Help Me Diagnose USB Trouble

Good morning gents. I need your help with a strange issue I am having with my wife's HP netbook. Whenever you close the netbook it goes into a standby of some sort. When you open the netbook it will come out of standby and go back to the home screen. All quite normal. However there is a strange issue with the USB ports. They sometimes just quit working. I have a usb mouse that works great but when operating normally it has a green led that glows consistently when in use. When the usb issue comes up, it will flash for a microsecond and then go blank. Of course the mouse won't work then. It takes a reboot to "solve" the issue.

Okay, here is what I have done so far. I went into hardware power management and set all the usb root hubs so that they don't power off in standby. It worked for awhile but now it is happening again. I rechecked the settings and they are still set to not shut off usb. I suspect there is a power management issue I am not understanding.

Another issue that comes to mind is power down. Sometimes you can't shut the netbook down via menu>shutdown or menu>restart. You have to disconnect the power cable and remove the battery. Not good in my opinion. I bring this up because the HP has by default turned off Windows systems restore and has installed Roxio Back On Track for system back up. The netbook has a small, 16Gb solid state hard drive so I assume this is considered a more efficient way to to do system restores than the default Windows method. Any guesses as to whether this may be causing power management issues or not? I just find the whole usb/shutdown thing to be a little wiggy and would like to clean this mess up. I have CCleaner installed and give the machine a good cleaning including registry from time to time. All to no avail. Help me out fellas.

Regards, Todd

sounds like you have a little worm or you have a hardware problem, or you might have a ram capacity issue. A very easy way to solve this is not to let the computer "sleep" you can go into the power management menu and tell the computer not to sleep. You are probably running XP right? That is a very stable operating system for these little netbooks.

also if you press the power button the computer should shut down with out taking out the battery and unplugging the little guy.

updating you ram can help solve the problem. I hope this can help.

+ 1 on the above, I find that computers in sleep/standby/hibernate do weird things. Just shut 'em down.

JoshD said:

sounds like you have a little worm or you have a hardware problem, or you might have a ram capacity issue. A very easy way to solve this is not to let the computer "sleep" you can go into the power management menu and tell the computer not to sleep. You are probably running XP right? That is a very stable operating system for these little netbooks.

also if you press the power button the computer should shut down with out taking out the battery and unplugging the little guy.

updating you ram can help solve the problem. I hope this can help.

Click to expand...

i second that. i hate using sleep function. it sounds like you leave it plugged in all the time, so i'd say go to your power settings and go with something like:

-when you close the lid, screen goes blank but no sleep mode
-hard drives never shut down
-screen can turn off after a period of non-use, but no sleep mode and no welcome screen (only recommended if you are the only user and this is not a communal computer)

it's been a while since i've played with laptops, but iirc, some computers go to sleep for so long, then do a sort of hibernation, i.e. deeper sleep. this could be part of your usb issue. as far as the won't shut down issue, i used to get that on my laptop when it went into sleep mode or if i didn't shut it down once a week or so. i'm more conscious of my power bill now (not in a college dorm anymore. ) so i leave my computer on during the day and shut it off at night.

I recommend running a good antivirus program or two just so you can find out if it is a hardware issue or not.

avast! is the best one I've come across. It's also free.

Check with HP support for any updates to the computer. Check with the mouse makers website for any driver updates.

Hey guys. Thank you for the replies. I went into power management settings and made some adjustments. I also went to the settings for hibernation and un-ticked the box. So we shall see if this sorts it. Thanks again.

Regards, Todd

Thought I could chip in my two cents on this one. Had a client that was experiencing similar issues with their notebook (think it was a dell). When troubleshooting these sorts of things I also like to boot the machine into another OS. This helps to rule out odd behaviors that can come from a preference file getting tweaked. I would highly recommend loading Linux Mint onto a usb drive, which can be done by following the steps at www.pendrivelinux.com . If that doesn't work my next step is always to unplug everything, pull battery and let sit overnight if possible. The final thing that springs to mind is that the ssd might be having issues coming out of the sleep mode. Also, there might be a "feature" in the bios that controls what level of sleep the machine does. If all else fails ring HP. Good luck! Joey

I also dislike power management control under any windows O/S but that aside I would recommend that you uninstall, reboot then reinstall your chipset drivers. (If you don't reboot in between you will not rewrite all files)
This is NOT a hardware issue. If the chipset driver (which includes USB drivers) reinstall doesn't fix it you have two choices, a roll-back to an earlier date or a complete O/S reinstall.

How long have you had the netbook? If more than a couple years reinstall windows you will find it will fix quite a few issues - the main one being the speed of the netbook.

I too had a similar issue sometime ago on an HP laptop. In my case, an update to the BIOS resolved the issue. Now I can sleep/hibernate without issue and all ports come back up as they should.

EDIT: After re-reading your OP I remember having the shut down issue too. It would not shut down via menu so I'd have to press and hold the power button to force it to shut off. Or at times it would hang on the shutting down window but never would. All of this cleared up for me with the BIOS update. Just check and see what your current BIOS version is. You have to hit an F key as the machine boots but I don't recall which. Then check HP's support website to see if the BIOS version for your model is newer than what you have.

