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USB Ports on Dimension E520 stopped working...
The USB Ports on a Dell Dimension E520 stopped working recently... The computer is running XP Home Edition with SP2. Since there are only USB inputs on this machine (ie. no PS2 inputs), I can not use either the keyboard or mouse which makes it hard to debug what is going on. The keyboard works from the BIOS, but the moment XP starts loading, the USB ports are non-workable (mouse light goes dead, etc). So all I see is the desktop when the machine boots up and not being able to do anything at that point (cannot even shut down the machine other than holding the power button down on the machine).
Not sure what to do here... tried rebooting in safe mode... but that just seems to boot up as per normal bootup (ie. looks like the normal bootup... no USB, same desktop pic, etc)
I'vre read on the internet to try disabling USB in the bios and re-boot, then re-enable USB in the BIOS, but I'm guessing that if I did that, I wouldn't be able to use the keyboard to re-enable USB within the BIOS.
Any thoughts or comments would be helpful...
Would have been nice if the machine had a PS2 port or two... could at least try my old keyboard... :(
Thanks in advance!
DELL-Chris M
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June 20th, 2009 20:00
dragon_448,
Try clearing the bios CMOS via the #11 jumper
<ADMIN NOTE: Broken link has been removed from this post by Dell>
You turn the PC off, open the case cover, find the jumper on the CLRPSWD pins and move it to the CLRCMOS pins. Wait 5 seconds and then put the jumper back on the CLRPSWD pins. This should reset the CMOS to factory defaults.
dragon_448
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June 21st, 2009 17:00
Thank you Chris...
Well, that got a little further... I can now move the mouse, but can't click on anything (left or right click). Keyboard still doesn't work beyond the BIOS screen. Once booted up, if I move the mouse pointer to the bottom of the screen where the task bar is, it becomes an hourglass forever until I move the mouse back to the main part of the desktop and then it returns to a pointer. So mouse is movable, but not really functional at the moment.
One step at a time... :) Any other thoughts or suggestions would be great!
Thanks again!
DELL-Chris M
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June 22nd, 2009 08:00
Try safemode again. If still no go, it looks like you will need another motherboard.
dragon_448
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June 23rd, 2009 12:00
I booted using a BARTPE boot disk and that seemed to work, so I knew it wasn't a hardware problem. I then tried to boot via SafeMode and that started to work. Booted into normal mode and keyboard and mouse stopped working again (except mouse could move, but not click on anything). After letting it sit for a few minutes, I got a stop 0x00000050 regarding Win32k.sys...
It sounds like some malware or such taking over the USB ports and/or some driver conflict with some app being loaded... wonder if the first step is to boot into safe mode and upgrade the Intel chipset drivers to the latest?
dragon_448
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June 24th, 2009 09:00
Interestingly enough, I tried to boot the E520 last night and the USB keyboard/mouse again stopped working under normal, safe mode and this time including BARTPE boot ups. I ran the Dell Hardware Diagnostics program on the USB and Keyboard and Mouse components and everything passed fine. This is really frustrating. I'd like to get a PCI card with PS2 ports on it as everywhere I check discover this is a great workaround to get a keyboard and mouse to work where the USB versions of these components fail (I have PS2 keyboards and mouses I can use), but I also read that no ones seems to know how to get a PCI card with PS2 ports to actually work with Dell machines which is the catch 22 (something about drivers or somesuch?).
Any thoughts would be appreciated... Thanks in advance!
DELL-Chris M
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June 24th, 2009 09:00
Is the PC under warranty?
dragon_448
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June 24th, 2009 19:00
Unfortunately, not... which is why my friend asked if I could try fix it for him. I'll try running the complete Dell Hardware Diagnostics tonight to see what it says... will list anything that stands out, but I'm guessing everything will "pass".