USB stands for Universal Serial Device, and is a common interface connection which allows you to connect devices to expand onto your system.

Common devices include, expansion devices, external hard drives, video cameras, media devices, printers and scanners etc.

There are different types of USB connections and different speeds which will be determined by the type of device you use, the type of cable and the computers physical components as to what speeds you can transfer.

Most USB connectors are physically built into the motherboards of computers and laptops.

However, if you need more USB’s you can always by expansion hubs which work like double or quadruple adapters on your wall power outlet.

Like most computer components there can and will eventually be problems with your USB not connecting or working indeterminately.

This post endeavors to explain these problem and what you can do to fix them.

Establish If all Devices or Just one Particular

First and foremost is to establish if you have a problem with your computer or the one particular device you are plugin into your computer.

The easy way to do this is to plug a different USB device into exactly the same USB port you are having problems with.

If it still doesn’t work, then plug the new device into another USB port and see if the same thing happens. This will determine if you have a USB port problems, or all your USB s are laying up.

External Hard Drives

The majority of devices which get plugged into a computer and the USB devices we see the most are external hard drives.

External Hard Drives are very sensitives. Hard drives to not like to be picked up and moved around and unfortunately that is the very nature of external hard drives so we see a lot of them fail.

If your external hard drive is not working in your computer, you should do as described above.  Try different ports and different devices.

If you hard drive is recognised by the computer and makes a connection sound when you connect it, but you cant access your data you could have a problem with the drive.

Be very careful with external hard drives as it doesn’t take much to loose your data. If any problems with your external hard drive, call Townsville Nerds straight away for a 100% free diagnosis and quote.

Driver Problems

Drivers are little bits of computer code which make your physical devices talk to your computer, you and your operating system.

Every physical component in your computer has its very own device driver.

Sometimes these device drivers don’t work properly, become corrupt or deleted.

You can reinstall your device driver in device manager. If you do not have it on disk, or your computer can not automatically find it, you can probably download it from your manufactures website for that particular device.

Be careful not to delete the wrong device drivers though, as you might experience system instability or the ability to use and boot up your computer. So only do this if you have experience.

Physical Failure

If you are having problems with your USB connecting to your computer it could just be physical failure.

Whether it is failure to your USB device or to your computers motherboard or USB devices, things just get old and fail on all electronic equipment.

Somethings can be replaces, others repaired. If your equipment is too old it can be impossible or expensive to get parts to replace.

If you have any questions please contact Ross at Townsville Nerds on 0402 807 890 for a completely free diagnosis and quote.