Okay guys, after shutting off hibernation and setting the power profile to something quite similar to suggested above, I still have this problem from time to time.

Now what? I will try the BIOS update. It really is an overlooked solution to a lot of issues. If that does not work, how in the world do you reload the OS on the netbook without an optical drive or CDs with the licensed OS on it? I did try to take an image of the netbook with an 8Gb usb flash drive when I first got it but I have no clue if an image of usable quality for a re-install is on it. Lets say it is not right or corrupted, what do I do then? Thanks fellas.

Regards, Todd

If it worked before and doesn't work now then it is not a BIOS issue. If you update your bios you will still have same hardware and same drivers on your machine.

To reinstall your O/S borrow a friends Windows disc and copy/extract the image of that disc to a USB drive and install from there or you could even download one. You will need a product key to reinstall which should be under the machine on a sticker. If not, download a product key finder (google it) and run it in windows. This will give you your product key to reinstall with.

Before doing all this I suggest you start looking for drivers for your hardware as these would have been built in with the initial install and subsequent restore solution from the manufacturer. You will need the chipset, sound, video, trackball/pad etc. Check Manufacturers download section on their site for full details.

Good luck with it all...

how old is the netbook? xp or win7? has it always done this or did it originally work correctly? what brand mouse? if you unplug the mouse does the touch pad work correctly? do you have the power off/on problem with and without the mouse connected?

Okay gents, here is a small update. I went to the HP support site and downloaded a chipset driver. There was also a BIOS update I did NOT download and install. It seemed to be directed toward a Toshiba hard drive issue. My hard drive is a Sandisk SSD. The chipset driver upgrade went okay but since I went ahead and rebooted, I won't know for sure for a bit. After I installed the chipset update, I went through the normal Menu> Turn Off Computer> Restart. It worked but who knows if it was related to the driver update since I suspect the update had no effect till the netbook was rebooted.

Specifics. As I said this is a HP netbook. Model #1116NR. OS is XP sp3. It developed the usb power down issue not too many months after we bought it a couple of years and the usb issue showed up shortly after that. I am a bit leery of going to the HP website and just downloading and installing all the updates ad hoc. Sometimes these updates cause their own issues.

Regards, Todd

I thought I would add a copy of the BIOS update description at HPs site. Though it seems to be directed at Toshiba hard drive issues, it is listed as a "critical update" when I enter my model number.

Description: This package contains the WinFlash Utility and a System BIOS image for the supported NetBook models and operating systems. The WinFlash Utility is used to locally flash the System BIOS (ROM) on NetBooks operating in a Microsoft Windows XP environment.

Fix/Enhancement: Fixes an issue where the system may not be able to finish the hard drive (HDD) Diagnostics test in the BIOS Setup Utility for a Toshiba Hard Drive.

assuming you have tried the other USB port with the same results.. your best bet is to backup your files word doc, pics, etc and then just reload a current copy of XP.

The Last Chimney said:

I recommend running a good antivirus program or two just so you can find out if it is a hardware issue or not.

avast! is the best one I've come across. It's also free.

Click to expand...

I downloaded avast and it worked fine but was next to impossible to remove when I decided to remove in favor of another program. It self protects and wont allow itself to be removed without a lot of effort.

Bullwinkle said:

assuming you have tried the other USB port with the same results.. your best bet is to backup your files word doc, pics, etc and then just reload a current copy of XP.

Click to expand...

I get you but just where does one get a "current copy of XP"? My netbook did not come with any sort of backup other than the Roxio Back On Track.

Regards, Todd

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?lc=en&dlc=en&cc=lamerica_nsc_carib&product=4041514&docname=c00608578#N1476

be sure to read the whole procedure several times before you start.. good luck

EVIDENTLY IT PROMPTS YOU TO CREATE A RECOVERY DISK UNTIL YOU DO RO TURN OFF THE PROMPT
Creating required recovery disks
It is strongly recommend that a set of recovery disks be made when the computer is new. A reminder message is displayed every 14 days or until the reminder is turned off. Depending on the type of disk drive, multiple blank CD-R or DVD-R or DVD+R disks are needed.(Use of -RW media will cause process to fail ).
Type of Disk Drive Disk Type # of Required Blank Disks
DVD DVD-R

DVD+R 1 - 2 Disks
DVD DVD+R Dual Layer 1 Disk
CD CD-R Up to 7 - 11 Disks
No CD or DVD Contact HP service and support

Creating the recovery discs in Windows
Do the following actions to create the set of recovery disks.
Connect PC to the AC power adapter.
Click Start , click All Programs , select System Recovery , and click Create Recovery Disks .
The PC Recovery Disk Creator utility displays a message indicating the type and number of media disks required.
Verify the required number of media disks are available.
Click Next to begin the actual copying process.
Remove written disk and insert additional disks when prompted.
Label each disk, in sequence it was created, as prompted.
Store the newly created set of recovery disks in a safe place.
NOTE: Only one set of recovery disks can be created for a PC.

The set of recovery disks just created can be used to recover the specific computer and cannot be used to recover another computer.
NOTE: If the recovery discs fail during the creation or become corrupted, you can order a replacement CD or DVD with the original operating system from HP.