I’ve encountered a strange problem with USB ports that I’ve not seen before. This is an HP laptop running XP Pro SPII. The user connects an optical mouse to one of two different USB ports on one side of the computer. Until I arrived, he didn’t even know there were USB ports on the other side of the machine.
For about a week now, sometime during the session, the USB ports appear to shut off and the mouse stops working. The trackpad still works but the mouse does not. Unplugging and reconnecting the mouse has no effect (ports are dead). Once this happens, the machine will hang on shutdown and requires a power button hard shutdown. After reboot, the ports work fine and the machine has no trouble with shutdown so long as the ports are still working.
So far, I’ve noticed that when the mouse quits, the port it’s plugged into is dead and the port right next to it is dead. But the ports on the other side of the machine are still live. I’ve disabled all the USB power managament but the problem presists.
My first guess would be hardware failure but the fact that reboot restores the ports makes me think software. Anyone seen this before? Any suggestions on where to look?
