OK, so I’ve never really liked the trackpad that comes on most or all laptops these days, but now I’m starting to get used to it and it’s not soo bad… I’m still missing my mouse a lot though - writing and working with email and Outlook is one thing, but coding with a trackpad is another story…
I’m hoping that I can throw this out into the ether and someone will be able to help me, before I have to send my beloved black beautiful Thinkpad back to IBM for a new system board, and (they officially say) between 5 and 10 work days downtime…
It all happened on Tuesday night when I left the Thinkpad on screensaver for a while, came back to the desk and tried to bring it out of suspend with the mouse and then the keyboard, then shut it down. Booted up on Wednesday morning, and both the mouse and keyboard weren’t working… Thought it may have been failure with both or either, but put the mouse into my desktop, and did the same with the keyboard, and they both work fine there. So basically it’s the USB ports that are not working… which is a bugger.
After a lot of reading and research, it turns out that sometimes if the laptop goes into suspend and you have the system set to allow the machine to cut power from the USB ports (which I unknowingly did) to save power, it will de-activtate the USB ports… and once it does that and you try to bring the machine back using the ports (like with an attached mouse etc) it can fry the circuitry, and the only fix is a new system board. So in desperation and denial, I tried everything I know to get it back, including:
- uninstalling then reinstalling the USB ports after a reboot
- disabling then enabling the USB ports after a reboot
- updating the USB port drivers automatically and manually
- going into the BIOS and disabling then enabling the USB ports from there
- flashing the BIOS with the latest version, from the IBM/Lenovo website
- attaching other devices that have different power needs - PDA, iPod, camera
- periodically re-attaching mouse hoping that it will just work and it’s all been a dream
I also ran the recommended PC Doctor that comes with the Thinkpad, and it said that the USB ports were working fine…
The pain, the anguish!! 
So there you have it - does anyone at all know any other tricks or fixes that I can use to try get the USB ports working again? without having to take it into IBM for a new system board!?
This just happened to my T42p laptop *yesterday*.
I went through a lot of the steps that you went through, hoping that the USB ports would rise from the dead. I eventually threw in the towel and ended up plugging in an old USB 2.0 PCMCIA card that I had for my old laptop. While it’s not ideal, at least I can at least use my optical mouse and charge/sync my iPod again. You can probably pick up a cheap USB card from CompUSA or get a used one off of eBay.
I’m working on just the same problem. I connected up an MP3 Player and loaded up a few MP3 files. Pulled the USB and my Dell 9200 has not been the same since. No USB Ports despite retrying drivers, BIOS and all the other fiddles you try.
Anguish shared - let me know if you work out something.
Good Luck.
I have an IBM ThinkPad 42P Type 2378-DYU. I use a USB thumb drive a lot. Lately I’ve been having an intermittent problem with it on this laptop. I plug it in and here the ding-dong sound but it doesn’t show up as a drive. To get it to work I have to reboot with the thumb drive in. If I turn the power off and power on the laptop with the thumb drive in, the laptop will not even boot! I have to plug it in right before the windows loads but after it gets passed the bios. Weird! I tried some other USB devices and I’ve had this same intermittent problem. Bad USB Ports is what I’m thinking. My coworker had a identical thinkpad. His wont boot at all today. We tried my power supply and my battery, but it wont boot. I guess it’s dead. I love Thinkpads, but I’ve never had this many problems with one before. Are these laptops Lemons?
Hey guys
IBM _STILL_ has my laptop!!! and all they’re telling me is that they’re waiting for a fan… so I can’t offer much more right now
Well, this morning I had my Thinkpad delivered.
I opened the box to find the piece of paper telling me that everything was alright, So I waited ’till lunch to boot it up and see that the mouse was working, and I got the blue screen of death…
Since then I’ve been given application error messages, seen the blue screen of death many, many times, but the desktop only once and when I tried to disable wireless it wouldn’t let me, and plugging in my mouse didn’t work either… then it blue screened.
So I’m really, totally, very unhappy right now - I can’t honestly believe that it would come back the way it has. The support request says that they replaced the system board, an interposer card and a fan. So why the heck were they fiddling with the operating system, or why did they install a card or system board that does something to Windows? and why the hell wasn’t it booted up and checked before it was sent back to me?
Anyways, I’ve got a call with IBM public relations coming up (what fun) and they’re going to send a courier to get the machine back to the depot. All I can think is that to get Windows working properly again, they’re either going to have to do something that I don’t know about at a system level (to get something working with something), or they’re going to have to re-install a fresh copy of windows, which means I’ll be back to square one.
