USB Device Not Recognized (Malfunction)

[stevoarome 0]

i had this problem for 3 months and thank to GOD it finally work and here is my solution but may not work on your.now what i did was i defrag my computer with jkdefrage,when finished restart your computer and connect your usb devices to if it may work.

[starbat 0]

Children, please. Listen to Starbat. When in doubt, blame Bill Gates. USB cables the culprit? Oh, Please!

 

I got the dreaded DNR message. Read these posts. Tried the unplug trick. Heh.

 

Finally, I did a System Restore from back before trouble started. Plugged in USB drive. Everything good. Then - a second later - the Device Not Recognized balloon popped up!!!

 

Of course - WINDOWS UPDATE! Windows restored me to before the trouble, USB worked fine, Windows sensed I was behind on updates due to the Restore, went out and got the Update - USB failed!!

 

SO, yeah, I disabled Windows Updates ... Restored again ... All is fine.

 

F-ing Microsoft.

[swhited 0]

OK - This is how I fixed this problem.

 

The root of the problem is with the USB Device (you can find it in your Device Manager). You have a problem if it has a caution symbol with an exclamation point. This needs to be updated, but it will give you an error when you try to update it. It will try to update the printer driver associated with it and give you an invalid data error message.

 

So, I installed windows service pack 3 (SP3), hoping it would have a fix. It did actually. I went back to the device manager and tried to update my USB Device. It updated and I was able to install a virtual printer port through my USB port to connect to my printer. It worked out fine and I just printed my first test page.

 

Hope that helps someone.

[mind_killer 0]

Looks like I finally got hit by the virus eh?

 

Ok so I have this laptop since the past one year, and have been using the optical mouse on the USB port happily since. I have 2 USB ports on this machine, one on each side. Being a right handed person, I've always plugged in the mouse on the right USB. Today I tried plugging it in on the left one.

 

Alas! I should have known that it was a real bad move. The mouse did not work, and the DNR bubble has been coming ever since on BOTH the USB ports whenever I try using my USB mouse. (Flash drives and iPod shuffle works fine).

 

I already tried restacking the USBs and shutting down the laptop for more than an hour. This thing is bugging me for the past 6 hours...grrr.....

 

Will try going into BIOS. I'm avoiding the registry edit as for now (have had some bad experiences on that one)

 

I'll get back on any updates.

 

My system specs:

 

HP-Compaq Presario V6000 Laptop

T2080 1.8GHz

1 Gig DDR PC2-5300

Windows XP Professional SP2

 

PS. Its not a Vista specific problem, obviously. Its Microsoft Windows.

 

 

[mind_killer 0]

Went into BIOS, and could not find anything related to USB there.

 

Also tried shutting down the laptop for more than 12 hours.

 

Did not help.

[katorymnd 0]

Ok guys am new in this , but i have a problem , i have a G-tide cell phone , and it has a USB cable, this phone has both MP3 and video player ,and it has a memory card, but when i plug it into a computer, the computer tells me that the USB has a malfuction, so i dont know want to do , any assistance please!

 

this may be not neccessary , but its charger is also dead

[katorymnd 0]

Ok guys am new in this , but i have a problem , i have a G-tide cell phone , and it has a USB cable, this phone has both MP3 and video player ,and it has a memory card, but when i plug it into a computer, the computer tells me that the USB has a malfuction, so i dont know want to do , any assistance please!

 

this may be not neccessary , but its charger is also dead

 

katorymnd

[Hagalaz 0]

Okay I had this problem and here was my solution!

 

My external HD wasn't being detected and I was getting the malfunctioned message. I simply unplugged it, shut down my PC, unplugged my computer from the wall, turned off it's power supply, and then reconnected everything and booted up. It has something to do with shutting the power supply to your mother board and then restarting. I highly suggest everyone try this even if it seems too simple to work, since it worked for me

 

Good luck guys.

[mind_killer 0]

And what if its a laptop?

[mind_killer 0]

Ok I tried it with a new mouse and its working now.

 

I'm guessing changing the USB ports messed up with the hardware inside the mouse (caused due to a sudden surge in the voltage).

