Can't seem to get my front USB ports to fire up.

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Jayce

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For a while I just ignored the fact they didn't work, but lately I'm thinking it's just user error and I can't stand not being able to do something that I know should work.

So I busted out the manual for my motherboard and looked around at some things. Here I had accidently had the front USB ports (built into the case) plugged into the JDB1 section on my MSI K8N Neo4 motherboard. The JDB1 is for the four LED's that you sometimes get with a USB enabled PCI card... the four LED's are signal lights which light up when certain things go wrong or something of that nature.

Anyway, I had them plugged there by mistake. So I started looking, and my motherboard has three "ports" for USB. JUSB1, JUSB2, JUSB3. Well, my front USB's are definitely plugged into them and the front USB's just don't respond. The ones on the rear (built onto motherboard) do just fine though.

Did I fry the front USBs or cause any additional damage?
 
Uh I'll just tell you what I see here. I have 4 USB ports in the back, two in the front.

I see in Device Manager the following.



Universal Serial Bus controllers:

Standard Enhanced PCI to USB Host Controller
Standard OpenHCD USB Host Controller
USB Root Hub
USB Root Hub
 
Actually, it is connected correctly.

I found that they work, but they're incredibly sensitive. If I have something plugged in and put a little pressure on the USB cord, it tends to lose connection over anything. I sat here with it plugged in and the mp3 player wouldn't respond, every 5 seconds I'd move the cord a bit in the USB port and see if it responded. After a few times, it finally responded, but that response was quickly lost after I moved it yet again.

I'm just going to disconnect these, they're picky as **** and don't seem as "reliable" or "user friendly" (if you will) as the USB ports on the back of my tower.
 
Warez Monster said:
you could try a usb hub also if you really need it

I might get one just so I don't have to reach behind the tower to plug sh*t in all the time... I did that with my last PC, which now belongs to my brothers to mess around on.

But, it's weird. I mean if you plug stuff into the rear USB plugs, then into the front, you can tell the fronts are a bit looser. But even still, my last computer had two USB ports on the front, they were so loose I thought they'd fall out some day, but they never EVER lost connection... and ****, these USB ports on the front of this case lose connection even if you tap them!
 
Warez Monster said:
this dont make no sense

Well let's mix it up a bit more.

I just said the **** with the front USB ports and I'm just going to disconnect them and forget about them since I never had much of a need for them anyway.

Well, I stole the hub from the upstairs computer. I hooked it up to one of the USB ports on the back panel of the tower. I plugged my digital camera into each one, and each one responded just like it should.

Here's the tricky part.

When I plug in my mp3 player to the hub, I get a notification in the corner that says "This device can be faster, click here to see available ports." It shows me some unused ports that I should try plugging into or some sh*t. I don't know what it means. BUT... when I plug the mp3 player directly into a USB port in the back panel, the notification doesn't show up.

Does the notification only show up when I plug the mp3 player into the hub because, well wouldn't the hub act as a middle man? Perhaps having to transfer from mp3 player to hub to pc, it WOULD generally be a bit slower than mp3 player DIRECTLY to pc. Wouldn't it? Or would the hub make no difference?

p.s. - about my last problem with the front USB ports, I've just concluded that my cheap 16 dollar case just has crappy usb ports, because they're rather lose and none of my usb attachments stay connected too well. The usb ports on the back panel work 110% though, even if I move the plug around a bit.
 
i think that means your mp2 is usb 2 and it tells you to plug it into a usb 2 which will be faster but right now you have it in usb 1
 
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