Computer issue NGC

[Chuck in Indiana]

Windows 7
New computer, well a few months old. When we came back from California and booted it up, it didn't recognize the keyboard or the backup drive. Everything is USB on this sucker. All ports except the two on the front are full. Shut it down, swapped the keyboard and mouse, and it didn't recognize the mouse. I'm assuming that USB port and another that the backup drive is hooked to are dead.
Hooked the mouse to one of the front ports so I could run the computer and looked at the USB controllers on Device manager. It says they are all working normally.
I'm officially in over my head now.  ;D I'd rather not have someone mucking about in it, it has all our passwords and financial data on it, and isn't even hooked to the interweb thingy.

[jreagan]

Once it is booted, did you try moving the mouse back to the old position on the back?

I know it is new, but anything obstructing the fans?  Are they turning?  Is the clock right at the BIOS?  Perhaps the battery is bad?

[Chuck in Indiana]

Once it is booted, did you try moving the mouse back to the old position on the back?

I know it is new, but anything obstructing the fans?  Are they turning?  Is the clock right at the BIOS?  Perhaps the battery is bad?

Yeah, I stuck a USB memory stick in it, Nada. No, the clock isn't right..

[rodekyll]

Make and model of computer?
desktop/laptop?

Are the usb ports adjacent to each other?

[Gootsz]

Surge protector? Maybe lightning or power surge.

micky

[Chuck in Indiana]

Make and model of computer?
desktop/laptop?

Are the usb ports adjacent to each other?

Acer Aspire desktop. There are 4, stacked two and two, plus the two on the front, a 2.0 and 3.0.

[Chuck in Indiana]

Surge protector? Maybe lightning or power surge.

micky

It's hooked to a pretty good sized Belkin uninterrupted power supply/surge protector.

[rodekyll]

I'll rephrase -- are the two failed usb ports adjacent?  Are the failed ports in the front or in the back?

[Chuck in Indiana]

I'll rephrase -- are the two failed usb ports adjacent?  Are the failed ports in the front or in the back?

Failed ports are on the back, adjacent.

[pehayes]

Maybe it is trying to boot from one of the USB ports.  I'd pull anything from USB other than your mouse and keyboard and try again.  If you are shut down now, actually pull the power plug to deprive the machine of any electrons.  Kick out the hairball.  The communication to an external drive might be the culprit.  Don't attach that until after the machine is up and running properly.

Patrick Hayes
Fremont CA

[Groover]

Shut down, and unplug from wall and wait for a minute or so. Sometimes the motherboard just needs to discharge and that may resolve your issue.

Edit: (oops, just saw the same suggestion on previous post)

[atavar]

It is new and under warranty.  Call Acer tech support.

[Wayne Orwig]

Failed ports are on the back, adjacent.

Failed connector. New computer.
See warranty.

Older computer, add a USB hub to the working ports.

[Chuck in Indiana]

Failed connector. New computer.
See warranty.

Older computer, add a USB hub to the working ports.

Oh crap, I was afraid of that. I absolutely hate installing/setting up a new computer..

[normzone]

[Wayne] beat me to it.

" add a USB hub to the working ports "

[Wayne Orwig]

Oh crap, I was afraid of that. I absolutely hate installing/setting up a new computer..

What is there to set up?

Upgrade to Win 8, and it will do most of it for you BTW.

[rodekyll]

That's not encouraging.  Typically the back ports are soldered directly to the motherboard -- if they fail physically, you can't unplug and replace them, you have to replace the motherboard.  The front ones connect via cable and plug on to the motherboard.  Having a cable fall off is not unheard of, but it's probably not your problem.

The ports are arranged in clusters.  So if your two failed ones are together, that entire cluster has failed.  Failures happen for two main reasons:
  
1) overloaded power circuit -- happens when you try to drive things like external hard drives or rock-the-casbah speakers from the usb's available power.  There's not a lot of 'lectricity available at the port and the wires are tiny.  The cluster gets overloaded and the smoke escapes.

