Enhanced USB port not working correctly

All 6 USB ports on my ASUS P4S800 motherboard are USB 2.0 capable.
Just yesterday my portable USB 2.0 Hard Drive worked just fine on thie system. Plug it in and go. Just sat down and tried it and I get USB Device Not Recognized. I must have tried it 15 times - same thing. I tried another 2.0 device, same thing. I tried a 1.1 device and it worked! I disable the enhanced port and just allowed the ports to run 1.1 and every device worked.
Now here's the weird part...
I went to device manager and diabled enhanced.
Pluged in my device and it worked.
Re-enable enhanced and tried again, device not recognized.
Disbaled port with device pluged in and the device worked.

How do I get my 2.0 capability back?

 

Well, I'm not really sure what's going on here but since it worked yesterday, how about trying system restore?

 

System restore or go to your motherboard manufacturer and get the latest drivers.

 

I did better than system restore, I went back to a Norton Ghost disk image saved 2 months prior. Still no luck.
I tried ASUS website and no drivers for USB are to be found. I guess it relies on XP SP1 (or 2?) drivers. (I have SP2 installed when it worked and before it stopped)
I did carry the device to another 2.0 computer and it worked fine.
Any ideas on possibly deleting any saved information of which device actually plugged in and then try again? I know it's more than right click in device manage or system props and remove and having computer 'refind' the ports. Isn't it somewhere stored in registry the device ids that are on a system. (You know how on first install it'll say "found toshiba hard drive" and then second and later times plugging in it just "works" and doesn't find device again.

 

If they were working when you made the ghost image, and they do not work when you restore to it, this means that either they have become disabled in the bios or they are damaged.
So the next thing for you to do is to boot to bios setup and make sure they are enabled as USB2.0 (Enhanced) in the bios.
If that is true, then you either have damage to the motherboard or insufficient power .

 

How would I have lost power? What's odd if you didn't read it above is that they work in 1.1 mode. (Is MORE power required for 2.0?) I'm finding it uneasy to except they went bad if they work in one mode vs the other. Maybe I'm wrong?

 

Yes, USB2 does need more power.

Have you tried all the sets of USB ports? Some (and it varies depending on how the main board is designed) seem to have a more robust supply of power.

 

Yes, I have tried all 5 ports. There are two on the fron two on top of another and one beside it on the back. Maybe if I disable a set it'll push more power to the others? Still, how could I have 'lost' power? No surges or power outages to speak of to 'shock' the mainboard...

Message edit -

I tried disabling all but the port I'm using - that didn't work either.

I hope the following behavior sheds some hints on the problem. I'll restate what I said above in the first message...

If I plug it in with enhance port enabled it kicks back device not recognized.
If, while keeping it pluged in I go to System Props and disable enhanced port, the device kicks in and dipsplays the contents (it a hard drive). If in the same breath I go back and enable the enchanced again it goes back to not recognized and drive dissapears.

Still think it's mainboard failure related?

 

Things would seem to point in that direction. If you restored your computer using a ghost image file from when things were working, this would seem to eliminate the possibility of a software problem. Have you checked in your bios to see if things are set correctly in there? You might try removing the ports in device manager, reboot and let it re-install them to see what happens but I wouldn't bet on the results being any different. Might be worth a try though. I was going to ask about recent windows updates or any other types of updates but those possibilities would be eliminated too if you used a ghost image from when the ports worked, so......... Hang on a bit. Maybe somebody will come up with something but because you restored things using the old image file, it would sure seem to me that it's something other than software.

 

It does seem to be a BIOS or hardware/controller problem.

Maybe...open the case and reseat all the USB connectors.

Check the BIOS settings. I have seen three or more settings for USB in the BIOS, so you may want to browse through the motherboard manual first.

Unlikely, but maybe the CMOS battery is running low and cannot hold the settings (reverting to USB 2.0 disabled).

If you cannot get the USB 2.0 to run, a USB PCI card and hub should alleviate the need for a new motherboard.

Matt

 

I'm pretty sure BIOS is correct as there's only one setting.

How can I force the reinstallation of drivers? Everytime I delete and reboot it already knows where the drivers are etc. (by design) I'd like the option to point it to particular ones so I KNOW I'm reloading them not just possibly reusing corrupt ones.

I tried the utility that came with the motherboard and all it does is say they're already installed via SP1 then craps out...doesn't give the option to redo.