke off one the USB ports just
because I pushed the connector in
upside down.

Reviewed By: N/A, 10/30/2005 7:03:32 AM


Vertical Firewire problem

Comments: Installed easily on WXP Dell Dimension 9100. USB ports function well.
PRoblem with firewire ports I suspect due to vertical openings slightly covered
by PC casing.

Reviewed By: N/A, 10/28/2005 11:31:01 AM


Simple, Cheep, and it Works Great!

Comments: What more do you want for the price. I just plugged it into my XP box
and it installed it right away. No driver cd necessary. It also comes with a
nice little FireWire cable that can be used for a DV cam. You can't go wrong
with this product.

Reviewed By: N/A, 10/5/2005 1:21:19 PM


Great Deal

Comments: The Zonet add-on card w/ Firewire and USB installed easily, and
installed without issue (Win XP Pro). It came with a 4pin - 6pin Firewire cable
also, which was a nice surprise. Drivers installed on start-up; checked to
verify and drivers initialized w/in device mgr. The card is a tight fit in a
Dell chassis and it appeared the Firewire ports may be blocked, but everything
worked without any hassle. Attached a Sony Digital Camcorder and began streaming
video within minutes. Greatly enhanced by Firewire functionality w/in Windows
Movie Maker. The order arrived ahead of schedule as well.

Reviewed By: N/A, 9/22/2005 6:03:55 PM


Firewire had problems

Comments: For the most part, this card works great. I mainly got it for the
extra USB ports, but thinking that I might use the firewire ports down the line.
Sure enough, I purchased a Panasonic MiniDV Camcorder. The firewire ports did
not work with my MiniDV when it came to capturing the video. It would drop 2
frames for every 1 frame it captured, making the video skip. I tried it with
numerous software and nothing worked. Ultimately, I ended up going and buying a
different PCI card that just had firewire 1394 ports, and the new one works
great. The USB ports on this card work flawlessly.

Reviewed By: N/A, 9/5/2005 9:39:54 PM


An excellent deal on a great card!

Comments: I bought this for my 2 yr old PC. The thing I really love about the
card is the inputs on the back to connect to a card reader in the front of the
PC. Easy connection, and no compatability problems with my PC (ASUS motherboard,
Athlon XP 2000+). Thanks, Newegg. (BTW, purchased the card months ago and still
happy with it).

Reviewed By: N/A, 9/5/2005 5:19:50 PM


Comments: I've used this card (USB ports only) for about a month now and bottom
line "It works".
Install was simple with Win2k as OS.
Other cards have hung up my system while booting up or caused Freeze up. So far
none of these problems have occurred. Great card at a better than average price.

Reviewed By: N/A, 9/3/2005 9:57:35 PM


Issues with VIA chipset

Comments: I read somewhere that there are issues with this card and motherboards
utilizing VIA chipsets (the card itself has a VIA chipset). Sure enough, I could
not get this working on my Gateway, which has a VIA chipset. I tried running the
installation off the CD and still no progress. The directions are terrible, so I
gave up.

I put the card in a Dell, which has an Intel chipset and it works fine. I didn't
need the installation CD at all. XP just found the card and did everything
automatically.

Reviewed By: MartinHTN, 8/30/2005 11:07:15 AM

 

[Guest]

Hi Antioch,
Trolled around the site you suggested, found something in a year-old post.

Not really fixed, but work-around is to stop Windows from searching and make
it load drivers from C:\Windows\INF specifically.

Another post mentioned a hotfix that can only be got by request from MSoft
support - waiting for reply from there...... (yawn...)

Much Thanks!
JLW.

 

[Chris Bailey]

JLW: Hey, I'm having virtually the exact same problem with a friend's
system -- nothing new will be automatically recognized but if you point
it to C:\Windows\INF, it finds the stuff it needs just fine. You
mention that you found a post with a reference to a Microsoft hotfix...
any more info on this? Do you have a hotfix number or a link to the
Microsoft knowledgebase in regards to this hotfix? I'd love to get hold
of it and see if it fixes her problem.

Thanks!

 

[Guest]

Hi Chris,
Go to http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=892050

That's Knowledge Base article 892050, there's a link there for MS Support
but I have not yet got through that maze to find anywhere I can download the
hotfix.

Let me know please if you are more successful.....

JLW

 

[Thomas Wendell]

Hi Chris,
Go to http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=892050

That's Knowledge Base article 892050, there's a link there for MS
Support but I have not yet got through that maze to find anywhere I
can download the hotfix.

Let me know please if you are more successful.....

As that article states, the only way to get that patch is to contact
Microsoft...

JLW

--
Tumppi
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A lot learned from these newsgroups
Helsinki, FINLAND
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