Are my USB ports fried?

Question

I had an older computer that died on me. My brother gave me his computer tower (b/c he's got his laptop) but not the monitor, keyboard and mouse, as a replacement. Shortly after I hooked up my "new" computer to my old setup, the monitor would not display. It had power but no display. I took it to my other brother who was able to restore the monitors original settings and now the monitor works. Problem is, the USB ports don't accept any input. I had to buy a ps/3 mouse/keyboard setup b/c of it. I can't connect my printer, download music to my ipod, nothing. My bro thinks that the USB ports are fried and thus beyond salvage. I don't know. Can you fry USB ports? Wouldn't something else be affected also? Is there any way to rememdy the problem, short of buying a new computer?

Answer 1

You can look in device manager and the bios setup and see if the ports have been disabled or are missing a driver.

A usb port card is fairly cheap if you have an expansion slot free.

USB ports can be fried.

Answer 2

Did you use your old hard drive with a different motherboard? That could cause problem. Does the device manager say anything about the USBs? USBman.com is good site you might want to check out. Maybe you can simply get a PCI USB card and not worry about it?

Answer 3

The tower you now have may also be old; if it is running Windows 98 SE or earlier, you'll need to download and install device drivers for the USB devices you want to add.

Answer 4

Silly question but are you sure the USB ports are connected to the motherboard? or are they built into the motherboard. You may have to check your BIOS settings and ensure that these ports are enabled for use.

Answer 5

Sounds to me like you may have to download drivers for your USB equipment. I had to do that with my new computer for my external drive.