This sucks piles - and makes me think that I made the wrong choice in going for the Thinkpad over the Powerbook (or another PC option)…
Hi all!
I have a IBM Thinkpad R32, and i had the same problem some days ago. USB ports began to work intermittently, then the completely crashed. No USB device recognized…
the problem is that my laptop is too old to be under warranty. IBM centre wants too much money to adjust it. So me and my brother decided to open the laptop and see what happened.
Obviously, it looked all right. But my brother decided to do all the solderings near the USB ports… and, that’s incredible, but they started to work again! That was two days ago. So by two days I can use my laptop again.
I hope it will always work correctly
bye bye
Massimo
Same problem here with a T42p: it went into suspend and the USB ports are (both) now not responding.
@Massimo - sounds like you’ve got it sorted - is it still working now?
@JK - apparently this is a known problem which IBM is working to resolve… More than likely you’ll need a new system board - but make sure that when you get it sent back it’s all working properly!!!
Luckily, the ports are still working!
Yup - lucky you!!
I’ve had my machine back from IBM for 8 days now, and it’s been on ever since, with a new HDD (will post a review of what happened asap), and it all seems fine, so I’m really happy it’s back online. Only problem is that now I have to re-install everything to get back into a working machine that I can use effectively…
Re-installing all is really a great problem.
I’ve finished to set up my computer again some days ago. All right now!
bye bye from Italy
Hey Massimo
Yea, I’ve got the meat of the re-installation done now, just need to get cracking on the development environment, and then importing all my email etc etc into Outlook.
Glad to hear your machine is all good
I’m thinking of going to Italy sometime soon - where you based?
I live in Bari, southern Italy.
I’m 23 years old, I’m a computer science graduated.
Well, I have to ask my parents if we have a free room for you
:D
Coolio
Now all I gotta do is find time for a holiday 
Thinkpad not booting with USB device inserted can be alleviated by removing USB from BIOS boot order list.
Thanks for that John
Hi all,
I’m an electronics engineering graduate. I’ve had the same problem with IBM T42p. I tried everything that you can imagine. But no response from the USB ports. When I plugged a USB memory into one of my USB ports, the lights on the devices are coming on, but nothing else. I’ll try to open it and re-soldering around the USB ports as Massimo advised. I hope it works. I’ll inform you about the results. Thanks everybody.
Tan
Hi all,
I’m so glad I found this site because the problem mentioned here describes exactly my situation.
I own a Thinkpad T42 which refuses to mount any usb device I connect…usb sticks, usb hdd etc…the devices get powered on but nothing happens after that…neither under win xp nor under linux (ubuntu)…system manager under windows tells me that the usb ports are working fine but every device I connect refuses to mount in system..
I’m a system administrator (in Germany) and I’ve never seen anything like this happen to a computer before… I checked the warranty status of my Tpad and I saw that it is still in warranty, so I guess all that I can do now is to hand it over to IBM customer support which gives me a hard time because atm I need it badly…I have some deadlines coming up…why do such things always happen when you have no time at all to hand in your business computer ? f*ng A!
I tried some usb port monitors, checked bios settings etc..still a no go! f*ing goddammnation.
Oh, btw my trouble started after I connected a new Ipod shuffle (2G)…the screen went black and the system seemed to drop dead…unable to power it on again..after waiting 3 or 4 min I could hear the system fan coming back to life again and the system booted again..since then system runs ok except for usb support..I guess I don’t have to mention here that I consider this to be more than annoying
… I love Tpads too, but this deviant behavior is really a mess!
Another guy here in Germany had the same prob…he also had to return his Tpad to customer support…
http://blog.bytepark.de/category/alles-mogliche/ (”IBM usb gone dead”)
If anybody finds a workaround to get usb going again I’d be looking forward to hear all about it…otherwise I’ll inform you about my results with IBM’s customer support…
Greetz, gbuster
Good luck!!
My USB ports all fried this morning. I plugged in a new iPod and the system died. Completely shut off all at once. I had to remove the battery to get it to come back to life. Now it turns on, the USB ports have power but they don’t work.
I suspect the cable that came with my iPod now because my symptoms are exactly like those described above.
What a bummer.
Same problem with my iPod shuffle (2G). I could actually smell the fried circuit, so I knew I was dead.
I’ve just encountered the same thing, and after blaming all my USB devices, realized it was the computer.
T42, shut down suddenly (I do not remember what I did). I couldn’t turn it back on, so I swapped out the AC adapter. That didn’t work. A couple minutes went by, and then when I turned it on, it came on just fine.
I could no longer print via my usb printer. I blamed it on the printer and gave it a hearty smack as I was on my way to the airport.
