I am having some weird issues with USB ports on this laptop.  I'm running XP Pro SP2 on it, and its had a history of doing weird things with the USB ports on the rear of the laptop (I can't seem to get any issues with the side ports on it, which is strange).  I have a docking station that I got with this computer, but have had enormous problems with Windows correctly setting up and using hardware profiles on it.  When the laptop is connected to the docking station, often NO USB activity on the rear ports are registered at all.  I then removed the docking station and am manually plugging in USB devices into the rear of the unit.

 

Firstly I found that trying to use a USB hub on this computer through those ports wouldn't work at all.  The hub wasn't recognized and consequently no devices plugged into it were recognized at all.  When I plugged those devices into the 4 USB ports on the laptop directly, however, they worked.

 

Up till last week.  Now my USB mouse/keyboard is ONLY being recognized on the side USB ports.  It never works if I plug them into the rear USB ports at all.

 

Is there some sort of driver updates required for this, or some known hardware problems with USB ports on this model laptop?  I've never had these sorts of problems before with Dell machines (having run 4 different models of Dell Laptops over the past 10 yrs or so), and although I love everything about this laptop, I definitely hate my current setup when it comes to USB ports and docking stations.

 

Any advice as to what might be the problems here is greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks

Myles