2)  plugging and unplugging devices incorrectly and/or with the device and/or the computer powered up.  Just like a set of points, you throw a spark whenever you make or break a connection.  Either one big hit or many small hits over time can burn up the port.

1 and 2 above are why many usb devices have their own power supplies and power switches.  Some have octopus cables that let you 'borrow' power from more than one usb port.  But all usb ASSUME they are the only device being connected to a port (and that they are the LAST device in the chain), even though the theoretical limit is 127 devices on one hole.  If you run multiple, unpowered devices off an unpowered usb hub you are asking for trouble.

All that said, there is a chance that some driver or setting is causing the problem.  You already know how to find the usb stuff in the device manager.  Go to the device manager, open the usb port portion (near the bottom of the list).  You have to look over the list and associate (in your mind) devices that are working with their usb root hubs and controllers.  Remove the usb root hubs and controllers that do not have the keyboard and mouse connected.  Reboot the computer.  Upon restart it will automagically refind the functional usb ports and reinstall their drivers.

If this doesn't give you relief, then the hardware has failed.  The only way to replace the rear clusters is to replace the motherboard.  If this computer is a few months old, it is probably still on warranty and the failure will be covered.  If you were a true guzzisti and bought a refurb, used, or home shopping network product, you might be SOL on warranty.

The workaround is to forget about the dead holes and add a POWERED usb hub to a good cluster.  That will move the ports from the back of the computer to your desk surface where they are easier to get at, and also supply power from its  power supply, not the ports.

Does this help?


I see others have touched some of this while I was typing.  I'm not going to edit this.

[Chuck in Indiana]

What is there to set up?

Upgrade to Win 8, and it will do most of it for you BTW.

Basically to not forget to copy an important file. Some of the old software I was running before I got this new computer wouldn't run on Win 7. That was a PITA.

[Chuck in Indiana]

I see others have touched some of this while I was typing.  I'm not going to edit this.

Yes, that helps, I'll give the uninstall/reinstall a try after a while. What I'd rather not do is return this computer and get another because of all the financial data on the hard drive. That's why we don't have it on the internet. Is there a safe way to nuke the hard drive?

[rodekyll]

Some warranties will allow them to ship you the parts and you do the swap -- pretty straightforward on an Acer desktop.  Some warranties want to send a tech to your pllace to do the swap, and some want you to ship the computer to a depot repair site for the fix (this is my least favorite method).  I have never heard of ACER replacing the computer due to a minor failure like this one.

My favorite way to 'security nuke' a hard drive is to use either a .44 or a drill press to punch a big hole in it.  I do a big stack of "security erasures" every month (or more often if required).  The .44 method is the more funner, but the drill press is just as effective.  Short of that it's almost impossible to do a 3-pass security nuke without having either the system disks (not shipped with most ACERS) or a lab rat computer you can install the hard drive in and erase using the lab rat's operating system.  This is because you lose your opsys on the first erasure pass and can't continue for the second and third.

[pehayes]

Is there a safe way to nuke the hard drive?

My 12-ton shop press works wonders.  The discs just can't handle that load.

Patrick Hayes
Fremont CA

[Groover]

If you have extra PCI-e slots, you can add a USB card and then use a USB external hub if you need more than the 4 ports on the card. That's the easy way out if you don't want to mess with anything else. Windows 7 should detect it on boot up.

You just need to find out what type of slot you have available on your motherboard and get a card that matches. I think you can get a 3.0 USB card and it should be backwards compatible with your USB 2.0 stuff, but someone correct me if I'm wrong.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=pci-e+usb+expansion+card&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Apci-e+usb+expansion+card

Good luck, this is just a quick and dirty solution.

[rodekyll]

usb 3.0 is backwards compatible and way faster than 1.1 or 2.


PCI-e is a little short slot in the motherboard.  PCI (no 'e') is a longer slot.  The ACER should have both if this is the route you want to take.  I have no problems with adding ports via card.  Be careful where you buy one though.  Most of these cards on ebay and similar sites are counterfeit.  Go with a reputable store.

[Chuck in Indiana]

My normal "attention getter" for electronic stuff is a 44 Magnum.  ~;  ;D I'll get with the warranty people and see what they want to do. Thanks, all.