Later, I could not read my usb key. I blamed myself for sitting on it.
Then I got home and tried a hard drive, a scanner, the printer, my mp3 player, and nothing showed up. I reinstalled drivers, bios, rebooted, rebooted, rebooted, and the usb devices, while they show up in windows and pass ibm’s diagnostic tests, do not ‘work’ at all.
note: I did not attach any new equipment to the thinkpad. All the USB devices I have now, I’ve had for the past 6 months or more.
I can attach my mp3 player and it does detect the USB connection. The thinkpad just doesn’t mount the drive. When I deleted the usb devices from the device manager, the mp3 player blinked each time, so the computer was communicating via the usb port in some fashion.
So do I need to open my computer up and resolder the USB ports? I am out of warranty, unfortunately.
So gbuster, have you solved the problem?
Well, it looks like I’m not alone. I’m bummed that I’ll have to send in my laptop for repair. Thanks for the suggestions everyone!!
Hi All !!
Me too I’m so glad I found this site because I have the same problem mentioned here. me I own a Thinkpad T42p which refuses to mount any usb device I connect, so is there any solution else than the IBM’s customer support one..
Hey guys !
The thing happened to me too.
I had 2 laptop hdd’s connected on ide to usb to the laptop.
It just went dead, rebooted on his own and now NO USB.
Everything gets power from usb but is not recognised in any way in windows.
I’m thinking of reinstalling the OS.
Have any of you tried that ?
thanks, george
Reinstalling the OS DOES NOT solve the problem. Sorry
It’s a hardware problem, not a software one…
So, I actually have two IBM T40s right now. One of them has had broken USB ports for 6 months now. What’s really interesting is that if I boot up in linux on this machine, the ports and mouse work just fine. Then, if I move the hard disk to my other T40 and boot to windows, the usb ports work fine too. So, it doesn’t really look like a hardware or software only problem. Probably some kind of weird hardware/software inconsistency.
My bet is that the USB circuitry is poorly designed and is sensitive to ESD events and is easily fry-able or degradable.
Unfortunately, not much of a solution …
-Tom
My bet is that the USB circuitry is poorly designed and is sensitive to ESD events and is easily fry-able or degradable.
Yes, I think so. Read my message dated May 13th, 2006 at 5:22 PM. It’s January now, about 8 months that my ports work fine!
I had the same problem. Thinkpad R50e shut down instantly, and came back to life about 10 minutes later. When I plug in something in USB ports it gets power but neither Windows or Linux will mount and/or detect the device.
After 24 months of a troublefree T42p I had to return it to IBM/Lenovo for a change in mothterboard (due to the graphic crd broke down). When the T42p returned with a new motherboard, the USB port almost immediatley broke down in the same way described by most other people in this thread. I then got a new motherboard and again the USB (this time togehter with the Bluetooth) died. I warranty returned again and USB dead again. Bought new mouse, and external harddrive to eliminate these sources of error, but it happened again… FOUR times have I had this laptop in for service due to the dead USB problem.
-> So be even more careful of having suspens mode activated and external disk attached when you get your T42p fixed with a replacement motherboard…
I’ve got the same problem today…
Maybe the solution is to take usb from dock station’s bottom connector?
The laptop is now at IBM for replacement of the motherboard.
I wonder how much will take….
Same thing happened to me…what about buying a pcm card with USB ports? would that work? thanks
my old A31 also has no USB any longer. last week i shutdown, next day i boot up and no USB !! something seems fishy that all of our USB ports are not working.
I have a similar problem with t40 - interestingly, I plugged in a PCMCIA USB card and this has the same problem - is the USB somehow routed through the same controller whether it is the motherboard native usb or an add-on card?
I’ve kinda got a good setup now (touch wood):
I have a Belkin 4 port USB 2.0 Hub which is powered, and connected to the laptop.
My Microsoft laser wheel mouse is also connected directly to the laptop.
The USB hub has my PDA, external keyboard and external hard drive conncted to it, so I have one port free.
The external HDD and PDA are both powered on their own, so I doubt the USB hub does any powering to those devices, other than the keyboard.
USB devices do not bring the machine out of suspend.
The machine has hibernation deactivated and I try not to put it into suspend mode at all.
I think the key is that you should have the laptop set to not wake the machine with the mouse / USB from suspend, in order to prevent the problem in the first place;
you should always have external devices through USB powered externally as much as is possible (mouse and keyboard are probably OK, but probably all I would put through the laptops own USB circuitry again) - so don’t run any power hungry device through the laptop USB port as it’s not robust enough for that.
