ok, 2 weeks ago my sons computer, a emachines w3650, got a virus and he had avast clean it up. Upon reboot, it went into an endless boot cycle that I couldn't fix so I ended up do a undestructive repair/reinstall of the OS (Windows XP). We had some trouble getting sound after that, but did finally get that taken care of (turned off onboard sound in bios and run only with a dynex sound card). While trying to fix all of that, I didn't notice that none of the usb ports were working. There are 2 in front, connected to the mobo (esc945) with a cable (but I believe those have always had issues) and 2 separate sets of 2 in the back, which have always worked until recently. There were yellow "?" on all the usbs in device manager. Nothing plugged into these ports work. I ran DriverMax and tried to install the drivers from there, no go. I have turned off and on "USB 2 Support" in bios, no go. I have tried searching on the internet for drivers, which just takes me to the MS website to check for updates, but none are found. I have uninstalled the devices and rebooted, and while the computer finds the hardware, it gives me an error that the .inf file is missing, or may have been written for Win95 or later. I have tried to point to the divers on the WinXP install disk, no go. I went to the ESC site for mobo updates, none found. Ummm......what else? So tired of messing with it, went and bought USB PCI card, figured just go new. The card came with an install disk, so I pop it in, and run setup. Reboot. Hmmmm, lots of new hardware, none of which appear to be working in device manager. Nothing plugged into the new usbs work. Im at a loss. It seems there is something that is preventing the drivers from installing correctly, but Im not geek enough to know what it is. I did get updated to SP3 after the OS repair, I kinda wonder if that is it.
help please (bangs head on desk)