[Wayne Orwig]

There should be a partition on the drive to reload the operating system. You should be able to get to it from the control panel backup/restore program, or the bios during boot. The NSA will still be able to retrieve the lost data, but it will scramble it well enough to hide from the normal repair lab.

[canuguzzi]

I don't know if anyone mentioned it yet but...

BACKUP everything first, then tinker. Doing it in the reverse just creates anguish.

Now, BACKUP everything first.

Ok.

There are two ways to deal with this that generally get you where you need to be which is knowing what is going on:

The easy way:

1. Shutdown the computer.
2. Unplug all external USB devices.
3. Start the computer
4. Uninstall any drivers/software that may have been installed for eternal USB devices. Even though USB is supposed to be plug and play, often manufacturers will load special drivers or feature specific programs for their devices. Microsoft does it for their keyboards and so does Logitech.
5. Shutdown the computer, do not plug an external USB devices into the computer.
6. Start the computer.
7. Run Windows Update. If you are in need of many updates it might take a while. Do not pass over this step.
8. Shut down the computer.
9. Restart the computer then after you see your desktop, wait until there are no hovering circles or anything else that indicates whatever needs to be loaded hasn't finished.
10. One by one, starting with the mouse first, then keyboard, connect your external USB devices.

Important. Each time you connect a USB device, shutdown and then start the computer before adding the next one.

If you have a USB printer, add it last and before you do so make sure you followed step #4. If you try to re-install a printer over already installed printer drivers or software, you will just create a mess.

IMPORTANT:

Make sure you note which USB device you plug into which port and always use the same port. While USB devices should be able to plug into any USB port, that is wishful thinking. Keep it simple, same device, same port every time.


The harder way:

Any other way. Then go back to the first way.

NOTE: If you want to test a USB port for function, use an optical mouse, not a wireless one, not a lazer one, not one powered by diesel or propane, the simplest mouse you have that doesn't have all kinds of features. No speakerphones built-in, projection screens or attached solar panels, just a simple mouse with a usb connector.

[canuguzzi]

If you end up wanting or needing to reinstall the operating system, instead of loading software and going through all that, do yourself a huge favor and get a spare drive. They are usually not expensive and eventually you will need it anyway.

Don't get a bare bones one, get one that comes with a cloning kit (a cable and software). Some companies will let you download the software.

Then all you do is follow the instructions and when you are done, what you have is a duplicate drive that you can swap out. If the laptop is under warranty, clone the drive and take any personal information off your PC. Send it in for repair or replacement if that is needed. When the replacement/repair is returned, simply put your cloned drive in it, start it up and let Windows go through updating itself (you need to be connected to your ISP (best way is a ethernet cable to your router instead of WiFi).

Once that is done, you're all set. Everything should work and it will have the same desktop and application and data that your PC had before the repair or replacement.

It takes longer to read this post than do it.

No matter what, the spare drive will come in handy. Once a quarter, re-clone your drive using the spare. If the drive gives up, you are literally minutes away from doing whatever it is you were doing.

[normzone]

The two posts above are great protocols for all computer issues. Thanks guys...

[Chuck in Indiana]

start it up and let Windows go through updating itself (you need to be connected to your ISP (best way is a ethernet cable to your router instead of WiFi).

Won't happen. If this computer even *thought* about going on the internet, Dorcia would never speak to me again. That would make my life quiter, but wouldn't enhance the "domestic tranquility".  ;D
You're not paranoid if they *are* out to get you.. <shrug>

[atavar]

In that case you are going to have to go to the windows update catalog site with a computer that does have internet access, go starkers while figuring out which updates it needs, download the required updates and burn them and the updater executable to a CD and run the CD on your offline computer. 

IMHO a much better solution would be to move all sensitive files and data to an external drive, disconnect that drive so that no sensitive data is reachable, connect the computer to the internet for just long enough to do the updates, disconnect the internet, reconnect the external drive and you are off and running.
I do understand your rational paranoia, but you need to be able to apply patches somehow.