Running your USB through a docking station is untested, but my thought is that if it’s the same as an external USB hub, then it should be fine.
Adding a PMCIA card doesn’t seem to work either as the cicuitry seems to be connected.
Relying on IBM to fix the problem first time in my experience doesn’t work - so make sure when you send it in you speak to the technical people to let them know that this is a known problem and that they shouldn’t treat it as a simple fix - at least a new motherboard to renew the circuitry for USB, and preferably a new HDD with a fresh Windows so you get set up as it was when you got the machine. You would think that this problem would be replicated when testing the build of this range of laptops / motherboards…
Hope that helps - although you’re probably not likely to find this thread if you don’t have the problem!!
Hi guys,
unfortunately I haven’t solved the prob yet, I talked to our laptop dealer in the meantime and he said, that this is a common problem, not IBM specific. The week before someone handed in a broken ACER laptop with fried usb circuits…on ACER it happened after connecting an external USB sound card…
Someone here mentioned ESD, I think that’s the main prob….btw interesting that some other guys besides me fried their ports by connecting iPods..hi APPLE !( what sh* hardware do you sell?)
I still have no time to hand the machine in, in the meantime I found a workaround by connecting a pcmcia card with usb ports, the card works fine, except for sudden disconnects of usb devices from time to time…
I’ll hand in the T-Pad to customer support by mid february, I’ll let you guys know what comes out…
Greetz Good luck to anybody who suffers from this usb prob!
2b continued…
Thanks dude
Can’t believe i found this message board. Same thing happened to me and sounds like my USB is F***ed. I have 2 USB ports on my HP/compaq nx5000. One connected to USB mouse. While reaching back to connect my iPod recharger, the screen closed enough to trigger sleep/hibernate mode. Screen was closed for literally a second. When I opened the screen computer was completely off. When I turned the power back on, my USB was useless. The mouse optical light comes on when plugged into its USB port but doesn’t function. The other USB appears to be completely fried. I tried the USB Root Hub uninstall and reinstall. But I guess after reading these comments, replacing the USB-motherboard is required.
If power is still going through to the mouse, is the USB port salvageable ??
@HP Laptop same thing:
welcome to the fried ports club! Again an iPod killed the ports, f*ng unbelievable!
>If power is still going through to the mouse, is the USB port salvageable ??
Well, unfortunately I guess it’s not salvageable…I have the same situation here, I can connect a mouse as well as an USB stick, devices get powered on but nothing else happens, sry dude!
btw my ports are gone becouse of mio350 gps, i think, not only ipods are bad
I don’t believe it… I have a Dell Inspiron 9200(Laptop). I got an iPod Shuffle yesterday. While using iTunes, I hit the eject icon for ejecting the Shuffle and my screen goes black but I still have power. I wait a minute or so and screen is still black. I power the laptop down and wait a minute. I boot up a guess what… all my f”"king USB ports are dead. This is bullcrap. There is obviously a problem with the iPod’s electrically. They are frying everyones USB ports. I smell lawsuit. Any lawyers out there. Apple needs to pay to fix my laptop.
so, i see some say that their USB ports are fried. does Windoze still enumerate the hardware if you delete the USB device(s) from device manager and then do a “scan for hardware changes”? if it finds that hardware then most likely your USB is not fried.
thinkpad owners can run diagnostics from a CD
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?sitestyle=lenovo&lndocid=MIGR-39306
Windoze does enumerate the hardware but the USB ports still do not work in Windows XP, Gentoo, Ubuntu and booting straight from a Knoppix CD… so if they are not fried what are they? Please enlighten me? Tell me how to get them working again? Maybe the ports themselves are not fried but the controller(chipset on the board) probably is… so I would say that for all useful purposes, USB functionality is fried, hozed, f’ed up, whatever you want to call it unless you can prove otherwise Andrew?
i ran the diag boot cd. all the tests, including USB tests, came back successful.
Hi JD, hi Andrew, hi allz
@Andrew: thanks for the hint with the IBM diagnostics cd. Just to be sure that I’m not completely out of my mind I downloaded the diagnostics and ran them, too…
Guess what: All the tests ran succesful, inclduding USB tests (Diag said: passed), but still NO USB DEVICES WORK on the laptop ports…so what DO YOU mean by succesful? Are your ports working again or not?
(No go here at my side with ubuntu, knoppix, winxp, vista or whatever)
@JD: You’re right, we can call it fried, dead, f*ed up, bullcrap or whatsoever the problem persists.
