USB Ports Not Working - PC Hardware Questions & Answers

Duane writes in with a hardware question:

Question: The USB ports on my notebook computer will not detect anything plugged into them, it was working fine and now it is not how do I correct the problem?

Answer: USB ports not working can be caused by many things. There is a real good chance that they just went bad. Is it one pair of two ports that are connected? If so if one goes bad the other may as well. I've seen it happen before.
 
Do you have any drivers that came with the computer? See if you can reinstall the USB drivers. You can also check Device Manager for any errors.

You can also try to disable your USB in the BIOS and reboot and see if it gets detected again.
 
If all else fails there is the option to do a repair installation of Windows.
 
You can also get a USB PC card for your notebook. Just make sure it doesn't have to use an existing USB port for power etc.

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