My USB Ports have never worked, how do I "fix" them?

Question

I have an Alienware m17x laptop. There are 4 USB ports (as far as I know) and only 2 of them have ever worked. The two on the right side of the laptop work fine, but the 2 on the left appear fine in the device manager, but don't even react when anything is plugged into the port. Any wired mouse, mics, cameras, hard drives, nothing is picked up. I figured out the one furthest to me doesn't work because one of the pins inside it was damage and bent all the way back inside. So that makes sense, but the one I am confused about is the one in the back. Nothing appears wrong from the outside, and nothing looks wrong in the device manager... what is going on? I've searched every forum I know of and so I'm posting to all of them now. Any ideas what I should do?

Thanks.

Answer 1

hi griffin

well the good news is if they have never worked then theres a good chance theres no hardware related problems with them ....which narrows the cause down to drivers

most of the time usb ports are controlled by the southbridge and allthough windows installs drivers for usb by default there are situations were you need to install usb drivers ... for example usb3.0 drives ( which are not installed by windows ) and when using legacy versions of windows ( eg 98,me )

go to http://www.dell.com/support/drivers/uk/en/ukdhs1/Product/alienware-m17x ... make sure you have downloaded the relevant drivers ... the chipset driver is the driver that normally installs southbridge related drivers ...

however since alienware pc,s and laptops come with windows preinstalled with all drivers and software loaded theres only a slim chance they forgot to install all the drivers ... so im guessing this is a rare case of faulty usb ports.... ive had a similar issue with a old acer laptop ... one of the usb ports never worked from day one but the remaining three worked fine .... however the one that wouldnt work would give me a small electric shock if i touched it .... i considered either sending it for repair or doing it myself however since the other three worked ok i considered it not worth it

if your electrically minded i have found a guide to building your own "usb tester" which can check the functionality of your usb ports ( http://www.instructables.com/id/USB-tester/ ) .. or theres a "USB Port Voltage and Current Tester"( http://www.ecrater.co.uk/p/16019701/usb-port-voltage-and-current-tester?gps=1 ) which will check to see if any current is going through the usb ports in question ... without any current/voltage you dont have a usb port ...

personally i would use the "USB Port Voltage and Current Tester" .. for under a tenner you can finally discover if your usb port(s) are damaged ...

i hope this has helped ... any questions let me know

good luck mate and happy xmas !

Answer 2

turn off the computing device. unplug the flexibility twine(turn the flexibility change too), wait 10 seconds, plug it returned in, turn the change returned on. turn on the computing device. do you get an blunders message once you plug in a USB gadget? "unrecognized gadget or gadget has failed" something alongside those strains. does something ensue in any respect? does say num lock eliminate darkness from for a million/2 a 2d or so and bypass returned off?? or does no longer something ensue in any respect? bypass to MY computing device, precise click, go with residences, bypass to HARDWARE gadget supervisor and notice IF there's a query MARK next TO THE USB (in many circumstances happening Serial..) if there is, click it and choose replace driving force, or do exactly it besides and notice if there's a extra valuable driving force for it. desire this permits

Answer 3

have you tried updating your drivers from device manager? also if its a ne laptop, ther should be a SWsetup folder in your C drive. it has all the drivers for your laptop