Still, it is unclear to me whether the reason is a) ESD - Electrostatic discharge or b) a production error in apple’s ipod shuffle
If b) turns out to be the main reason, we should take Steve Jobs to court, unfortunately I’m not a US resident, so I can’t…but anyway 1 million $ for each of us should be sufficient to cover all nuisances (or should I have said pain in the ass(es)?…
Greetz,
gbuster
Update: Diag check came back fine (thanks for tip), unfortunately USB is still not working. As I pointed out before, it’s weird that the optical light on the mouse is on but doesn’t work.
With no PS/2 slot and just a 4-pin mini firewire… I ended up buying a USB (2-port) PCMCIA cardbus card for $40. So far so good.
gbuster,
Thanks for the reply and perspective on the situation. I don’t need $1 million… I just want A.) $2000 to replace the laptop or B.) $500 - $750 to replace the board or C.) a new laptop from Apple equivalent to the specs I have now.
I guess I am asking for Apple to take responsibility for a flaw in their product that has caused me financial loss but in this day and age that would probably be asking too much.
Peace
JD
Actually i wasn’t trying to offer “perspective” with the $40 solution. Just offering a workaround. This is a work laptop, and I’m getting a new one soon when Vista comes out… so I’m fortunate in that regard. If this was a personal laptop that I paid for, I’d have a different perspective… and be pretty p***ed at Apple too.
Cheers.
yes, something is wrong, call it what you want (”fried” “dead”, etc). i was just noting that the problem is not with the chipset that services USB, it’s something else between that and the physical port.
My ThinkPad R50’s USB ports blew when I connected my new Nikon Coolpix S10 camera. Got some error messages at shutdown (which I missed since I get up and walk away when it’s shutting down). Good workaround with the PC card, will have to try that, as I upload business photos frequently (real estate) and it’s a real bear not having USB capability. Would rather not replace my motherboard, as anecdotal evidence shows that isn’t a “for-certain” fix. IBM’s 1-800 number has been busy recently so I’m thinking Vista and the USB problem along with other issues has them scrambling.
Have an IBM T42 thinkpad and a “fried” USB port as a result of an ipod shuffle. Sent it into IBM and they wanted to change the board. I thought I was alone, but happy to know that i’m in good company
Can anyone recommend a USB PCMCIA card?
I belive I just “fired” my USB ports today. Setup: T42p, w/ mouse, keyboard, webcam and Palm 700p dock plugged into USB.
Came back from a meeting, put my 700p in the charger and…. black screen. Had to remove the battery to reboot… upon reboot, a burning smell appeared.
Now, no USB functionality. Mouse opital light goes on, but it is not recognized by the system, nor are any other devices.
Options? Motherboard or start over? Does anyone know if this would still be under warranty (purchased system in June 2005)?
Crap.
-MCC
I got the same problem just like gbuster. R50e usb’s shows power with no function whatsoever. any electronics freak out there who knows how to open a laptop and un-solder and solder the usb’s back in? anyone? Can anyone post the vid on youtube on how to fix your malfu#ing functioning usb ports on an IBM Thinf#king pad???hehehe
I have NEVER even handled an iPOD, much less owned one, and an iPOD has NEVER been connected to my R51, yet I also have the dead USB port problem. Others have mentioned further up in this thread as well about connecting other hardware than an iPOD causing dead ports. Oddly, I also lost the sound card at the same time. Like others, the port still sends power (I use them to charge my iPAQs at night), and I also noticed frequent USB port surges prior to them quitting altogether. I’m going to try to pitch a fit with IBM/Lenovo, to see if I can at least get a decent discount on a new mainboard (works with an amazingly large number of people with Dell).
Mine on my R51 didn’t quit… but when I plug an external HDD or even a memory stick I get the message “this device can perform better connected to a USB 2.0 port”… and they ARE 2.0 ports…
This thing happened with my laptop, and I’m thinking the only solution is to send it in to the repair guys and get a new motherboard to replace the old one. The problem is, is that when I plug something in, the lights flash etc. but nothing appears on my computer, so obviously there is power to the ports, but there is no data transferring accross from the device to the computer.
P.S. If anyone has any better ideas about how to solve this obviously troublesome problem, other than getting the pro’s to replace the mb, then I would greatly love to hear it.
Same as others, USB ports have power but devices not recognized on T42p. Never had I-pod connected to this computer, but have used external portable USB hard drive. Not sure exactly what triggered failure. For those wondering about warranty availability, you can check status on Lenovo website. It will identify your computer and report when warranty expires
USB ports not working - IBM T42p
Plugged in MP3 player to charge the battery and next morning the USB ports not working. Good to know from this blog that I am not the only one. I have updated the BIOs to 3.21 (the lastest)
My notebook in under warranty so I will call IBM or Lenovo.
