USB help

[Ayyyla]

Today I was working on my laptop when I got a blue screen (been getting these on that thing for a while now). It's always followed by a black screen. I have to turn it off and wait ten minutes if I want to start it again at which point I'd have about 2 minutes before another blue screen.

After unsucessful attempts to figure out WTF, I formatted the thing (it needed it anyway and the data loss was minimal). Loaded the important stuff back on it and I can run it without any blue or black screens.

The problem now though - is that it won't recognize my USB ports. There's power to them (a little cooler fan thing I have plugged into it blows) and if I say uninstall them through the device manager and restart it recognizes the new stuff and starts trying to install it. But at some point on the device manager it has a ? next to the USB device thing and says it doesn't have the right drivers and can't find them.

I have not been able to figure out how to fix. I downloaded all the drivers from my Dell disk and whatnot and can't find anything else to install to fix that.

Help!!! I'm going insane. That's the computer we keep all our ipod music on and the computer I used for my camera...neither of which it will recognize right now. Not to mention it being a laptop it would be nice to be able to be able to use say a mouse or something when I want to.

It's a Dell Inspirion 5100.

[Undead_Mercenary]

*awaits Xors insightful knowledge*

Is USB recognized in BIOS (I can't remember if USB functionality is listed in BIOS, can't restart at the moment to check)? Maybe check in there, although don't change ANYTHING if you're unsure.

I think I/O addresses can come into play too... although I'm really thinking off the top of my head. Hehe I don't remember too much from my Hardware class from the first semester.

Oh well, Xor will probably stroll by any minute and spit out an answer.

[Ayyyla]

I have someone looking into it for me now. I checked the BIOS and didn't see anything about enabling or anything else regaurding the USB in there.

What I am getting more specifically is a "This device is not configured correctly" Code 1 on the USB controller. When I hit reinstall driver it says it can't find it. Can't get it off the device disk or anything else.

[Undead_Mercenary]

Doh not I/O, it's IRQ. Maybe something is using the same IRQ as the USB? Under the Resources tab in the Controllers Properties, check if it says there's a conflict with another device.

[Archangelus]

A-

Is this on every USB device that you stick in or a specific one?

[Ayyyla]

It won't recognize anything connected to the laptop.

[Archangelus]

So, if you stick your Dell CD in (or if they gave you an OS disc - that would be better) the CD-ROM and remove the device, when the bubble pops up for "finding devices", go through the Hardware Wizard and point it to the CD to find the driver. If you've already tried directing it to the CD's and it doesn't work - then we need to find out the Chipset Drivers to reinstall.

Is the USB the only device showing an error? Also, is it on the actual device in the Device Manager, or at the class level "Universal Serial Bus controllers"?

[XoR]

I agree, the 'ol chipset drivers. go HERE.

I'm not 100% if USB is included or not in this, but its worth a shot.

[XoR]

Actually, now that I think more, I'm suprised XP SP2 doesn't take care of the USB drivers. You may want to visit windows update and select "custom" and look on the left for optional hardware downloads.

[Ayyyla]

I THOUGHT hubby downloaded the sp2 but he might not have - I know he did the chipset though. And I'm pretty sure I'd done the chip set a couple times too.

I'll try to check for sp2 again and see what else I can find and let ya know. Thanks for the help.

[Ayyyla]

Well I guess he thought he did download the Sp2 but when I checked for updates I needed that was on there. I downloaded it and tried to reinstall the drivers again after downloading it and still having the error. Doing this resolved the issue.

Yay! Thanks guys, Xor in particular.

I only lost a few pictures, some addresses and a little bit of my writing - but for the most part I had stuff backed up and it's all put back together again.

I'm just glad I can type for a while without getting a freakin blue screen.