PC eating usb devices

Sao_Sin · 31 Mar 2009 at 22:26

Hi all,

I have a rather odd problem in that my computer seems to corrupt any usb devices i put in it. It's already corrupted my removable hard drive, a few pen drives and a USB mouse.

As you can imagine this is quite a problem, not to mention frustrating.

I've had a look at the device manager but cant see any yellow exclimation marks etc, ive looked on here and on google and cant really find anything i can relate to.

Has anyone ever encountered this and if so how did you go about fixing it?

Im running a DFI motherboard with an old AMD processor (this is my backup PC thankfully), with x86 vista.

Any advice would be much appreciated

KingZeddy · 31 Mar 2009 at 22:34

is this happening with all usb ports?

Sao_Sin · 31 Mar 2009 at 23:07

not 100% sure, it was happening with the front ports definatley and im not really up for testing the back ports to see if theyre doing it as well

Edit: Thinking about it it must be both front and back USB connections as id have plugged the usb sticks in the front and the mouse into the mobo itself.

KingZeddy · 31 Mar 2009 at 23:29

are you using the safe remove wizard?

Sao_Sin · 1 Apr 2009 at 00:34

No, its not even getting that far. Literally if I plug in a usb device it kills it. Removing it isnt doing the damage, its the actual making of the connection that does the damage. I was thinknig it might be related to a voltage that shouldnt be there, motherboard short out etc, but then surely the PC wouldnt boot either?

As I said its a pretty strange problem

Thanks for the advice so far though, in a way im glad its not some stupid silly problem ive just overlooked.

MeatLoaf · 1 Apr 2009 at 00:41

I had this with front panel USB ports - turned out id plugged the cable into the mobo the wrong way rounf

Tee Hee Johnson · 1 Apr 2009 at 01:02

MeatLoaf said:
I had this with front panel USB ports - turned out id plugged the cable into the mobo the wrong way rounf

Thats what i was gonna suggest... they cant be wired correctly!

Stop using them, get the motherboard manual out and check the connections on the motherboard

Mattus · 1 Apr 2009 at 01:29

If it's the front panel ports, it's likely that they're wired wrongly and you're sending power down a wire that's meant for signal and vice-versa. If it happens with the mobo's own USBs, then that's a stranger problem.

errata · 1 Apr 2009 at 12:48

lots of case mounted front usbs seem to be wired cheaply or at the very least theres 2 joints, a cheap cable and a small circuit board involved compared with those mounted on the mobo. Much more likley to go wrong than mobo mounted ones.

Sometimes they default to usb 1 or are just flakey

Sometimes the pin inside fold up.

Worthe cjecking out the rears and double checking you have the right chipset drivers.