If there is OS fix then I will keep you informed.
My ipod shuffle just fried the usb ports on my Dell laptop last night…unbelievable!!!!
My Thinkpad R50e is suffering from what can only be described as a “dodgy external hardware” problem.
I recently purchased a Netgear USB wireless adapter for my home network. I had never had problems with my USB ports until that fateful day.
Ever since then I’ve been getting the XP message “this device can perform faster etc…” even though all (both) ports on my laptop are USB 2.0.
This happens every time I plug something into the ports, not just the network adapter. Basically it looks as if the heat generated by the adapter has shorted my USB ports, as they tend to come back on occasion (at full speed) but will drop off back to USB 1.1 speed for no apparent reason.
I originally thought it was a dodgy Netgear driver, since the moment I uninstalled it, and installed an update, the ports came back to full speed. I was overjoyed for two days thinking I had got to the bottom of this problem.
Unfortunately this morning while copying some files onto my USB stick at full speed, about 400MB into a 700MB copy, USB got disconnected and the port dropped back to 1.1
This is driving me nuts. I have a 4 port PCMCIA USB card which I can use, but it still doesn’t power my external USB hard drive. I think I’ll have to get a new laptop, once I pay off the mortgage, car, overseas trip to see my parents, dentist….crap…
I’m having the same trouble. My system wouldn’t come out power save mode, so I rebooted. After that no USB whatsoever. Could this be some sort of hybernate mode the USB controller is put in? I can’t image all the ports/controllers are fried. BIOS setting perhaps? (ASUS motherboard).
Here’s something new for us guys with fried ports:
http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Problem_with_USB_2.0
“Fried Southbridge USB controller
The Southbridge chip (containing the USB controller) may have been damaged by static electricity:
Short answer: your southbridge is about to die, get your system board replaced. Hopefully its still under warranty.
Long answer: a number of Intel chipsets for Pentium IV and Pentium M processors have a design flaw that makes the southbridge (which contains the USB host controllers) especially sensitive to static electricity. As a result there is a (small) risk that when plugging in or removing a USB device causes damage to the chip. Usually, the first symptom is broken USB 2.0, behaving in exactly the way you described (ie, works under Windows, but only after some waiting and as if it was connected to a USB 1.1 controller, not a USB 2.0 one, and not at all under Linux unless you unload the USB 2.0 driver). This tends to lead to a completely dead chipset a short time later, so better get it serviced NOW.
And btw, my story continues, today I sent an official support request to the IBM guys, I’m expecting a call today, so that I can hand in the T-Pad for repair…in the meantime I’ll go on holidays..so the perfect time for a repair
Greetz,
gbuster
Thanks gbuster for the info. Mine were fried after I picked up my shuffle from the table, then walked across a carpeted floor and plugged the shuffle in, so ESD may be what happened. Wonder if the metal case of the ipod had anything to do with it?
My symptoms are exactly the same as everyone elses. Screen went black, would not boot for several minutes, and no USB. The mouse optical light comes on and all looks fine in the software, but nothing works.
Fortunately I had a usb 2 pcmia card lying around, and it works fine. Not an ideal solution, but I don’t want to spend $2000 on a new laptop to go with my $75 shuffle.
thanks Apple! Nice job.
have you guys checked your network devices ?? and your mountmanager?? both in device manager / lemme know if you have and if so are they functioning properly
SAME PROBLEM HERE..
R40 THINKPAD , ALSO WITH A DOCKING STATION IT WONT WORK..
PRACTICALLY , THE ONLY WAY IS THE COURT …
LETS DO IT..
HAVING A BLACKBERRY, IPOD, PRINTER , COOLPIX, HDD EXT, ETC.. MAKES LIFE
VERY HARD WITHOUT USB PORTS..
UPDATED THE BIOS AND EVERY POSSIBLE UPDATE FROM LENOVO SITE.
DOWNLOADED THINKADVANTAGE BUT NOTHING…
SERIOUSLY BAD BAD BAD….
BTW , ITS NOT APPLE TO BLAME.. IT HAPPENS WITH OTHER PRODUCTS TO..
You may need to fully drain all the power from the machine to resolve this known USB ESD problem.
Try the following-
1) Shut your machine down and ACTUALLY REMOVE THE A/C POWER CORD (important).
2) Press the On button for about 10 seconds (with the power cord still disconnected).
3) Reconnect the A/C line cord and restart your machine. USB devices may be working like new about the time you sign into Windows.
You may or may not need administrative access to reinstall device drivers, if necessary (like if you change USB ports, etc.)
