Out of nowhere, the two front USB ports on my computer decided to crap out on me.
The machine is an HP P7-1157 with an AMD A6-3600 processor, 8 GB of RAM. The USBs in the back work properly, but they won’t detect my external hard drive (say it needs to be plugged into a USB 2.0 to work at the right speed. But it actually doesn’t work at all and “My Book” doesn’t show up in the My Computer folder.)
I opened up the computer and made sure the USB wires are plugged into the motherboard. They are connected snugly so it can’t be a loose connection.
Does anyone know what to do here? I’m not thrilled at the prospect of spending 5 hours on the phone with HP tomorrow, nor with bringing the computer back to the store.
Also, visually inspect the motherboard for bad capacitors. They’re less common than they used to be, but they still turn up now and then and can cause all sorts of strange behavior.
Boot another OS (such as Linux) from an optical or thumb drive and see if the ports work. If they don’t, then it’s likely hardware. If they do, then it’s something in Windows.
If you’re comfortable with doing it you can unplug the cable from the motherboard & plug it back in while Windows is running. Sometimes the whole front USB device just disappears and unplugging & replugging will usually trigger Windows’ plug n play detection.
Something worth mentioning is that the front USB ports supply power - they light up all devices plugged into them and they power my little USB/audio-jack speakers that came with the computer.