[Mane23]

SYSTEM SPECS:

P4 2.98GHz
1 GB Kingston DDR400
865PE Neo2-FIS2R
MSI RC410M no OC
500W Power Supply
SAMSUNG SP1213N 80GB
Seagate ST3800 11A 200GB
WinXP + SP2 + all latest Windows Updates


Hello,
I have a desktop machine i built myself in the summer, it has an MSI Motherboard RC410M with 4 integrated USB ports on the back and 4 more plugged in to the motherboard and connecting to the front of the case. They have all been working fine until a few weeks ago when my mouse and keyboard, run through the integrated ports started playing up (occasionaly mouse skips and keyboard holds down characters longer than you press them etc). Not too badly but enough to be anoying. But far worse than this is that external hard drives (my iRiver MP3 player, and my friends external hard drives) have stopped being regonised by plug and play and the drive comes up with an error when plugged in. This is the same on the intergrated and external USB ports.

I have seen the quides on here to this type of problem but nothing seems to relate directly to this board or the fact that integrated ports aren't working either.

The mouse and keyboard work fine when i run them through PS2, i have tried updating the mother board drivers and this doesn't help.
I'm running Windows XP SP2 and i think this might be the problem because the BIOS seems to find the devices it's just not plugging and playing properly.
Please, please help if you can. I really need my external storage at the moment! Let me know if there's any other information you need that might help solve the problem.
Thanks very much!

 

[JohnWill]

First step, Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, System Restore. Create a restore point and name it something like "Before USB Fix". This is to bail you out if something goes wrong during the following process and makes things worse.

Create a file with NOTEPAD containing the following lines and save it as FIX.REG
-------------------------- Use text after this line --------------------------------
REGEDIT4

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment]

"DEVMGR_SHOW_NONPRESENT_DEVICES"="1"
-------------------------- Use text before this line --------------------------------

Double click on FIX.REG and say yes to the Merge Into Registry question.

Unplug ALL USB devices.
Open Device Manager.
View, Show Hidden Devices.
Uninstall all devices under USB Controllers.
Uninstall all devices under Disk Drives that you know are not present.
Uninstall all devices under Storage Volumes. Say no to any reboot prompts until you are finished. Also, if a Storage Volume doesn't uninstall, ignore it and move to the next one.
If you have a yellow ? with unknown devices, uninstall all of the entries there as well.

When this is done, reboot TWICE.

Reconnect the USB devices and see if they're recognized properly.

NOTE: If you have a USB keyboard and/or mouse, you'll have to modify the instructions and leave enough parts for those to function. I don't have one yet, so I haven't had time to modify the instructions.

 

[Mane23]

Hello,

Thanks for your help. I tried your suggestion but to no avail..! I deleted all USB devices, Storage Volumes and an unregonised PCI device. On the first re-boot it tried to re-install the PCI device but couldn't find drivers. On the second boot it did nothing but still wouldn't recognise my USB drive. This was with the integrated ports. I then reconnected the case-mounted ports, which I'd previously unplugged and tried again. Still the same.

Any ideas?

Thanks again for your help.

 

[JohnWill]

Well, if it's worse than when you started, use that restore point.

Did you try re-installing the motherboard chipset drivers?

 

[awoolf]

1. Is the system overclocked at all? (specifically the front side bus) If so, set it back to the default speed. Overclocking can cause odd issues like the one you are describing.

2. Check your board for bulging/leaking capacitors. While the large "caps" near the CPU often fail, your problem would more likely be caused by the failure of one or more of the smaller caps dispersed all over the board. (near PCI slots, DIMMs, etc) http://www.badcaps.net/ident/ will help you identify what bad caps look like, but it shows some rather extreme examples. Any doming or bulging of the top means that it has failed. (Any other caps of the same type, whether bulging or not, should be replaced too)

3. If all else fails, buy a cheap new USB 2.0 PCI card and turn off (or ignore) the malfunctioning USB ports. $10 (mail order, $20 in a retail shop) should get you a 4-port card that will make all your problems go away.

A. Woolf

 

[Mane23]

Thanks guys,

John, It's no worse, basicaly the same. These are the drivers i installed:

http://us2.msi.com.tw/support/dvr_exe/mbd_dvr/ati_system_drive_mb.zip

But we couldn't see anything in there which would directly relate to the USB. I wouldn't mind someone who know's about these things having a look and letting me know if i'm installing the right thing here!

My system's not overcloked at all and i'll have a look at buying a PCI USB card and check for dodgy looking caps.

Thanks again guys..

 

[JohnWill]

Did you check to make sure the hardware is properly enabled in the BIOS? Perhaps you should email MSI tech support and ask them the question.

You provided a direct link to the drivers, not really much use to us, since I'm sure we don't want to install them!

 

[Mane23]

Hi John,

I'll double check the BIOS but i'm pretty certain it's all ok. I haven't changed anything anything anyway!
Yeah i may have to get in touch with the MSI guys...

Sorry, the link i provided is to bundled package of drivers and files none of which look like the right thing to me but i'm no expert. I was hoping someone would be able to tell me if those drivers are the ones i need because they look to me like all softwarey-type updates nothing relating to the actuall board.

Thanks again for all your help.

 

[Elby]

Hi - I had the same PNP problem (device not recognized). It happened last summer and the fix above worked. Happened again yesterday and the fix did not work until I tried shutting off for 30 minutes. I read on another site that you should unplug the machine and pull out any battery (for laptops).