Inspiron 1520 XP SP3 laptop weirdness with USB 2.0 ports

This happened 8/20/14.  My Roxio video capture device stopped functioning.  Upon rebooting I got the balloon message:  "This device could perform better on a high-speed USB connection..."  Well it would not perform at all on USB 1.1 :-)

Digging around I found USB 1.1 ports (5 of them) on my system.  All 4 of my USB ports ARE and ALWAYS HAVE BEEN, USB 2.0

So after checking with Dell diagnostic run, and cables and verifying USB 1.1 speeds (<4 MBps) on direct connection thumb drives on all of them I DISABLED all of the listed USB 1.1 device drivers.  I am thinking of uninstalling these next.

The problem is now fixed, but I have no idea why this happened to a previously functioning system.

Does anybody have a clue here, or was this a gamma ray from Zeti Reticuli?

TIA,  JCN