 

All's well now. All USB ports working fine.

 

Peace

[mrplow123456 0]

Hey guys,

 

I went out the other day and bought a brand new 8 GB SanDisk Cruzer Micro and had it hooked up my computer for all of 2 days when it stopped working. During most of which however I also had just installed ActivSync for my AT&T Tilt phone. I thought maybe the flash drive just came out so I wiggled it around with no luck. Finally, I unhooked my phone to call some people and came back and hooked it back up and the only thing my PC was telling me was a generic serial was hooked up. Finally I figured I was having problems with my usb drives and started surfing the net.

 

For the last 3 hours I have been sitting on my phone looking for support on my USB devices not working. Unfortunately I had to use my phone as I dont have internet for my pc. But I tried everything I read on this forum with no luck. Finally about 30 mins ago I ran across a post about talking to alienware and cleaning the usb headers. I was up for anything.

 

Alas, it worked. I'm writing this using my phone as the computer copies about 6 GBs worth of music to my flash drive. I'm so happy now. I need the flash drive for my car bc my stereo has a usb hook up and supports up to 10000 songs. I cant believe I didnt think of that sooner. The comp is about 5 yrs old with no to minimal maintinance. It loked like a dust storm went through there. And I am very embarassed writing that bc my major is in computers lol.

 

If you have not tried this yet, do it now. If it doesn't help I am very sorry and wish you luck. I really want to thank all of you guys. You kept this OCD freak reading something for about 3 hours without losing interest lol. Good luck to everyone and thank you again.

 

PS: I am using my phone's keypad, please bare with me.

[SOLDOC 0]

OK, PEOPLE-------IT'S CONFIRMED.

If you have a Samsung MP3 Player, or possibly any other MP3 Samsung built music device (mine is the Juke Samsung phone)-

IT WILL CRASH YOUR USB. I have called Samsung and Verizon on this issue, and of course "deer in the headlights" when asked about this problem. So far I have tried the usual fixes,and the only one that seems to be working so far is disconnecting the PC from the power source for about 10min. Has to be completely off. We'll see if that will hold for now. And I will not be pluggin in the Juke ever again.

[theyoung 0]

I'm pretty sure the problem doesn't come from a certain type of mp3 but just one of those that are cheeper. The reason I am saying this is because one of my friends bought an mp3 called missil and when I tird to install in on my computer my usb ports started to malfuntion(well 1/2) and the other one reads it for about 2 secondes and then malfuntions... I have no clue what to do. Also when I plug in my psp and try to put in music it starts downloading for a seconde and then the usb isn't recongnized anymore?

 

Any help?

[Tarek325 0]

Wow, this post started in Dec 2006 and now (Feb 2009) people (including me still have this problem!

 

I am using an HP pavillion DV4 laptop running windows Vista64. All of a sudden I was having the same USB problems everyone else here had. I cant say exactly which of these USB devices stopped working first:

 

Logitek wireless Laser mouse nano

SONY MP3 walkman

Garmin Forerunner 305 GPS

 

After these stopped working (they still get power from the USB ports but cant transfer information) my Scan Disk micro cruzer flash drive had the same problem.

 

I have tested my mouse and my flash drive on another computer and they work fine-i suspect the same will be true of all these usb devices.

 

I then tried a very old wired mouse and had no problems using it.

 

So far, I understand from my tests and from these posts:

 

its not vista, logitek, or hp specific (but logiktek usb devices may be more likely to lead to this problem?)

it seems to affect usb 2.0 not usb1

the usb2.0 devices show up as unknown devices in device manager but i dont get the yellow symbol with an exclamation point

 

 

 

There are several fixes posted and I haven't tried most of them. I'm going to try deleting the usb devices from the device manager and let windows reinstall them and if that doesnt work i'll try a system restore to last week (its been a problem for a few days only).

 

Did anyone else try a system restore? I didnt see that mentioned in any post (although i did see that reinstalling operating systems didn't help!)

 

Tarek

flat_soda@hotmail.com

 

[please email if you develop a clear understanding of what causes the peroblem. The 2-3 magic bullets posted so far seem to work temporarily or only on some systems]

[Tarek325 0]

when i removed all the usb stuff from the device manager and windows reinstalled the drivers, I got the same message before i even attached anything to my laptop!

