USB port damaged

Question

My wife was carrying her Inspiron 4000 in our house and dropped the USB mouse that was connected to it.  The mouse cord pulled on the USB port, causing it to become loose (it now moves when I try to wiggle it).  The USB port no longer works.  I'm reasonably handy, but I'd appreciate any guidance you can offer about how to take apart the case, the damage I'm likely to find, and whether or not the problem will be repairable by a user like me.   Thanks,   MLN

Ed C · Answer

You can download the service manual from the Dell support site. It is very easy to take apart a Dell notebook.

As to whether you can fix the USB port is a whole other thing. All the ports on the back of any notebook are part of the motherboard and once they are damaged it would be hard to fix them. Not that it hasn't been done but there is NO schematics for the board, or at least none that Dell publishes.

bacillus · Answer

cheapest solution in my opinion if your laptop otherwise is working ok is to buy a usb2 pcmcia card.
you'll have usb2 speeds, not that your mouse will notice though, plus an extra usb port (there are 2 usb ports on the card).

johnallg · Answer

But if you want the replace the connector, look here and buy this (the left part is the one for that page).

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USB port damaged

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