USB ports stop working - system restore fixes but happens again within a week or two

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Hi guys,

I have an ASUS ROG G750JZ laptop running Windows 8.1 and it seems to have a really annoying problem.

Basically I normally have a Razer Deathadder 3G mouse plugged in, which will on occasion stop working (although the mouse wheel still lights up). I thought the problem was originally the mouse, however no other mice work, no matter the USB port used, and none of the ports work with anything else such as a flash drive etc.

I think it may be Windows related as there are numerous complaints on the web of similar problems however the fixes suggested there don't help, the only thing that works is a system restore.

Any ideas as to what it might be? I contacted Asus and they were pretty useless and just suggested to go down the RMA route, however it seems that would be a bit OTT when it works fine after a system restore. FYI USB selective suspend setting is disabled, which was something I read about previously.
 
My desktop dropped some USB ports a couple of weeks ago and strangely a restart didn't bring them back. I managed to plug a mouse into a USB3 port on the PC to navigate and checked the Device Manager. This showed a yellow warning symbol on one of the USB hubs - details showed that Windows had disabled this hub because it had reported an error. Uninstalled and scanend for new hardware and it's been working 100% ever since.

Have a look in Device Manager, if you can operate the laptop, and just check Windows hasn't disabled the port pre-emptively. May not be a long term fix if there is an issue with the hardware, but it might help get you back up and running short term.
 
Well a Windows update on Sunday broke it again, and rather than having to system restore again, only for it to break again in the future, I thought I should try and fix this.

Asus support suggested updating the chipset drivers, which did not work, and then also right clicking and uninstalling the device and restarting, which did not work.

Their final solution is to format and reinstall windows, and if this does not work then RMA... seems rather drastic.

Any further ideas as to how I can get around formatting or RMAing, both of which would be a major pain in the backside!

If it is of any help The device instance path is: USB\ROOT_HUB30\4&ACACA34&0&0
 
It sounds like your best bet is to do a fresh installation. It may be a pain but it sounds like the best option to see if it's a Windows issue or a hardware issue.
 
Lenovo laptops are notoriously bad with USB 3 at the moment. We dont bother installing the USB 3 drivers at work because when you do they crash all the time or the USB ports dont work. Try uninstalling your USB 3 drivers and see what happens.

btw ASUS drivers are notoriously bad.

might be worth trying the manufacturers drivers.
 
Thanks for your replies, much appreciated.

To be honest it never really dawned on me that you could uninstall the update rather than using system restore! I'll give that a go later. If that doesn't work then I guess I will have to bite the bullit and reinstall. To be honest I would rather go back to Windows 7 :p

Hopefully Windows 8.1 will just let me format the SSD and reinstall on that, keeping the 1TB drive in tact with all my data.
 
Of you have to restore again as uninstalling the update doesn't work, after restoring, don't install that said update and hide it from future updates etc
 
Tried uninstalling the updates but it didn't work, nevermind, system restore to the 17th... and still no dice! Strange as the 18th is when the ports stopped working. Anyway, system restore to the 5th and now they are working again!

I think the strategy from here will have to be manual updates one at a time to find out when in breaks. Then make a note of the update that did it and hide it in the future! Heres to hoping I won't need to post in this thread any more :)
 
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