 

upon closer inspection I realized that the built in webcam is a usb device but I dont think that is the problem.

 

When i double click on the conflict, I get the "USB device not recognized" window listing:

 

USB Root Hub (2 ports)

Unused Port

Unknown USB Device

 

...but there is nothing plugged into my 2nd USB port!

 

This makes me think its a hardware problem and something got fried inside my laptop

 

when i plug in a flash drive and my wireless mouse receiver, the listing above changes to :

 

USB Root Hub (2 ports)

Unknown Device

Unknown Device

 

sometimes one of the 'unknown device' is in bold, sometimes the other

 

any new thoughts on the problem?

 

Tarek

flat_soda@hotmail.com

[jbvalley 0]

Tarek: I have a repair job here that is having the same issue:

(v6000 laptop vista home premium 32bit)

 

I tried a virus scan

Bios to default settings

Uninstall USB & Re-install

 

I even did a erased everything and did a factory restore. NO LUCK!! If you find a resolution. Please post and if I find an answer I will do the same for you.

[Tarek325 0]

Ok, this is good but annoying. I turned on my laptop and it began installing usb drivers for the built in web cam at the top of my laptop screen. The drivers should have already been there because i erased them previously and then windows vista64 automatically installed them.

 

Since my laptop seemed to be rreinstalling USB drivers on its own, I tried plugging my Forerunner 305,my logitek wireless mouse, my Sony mp3 player, and my ScanDisk Cruzer-all are recognized. In short, my computer fixed itself after having this problem for about 8 days.

 

What does this mean? @#$@% if I know. My current guess is that there was (and still is) a loose connection in my computer that is causing USB errors. The only way it would install a driver when i booted up is if it suddenly recognized hardware that was invisible before hand. My webcam is built in-there's no way for me to physically remove it. Maybe something wasnt connected between my motherboard and the webcam (which is a USB device even though it doenst plug into a USB port)and it caused other USB detection failures.

 

To everyone else who has this problems-do you have any USB devices built into your computers thatare not attached through a physical cable? If so, you might want to try disabling, running diagnotics on, or talking to your computer help people about internal usb devices that could be malfunctioning.

 

I'm still interested to know what this problem actually is, (especially because it could just as quickly go wrong again)so i will keep reading posts here

 

Tarek

[dickhui328 0]

I have got the same problem as you before.

 

The solution I have done is that I removed all the usb stuff from the device manager and then power off the computer. Once the computer is turned off, I also detached the power cord connected to the computer. If you are using a laptop, I suggest also remove the battery. After a short while, I attached the power cord to the computer again, then turn it on, and the problem is gone!

 

I hope this would help you to solve the problem.

 

Originally Posted By: Tarek

when i removed all the usb stuff from the device manager and windows reinstalled the drivers, I got the same message before i even attached anything to my laptop!

 

upon closer inspection I realized that the built in webcam is a usb device but I dont think that is the problem.

 

When i double click on the conflict, I get the "USB device not recognized" window listing:

 

USB Root Hub (2 ports)

Unused Port

Unknown USB Device

 

...but there is nothing plugged into my 2nd USB port!

 

This makes me think its a hardware problem and something got fried inside my laptop

 

when i plug in a flash drive and my wireless mouse receiver, the listing above changes to :

 

USB Root Hub (2 ports)

Unknown Device

Unknown Device

 

sometimes one of the 'unknown device' is in bold, sometimes the other

 

any new thoughts on the problem?

 

Tarek

flat_soda@hotmail.com

 

 

 

[ManiaK79 0]

Try this:

 

(disable that driver)

 

P.S. the name of that driver could be different on your system but the USB2 could be the same.

