A few months ago, after a reinstall of windows XP, i found that the 2 USB 2.0 ports on my motherboard wouldn’t work. I have been using the USB hub on my monitor, but now I have a shiny new monitor with no USB hub and needed more USB. I installed a belkin 5port USB 2.0 PCI hub, in the hope this would solve my problem, but this also refuses to work. Device manager can see them, and claims they are working properly. does anyone have any ideas as to what the problem could be, or how I could fix it?
I am running Windows XP, with all the microsoft updates/service packs installed, and I can tell you anything else relevant.
What do you mean by “they don’t work”? When you plug USB items into them they aren’t discovered? The USB 2.0 ports don’t go at full USB 2.0 speed?
What are you trying to plug into the USB ports? Can Device Manager see your hub? What happens if you plug a single USB component into the USB port on your motherboard, without the hub? What kind of motherboard is it? Have you gone to the MB manufacturer’s web site to DL the latest drivers?
I’d recommend reinstalling the drivers; in device manager, remove/uninstall all entries in the ‘USB Controllers’ category, then reboot your machine - it should detect the hardware and reinstall the drivers.
If that doesn’t work, or if it won’t let you uninstall some of the entries, it may be that there is some kind of conflict with a USB device (by which I mean a USB port/hub/root/controller, not a peripheral) that is installed but not showing in device manager because it is not present - in this case, the advice that worked for me (which was on an unrelated, but somewhat similar problem) might work for you; this was:
*(That is all entries under ‘USB Controllers’, especially the greyed-out ones.
Sorry about the OP, i was in a hurry when I wrote it.
The motherboard is an ASUS A7V333, and i have the most up to date drivers from their site.
Anyway, maybe I can make it slightly more helpful. The ports are shown in device manager, which says they are working properly. When I plug in a device to the port, it is not detected, however, it does get power from the port (light on an optical mouse will light up, power light on webcam comes on).
I am trying to connect a digital camera, a webcam, a printer, and an MP3 player.
The board has 2 USB 1.1 and 2 USB 2.0 ports on it, only the USB 2.0 ports are affected. The USB 2.0 hub is an internal PCI card, and has the same problem, i.e. windows sees it, and claims it is working properly, but cannot detect whan anything is connected to it.
I’ve never heard of a USB hub on a monitor - what cables did you have to connect from the monitor to the PC with the old setup?
I’d do what Mangetout suggested.
Before starting, go to PCI card site and download current drivers for PCI to USB 2.0 card. Then uninstall the current drivers for the device. Disable anything that was using that device. Shut down the computer.
When you restart it will find the PCI card. When it asks if automatic of manual, say manual and choose the place you stored the current drivers. Let them install. Then try installing each device one by one.
I also agree that a USB monitor sounds like a rather strange device.
Mangetout thanks, that has cleared everything up now. The old monitor simply had a built in USB hub that ran off it’s power supply, just a standard usb lead from the PC to the hub in the back of the monitor. It was an LG Flatron 795FT Plus, if that helps.
Anyway, the ports are all working now, thanks. 
The monitor itself wasn’t USB, it just connected to the graphics card normally, it was only a built in hub.