Tried, works on IBM/Lenovo desktops. System contained Intel 82801GB USB chips, but I dont know if it is the chips causing the problem, or other circuitry.
Tried the solution above (un-plug - hold the power down for 10 seconds, etc.) - did not work.
Did you drain the battery first?
Talked to IBM support - they suggested to run windows/thinkvantage updates - did not solve it (as expected) - will call them again and keep everybody posted
Hi Guys,
2 days before I returned from my snowboard holidays and today my thinkpad t42 returned from IBM Repair Center Germany. They replaced the system board without complains, I just unpacked it and tested USB functionality. Everything is running fine again, USB Ports work properly and mount every device I connected so far…so a troublesome story has finally come to an end…I didn’t had to pay anything, since the T42 was still in warranty…so I would recommend any T-pad user with broken USB ports to hand the machine in, it took only 10 days shipping and repair time…
good luck 2 anyone and greetz
gbuster
I have the same problem with my R40, but USB is working partially - I can connect USB stick from Sandisk, but it doesn’t work with Kingstone USB stick. Funny.
But not so much, as I cannot connect my new Nikon D80
Damn! Good thing I got mine to work, as I’m buying myself a Nikon D80 for my birthday, and having USB connection is vital!
gbuster: took me like 2 months to resolve everything, so good on yer!! German efficiency when you need it most in a hardware supplier!
In general - looks like the system board and power management is the one to blame…
Taled to IBM/Lenovo - they offered to fix the laptop (it is still under warranty).
I bought D-Link DUB-C2 PCMCIA card instead - so far it works fine. I would rather spend $40 than live without the laptop for 10 days.
Tonight I went to plug in my 2nd gen iPod shuffle… The instant the iPod touched the docking station, my Laptop (Dell Inspiron 9200) instantly turned off. After rebooting, it will no longer recognize any devices plugged into any of the 4 USB ports. They’re still supplying power and and I can recharge devices through the USB port, but I can’t communicate with any devices. This sucks and my laptop is out of warranty now.
I have a user in Salt Lake City who could not print on from her T42 to a Dell 944 printer. We thought it was a bad print head or cartridge. However, troubleshooting and replacing those items did not resolve the issue. She purchased a new printer from store but the same result was observed. When either printer (old or new) was attached to her son’s desktop computer, everything worked fine.
So it was not the printer or the USB cable causing the error. I called Lenovo and told them of the issue. Since the laptop was in warranty they immediately suggested replacing the motherboard. Apparently, there is an issue with a malfunctioning Southbridge in the T42 motherboards. Otherwise, why would that be an immediate suggestion by Lenovo technical support? Lenovo had this fixed in 3 days with an onsite tech coming to her home an replacing the motherboard. Warranty and on-site service paid off for my Portland Oregon based employer in this case!
This is an unusual problem because some USB devices work while other’s do not. For instance, a USB mouse works fine. Also sometime windows XP Test Page print fine and sometimes they do not. It never printed from Word and Office 2003 detect and repair did not resolve the issue.
Hi !
I have a T41 and the USB port keeps recognising and then disconncting the printer…
Any ideas?
Thanks!
Rakesh
Hi.
Just tested USB memory stick for the first time in my T42. Didn’t see it at first in my explorer and checked status in disk drives. All was well, USB port and drivers were OK and system identified my Kingston Data Traveler 2.0 GB.
I rebooted with memory stick on. Now memory stick (drive G:) was working fine, but network drive that had been assigned to G: was missing !! So I just changed network mapping and booted again.
For some reason USB memory didn’t take the first free drive letter (I:), but wanted to use G: !!!
Both USB and network drive work now OK.
Looks like USB support on the T42p is somewhat flaky…
Still seems to me that best solution is to try and power your device separately to the T42p, and to config your machine not to use suspend mode…
The T41, T42, T43 and T60 laptops are very similar. I have researched and found their many idiosyncrasies can usually be resolved by updating all of their IBM/Lenovo firmware, drivers and software to the latest available using Lenovo’s System Update 3. One word of caution, look at Lenovo knowledge base MIGR-64439 if you are using software that uses LIBEAY32.DLL. The laptops are all hugely sensitive to the order in which drivers are installed. Installing them in the wrong order can cause Access Connections 4.12 – 4.23 and Wireless NIC ON\OFF [Fn5] to fail.
If you do not want all of the Lenovo based software on your system try following directions I received from Lenovo in 8/2006. They apply to T41 or 42 and 43 laptops but you MUST check to make sure. It helps with speed and general improvement with the series performance. Make sure to take XP system restore points liberally during this process so you can return to the previous state if necessary!