[kylie_james 0]

Hi,

Guess what? I have the same problem but has progress to more of a problem. It is my daughter's laptop (compaq V5101US). The problem started when she was downloading a movie to her ipod. She wasn't at the computer at the time but when she checked the status, the computer had shut down. When she tried to start up it gave her the fatal blue screen every time she tried to start the computer. I picked it up a couple days later and it booted up but neither of the usb ports would work. Same message you guys are getting. Like you I tried all the things that others have tried with no results. After several days of trying I was prepairing to call it a night after running an antivirus scan. The computer froze causing me to manually power off the computer. Now when I turn the computer on I get a few seconds of the fan and then a few seconds of DVD (optical) drive then nothing but a black screen. I am at a lost. I strongly believe the original problem has cause the current problem. A couple of techs say motherboard, but I am not convinced. What are your thoughts. Sorry for the book I just wrote.

[pokeybere 0]

Hello fellow frustrated friends,

 

I too had this problem and after many days of reading different ways to get my USB memory stick working enough to retrieve all of my important work files, purchasing software that "claimed" would help, I have found a simple solution that worked for me!

 

Hold down the "SHIFT" key while inserting the memory stick. You will get a prompt asking you if you want to turn on filters. Click yes and VOILA, you will hear the little ring of the hardware detected. After files are retrieved to a safe place, reboot the system.

 

I simply moved all files from the USB stick to my PC and then discarded the memory stick making sure everything was deleted. I do not know if the stick was repaired to function properly or not, it was not a chance I was willing to take for a second time.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Good Luck!

[spaige08 0]

Add me to list of people having this stupid USB issue!!!

 

I have no idea why this started but here is the jist of it: About 2 weeks ago I started getting the pop-up "USB Device Not Recognized" and when I double clicked I get the following: One of the USB devices attached to this computer has malfunctioned, and Windows does not recognize it. Below that is:

 

USB Root Hub (2 ports)

Unused port

Unknown USB Device (this is highlighted)

 

I kind of ignored it for awhile but when the pop up kept coming up about every 2 seconds it began to frustrate me.

 

I have double clicked the "malfunctioned" device and it is listed as port 0. I have checked the Device Manager but NONE of the USB devices display a red X or a yellow triangle. It is like I have a ghost USB device.

 

I have tried detaching the USB devices, uninstalling them and then rebooting and having Windows reinstall them, didn't work. Tried reassigning the ports, didn't work. This happens with both the USB mices I have and occassionally my USB wireless network card from Dell and they will stop working. The strange thing is I can start the computer and be fine for 3 hours and then it will happen. I have cleaned the USB connections and still nothing. I have the latest BIOS edition too.

 

I have attempted to see what would trigger it but have come up empty handed.

 

This is our main computer at work and I am at a loss. The computer's stats are:

 

Dell Dimension 9150

Intel Pentium D processor

Microsoft Windows XP Home with SP3

3 GB Ram

ATI Radeon HD 3400 Video Card

 

Between the Monitor and the CPU I have 11 USB ports and 4 right now are empty and I am still getting the pop up. All the devices seem to be functioning though. Anyone have any ideas?

[Marl 0]

Originally Posted By: ManiaK79

Try this:


(disable that driver)

P.S. the name of that driver could be different on your system but the USB2 could be the same.

Thanks alot, this worked for me, but the only problem is that all devices are now using USB 1.1, which vastly limits their speed, trying to transfer songs onto my iPod, christ it's taking ages. But at least I can now actually use my USB devices. So maybe if this also works for other people, your clever little minds could maybe come up with another fix to use USB 2.0!

Good luck guys

[jzone 0]

This is sad sad sad - I am having the same issues and as another poster said - it has been happening for years. I have a rather new Sony VAIO with 64 bit vista. My daughter plugged in an HP digital frame to charge it and I can no longer use any USB port - except of course for the HP frame : (

 

I need a mouse but I really do not want to reinstall to factory settings because I do a ton of software development and ... it would take weeks to get back to my current state.

 

I bought a mouse today that uses its own drivers thinking that may help but to no avail. I am going to try the suggestion to power down, unplug, remove battery and so forth. I will let you know how it goes.

[jzone 0]

OHHH YEAHHHH thanks to jingle for suggesting powering down and removing the battery. This is of course not a real fix but I am thrilled beyond belief to have my mouse back. THANK YOU TO THIS FORUM - this was a life saver!