[verdant force]

Hi there,

Been having troubles with my USB slots recently. Whenever I plug in my flash stick or ipod it freezes the comp within 5 seconds. If they are plugged in on boot Windows will pause on a black screen and not load. My other USB devices work fine (webcam and wireless internet adapter). I uninstalled everything under "Universial Serial Bus controllers" in the device manager, and restarted to have Windows reinstall them, but that didn't work. I also did a "Run..." of 'sfc /scannow' and got no errors, but that didn't work either.

Thanks.

[Rik]

What windows version do you have and what antivirus and antimalware software do you use?

[philthomas]

USB can be a flakey interface sometimes.
I had iPod issues with my old PC, even after a clean install of XP, they didn't go away .... and only really solved the problem when I insatalled a PCI USB Card.

If you haven't already tried, try using the ports at the back of the PC (i.e. off the mobo) and dont use a hub .... this can sometimes help.

[verdant force]

For the first response: I'm using Windows XP Home and I use trend micro's house call for viruses (which I very rarely get b/c I usually take good care of my computer). For malware I use malware bytes, lavasoft's ad-aware, and spybot search and destroy. I also just did a full system destructive recovery about 2 weeks ago so viruses/malware wouldn't be the problem.

For the second response: I tried both the front and back, with the same results unfortunately.

Is it a hardware issue? The computer just turned 3 years old this past summer...

[philthomas]

I never really pinned it down ..... my theory was ... it was not delivering sufficient power through the ports.
Once I fitted a PCI USB Card, the problem went away.

[Rik]

One thing that springs to mind, what make and wattage is your PSU?

[verdant force]

How do I find that out? I'm a total newbie when it comes to hardware - the only things i've replaced since i've had the PC is the RAM and video card.

[Rik]

You will need to take the side panel off and have a look at the side of your PSU for a label.

Have a look at - http://www.virtual-hideout.net/revie...su/Image13.JPG for an example of what to look for. It will be where your mains power cable goes into your pc.

[verdant force]

I didn't see any kind of make on it...it was the one that comes with a compaq presario sr1550nx. I never replaced it or anything like that. It says on it Output 250w max so i'm assuming that's what you were looking for.

Now I have a bigger problem on my hands. When I took the case off I dusted off some things, including the RAM which I took out and then replaced. Then, when I booted back up the PC it just stays on the first screen that says "Compaq" on it and has the options at the bottom for Esc, f1, and f10. It doesn't go past that screen and the keyboard doesn't work now. The caps lock light won't go off and on if i hit it. I'm on my roomates laptop right now.

[verdant force]

Correction from the last post: I got the keyboard to work, entered setup on the compaq screen, and then after i exited setup it booted normally. Had to restart again after windows booted and it rebooted normally.

However, I did check the make on the PSU: Delta Electronics

I also switched my RAM sticks around so that might have had something to do with it not starting normally.

I just plugged in my flash stick and ipod as I was writing this and they are somehow working again. This is very surprising to me because I thought nothing changed since the last time they froze my computer. But, I'll take it anyway. /shrug

Thanks for the help!