Help: USB port problem (longish)

Having a problem with two of my six USB ports not working now. First all the details, then the questions:

Using Win98SE, Polywell desktop. Have four USB 2 ports on back of the box and two on the front under a flip-open cover. Connecting to back ports are a Maxtor external HDD, my PDA cradle, a Canon multifunction printer, and a powered USB 4-port hub. Into the hub are a Pocketec external HDD and the link to a Dell LCD monitor, which itself has four USB ports. From the monitor have one cable to my old digital camera and one to my eBook reader. Also have a memory card reader that connect to the hub or the monitor only on rare occasions when need it. Seldom use the front two USB ports as don’t want to keep cables coming out of them permanently.

None of the devices are turned on except when have to use one of them. They all have worked just fine for a long time. Only connect the old camera when have to download pictures to the computer.

OK, a couple of weeks ago bought a new Canon A610 digital camera. The software that came with it is OK, but odd that instead of being in one suite, is a bunch of separate programs, all listed separately in the Start/Program list. That means to uninstall, each one has to be done separately, kind of silly. Only the ZoomBrowser has an icon on the desktop. It’s OK, but can’t see much advantage over the Ulead program been using, so expected to uninstall it later, or at least delete the icon.

So, to use the Canon to download, pretty much the same as old camera: hooked the cable to the front USB port (because the manual warns not to hook to a hub), then to the camera. When turn camera on, get a menu that lets you download either from the computer or from a menu on the camera’s LCD screen, which is easier. Did several tests and it worked OK with one exception. When it downloads, it starts the Canon browser, which was OK, as the pics were all there. The only goofy thing is that the mouse cursor changed from the large custom one I use to a tiny little arrow. This in itself was no problem as could change back easily enough, but it indicates that something is wrong with the software and/or the driver. As everything else worked OK, did not concern me.

Then, about four days ago, I had some pics to download, so plugged in the USB cable to the front port and camera, and found that the screen had frozen. could not move the mouse cursor or do anything else, so had to reboot with the button on the box. Then everything was OK. Tried again just plugging the cable into the box and not the camera, same thing happened. Rebooted, tried the other front port, ditto. Rebooted and plugged in the card reader. The light came on OK, but again it froze.

Had to use the card reader with the SD card from the camera to download the pics, which worked OK. So, something is obviously screwed up with the two front USB ports. All the other ports, including the ones on the monitor are fine.

In Device Manager, no problems with any of the USB listings. The only thing that shows a question mark is the “Other Devices” and under that, “PCI Universal Serial Bus,” stating that it has no driver. It has always been like that, and have no idea what it is for, but as everything is fine, just ignore it.

So, anybody have any idea why the two front USB ports are not working, or what can be done, if anything, to revive them?

Wonder if the Canon software driver is corrupted? If so, could uninstall and reinstall, but then if all other USB ports are OK, that doesn’t seem it would be the cause. Can the port jack or the card it’s on somehow have been damaged Don’t see how, but who knows? Maybe the new Canon cable has a short in it? Would that burn out the ports?

Manwhile, just using my card reader to download from the new camera memory card, which is OK, but would still like to have to two extra front ports working again.

Appreciate any suggestions.

I suspect you’re pushing the envelope of Win 98’s limited ability to juggle all the memory and IRQ addresses the 6 onboard USB ports and USB extensions require and that some now resident USB port monitoring applet of the camera software is jamming things up.

Unless it’s mission critical to connect the camera directly I would uninstall all the Canon & other camera software modules and simply remove and read the camera’s flash memory chip directly in a card reader. It’s usually much easier and faster than syncing the camera.

RE the USB ports after you un-install the camera software and any other old USB device software you no longer use, re-boot the machine. Then go to Control Panel Hardware Device list (forget precise procedure sequence to access in Win98) then delete everything in the Universal Serial Bus controllers chain then re-boot and let the system reinitialize and reassign the IRQs and memory addresses as it sees fit.

As a side note it’s unusual to have 4 on board USB ports in the back of a Win 98 Vintage PC. Are these ports attached directly to the Motherboard or are they on a PCI card? If they (the back 4) are on a PCI card the only USB ports you have on board are likely the the two front USB ports.

If all ports are onboard you may want to check your MB BIOS USB port addresses then deactivate the all the BIOS assigned USB ports - re-boot - then re-activate and re-boot and let the system re-assign the addresses.
1: Before doing this make sure you have any device drivers the system will need for your attached USB hardware. Most of the time it will auto-find but if it can’t you need to have the drivers.

2: Do not re-attach the cameras directly unless you have to. Use the card readers.

Thanks, astro, for all the good info. Will try tweaking a few things you suggested to see if can get it to work better.

You maya be right, but never use more than one of the USB devices at a time, and they are turned off unless use them. And, as my other digital camera worked fine, don’t see why the new one won’t when it’s the only one connected.

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Absolutely! That’s what am doing now. Actually, it is easier to open the camera cover to get the SD card than to open the one to the USB cable connecter.

Haven’t opened the box yet, but pretty sure the back ports are on the motherboard, so am thinking maybe the two front ones are actually a “hub” and that’s whey they got screwed up when used them for the camera.

Incidently, the computer is less than two years old, but when got it had Polywell install Win98, as my other two computers are that OS and wanted the ease of compatibility. And, having started back in the good old DOS days, reluctantly moved up from the first ver of Win through them all to 98, just hate XP, stable though it may be. It is a royal pain doing anything compared to 98, especially as have it tweaked exactly as I want it. Plus have written many batch files and have dozens of nifty utilities that won’t work on XP, etc etc. Grumble, mutter.

Thanks again.