USB stopped working

Hi all.... I have suddenly had a problem with my usb ports... I have a Gravis gamepad I use to play Mechwarrior4...everything was working fine until about a week ago...Whenever I join a multiplayer game, my gamepad starts out working fine, and then it just uninstalls itself and I have no controls. the only way to get it back is to restart the pc and let windows redetect it... sometimes I will be in a game for upwards of ten minutes before I lose the controls, or sometimes it goes as soon as the game starts.. this happens in either of my 2 usb ports...

some people I have talked to said it may be an IRQ conflict, while a few others have said its the VIA chipset on my motherboard.. I have an Asus A7V266-E/AA mobo.. when I look in system information under hardware resources/ conflicts and sharing it shows that my usb ports, which are IRQ 9, are being shared with " ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering "... for that matter all of my IRQs listed are shared with this ACPI function..

So if anyone has ideas, they are appreciated...this is the first stop for my postings, as I will be hitting other forums to find, hopefully, a general concensus that hopefully will lead to the correction of this problem.

Thanks again

 

Oh and also, if someone can tell me what that "ACPI" function is, does, and if its necessary to be on, I would appreciate it...I've never noticed this before and didnt know its sharing on all my IRQ's

Thanks Again

 

You've gotten some good guidance - this is most likely an IRQ conflict problem caused by whatever is sharing the IRQ with your USB ports, however, if you are running a via chipset and Win98se, there is a special USB filter patch (think its uSBF108.exe) that may be of some help. You can also update your 4 in 1 drivers and if all else fails, move whatever device is sharing the IRQ to another PCI slot if possible, boot up normally, then reboot into safe mode and remove the duplicate devices that just got reinstalled, power down and then let windows reinstall just one on your next normal boot.

 

VIA chipsets and USB just do not work. Have had disconnection problems with all my USB devices and the crunch came when I connected my UB ADSL Modem.

I could not stay connected to the Internet for more than a few minutes. Foolishly followed some bad advice and bought a powered HUB which did not improve matters.

Finally, forked out on a Belkin USB 2 5 Port PCI Card and have not looked back. Rock steady connection on all devices, a huge jump in performance and an always on connection to the Internet.