Please follow the steps below exactly to resolve wireless issues.
a. Download and unpack: Power Management: MIGR-4GXPEG , Hot Key. MIGR-38953, Wireless card driver: MIGR-62875 , Keyboard Customizer MIGR-44185 Access Connections: MIGR-4ZLNJB
b. Uninstall Access Connections, Intel ® Pro set/wireless software and Seabring.api (if present) from add/remove programs.
c. Create short cut to c:\drivers\win and c:\drivers\w2k and place on desk top.
d. Install PM driver from the Win shortcut (*.exe) and reboot.
e. Install Hot Key from the Win shortcut (*.exe) and reboot.
f. Install Intel driver from the Win shortcut (*.exe) and reboot unit. Test FN F5. Wireless card should be in panel and you should be able to change the power state.
g. If able to change power state, install Access Connections (A.C.) from the W2K shortcut. (*.exe) and reboot. ** Note: if you only delete A.C. in some cases the Admin flag for restricting profile creation may be set. If this occurs, uninstall A.C. and profiles. Then reinstall. Recreate profiles including any security protocols required by the routers they are connecting to.
h. Test FN F5 (should work) and then try to connect to router through A.C.
Please respond to this email if this has corrected your issue.
_______________________________________________________________________________
If that step doesn’t work please you can use the vb script to scrub the wireless card driver and
and do a fresh install. Please run the vb script and I hope it resolves the problem. Remember to change the .txt to .vbs.
(See lenovo help for: intelwlancleanup.txt)
1. Ensure that there is no current active wireless connection, the radio should be off.
2. Use Add / Remove programs to uninstall any instance of the Intel wireless LAN adapters software.
3. Use Add / Remove programs to uninstall any instance of Intel Sebring.
4. Double-click the IntelWlanCleanup.vbs file to launch the script.
Note: When the script is finished searching the system, it will pop up a report informing the user which files were found and are about to be deleted. Click OK to complete the cleanup process.
5. Once the script is complete, rename the C:\DRIVERS folder to C:\DRIVERS_BACKUP (for example). This step is to prevent Windows from automatically finding and installing an old version of the wireless driver from a folder that could be located in the plug-n-play search path.
6. Reboot the computer. If the Found New Hardware wizard launches, click Cancel to exit the wizard without installing any new drivers.
7. Install the current Intel wireless driver package. Click here to download the driver.
8. When you launch Setup.exe, choose the option to install, or to modify the driver package (one or the other will be presented to the user).
9. When asked to select which options to install, select both the Intel wireless driver, and the PRO/Wireless application.
10. When the installation process completes, reboot the system
11. Rename C:\DRIVERS_BACKUP to C:\DRIVERS (to restore the system to its original state).
Hey guys,
Have a T40 notebook here, I’m a tech myself.
What I’ve found so far is that for some reason any time I install Service Pack 1 or 2 for Windows XP the USB ports don’t detect anything. Just plain Windows XP with out Service Packs USB ports appear to work fine.
I’ve installed many patches, tried USB port fixes. Installed the latest BIOS.
But there seems to be a problem with an update to windows.
Just a heads up. If you are installing Windows XP with out service packs, remember the Blaster and Sasser patches available from Microsoft.
Hope this helps someone.
Cheers, Dan.
Hey Guys,
this is a litte bit off topic, but anyways:
Yesterday my Ultrabay CD-RW died (it didn’t mount any CD whatsoever anymore)…so having made good experience with IBM’s customer support (they replaced the mainboard for free, as mentioned earlier) I sent a support request via IBM’s website, describing my problem…1h later I received a call from customer support..the guy promised to replace the ultrabay drive as soon as possible and today (!) I received a package via UPS, containing a new CD-RW drive! All I can say now is that I’m deeply impressed of IBM’s customer service…and I can tell you now that I won’t by any other notebook brand anymore (besides an Apple maybe, despite of the ipod story) if Lenovo manages to continue this excellent customer service…so thanks IBM and 10 points for their excellent service!
–End of hymn of praise :p –
Yours,
gbuster
Hi
I have an Acer Aspire 1700 notebook with 4 USB ports none of which work on their own. Checking with a multimeter I find no power to any port. If I plug in an external powered USB hub I can use any of the ports.
Any thoughts as to how I get power to what are otherwise working ports.
Regards
doublej
Hey its Austen here… i have had my Thinkpad a31 for about two years now. yes it is old… but i am a simple kid with a need for video games… anyways one day i decided to plug in my iPod… and. yeah it fried my USB ports. just like anyone else i have tried anything to fix it… the sad thing is i connect my PCI slot USB hub in and it