damaged usb ports

cabbott

i have a fujitsu siemens which is about 4 years old which has given good service over the years and is in good working order, except for the loose usb ports. i have opened it up and soldered them a couple of times but a couple of the pins wouldnt solder to the board, the circuit must have pulled off the board, i was using a usb hub pluged into the best of the ports, and this worked for a week or so. im lost for a solution, any one got any sugestions. i need a usb for my o2 broadband.

CHW

Does your laptop have a PCMCIA slot? There are PCMCIA cards that add USB2.0 functionality, but there would need to be power coming from one of your old USB ports to power it, Idoubt the PCMCIA card will supply enough to power a USB modem (USB devices that have their own power source should work fine though).

eg. http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.15069

You could always hack the supplied power cable to connect directly inside your broken USB port to get the power out (solder it to the required points).

You could also get a USB cable, cut the male side off it, and solder it directly to the correct points inside the laptop, and connect your BB modem to that.

Or hack your modem to have it inside your laptop (will involve soldering again to your mainboard - several netbook hacks for this, but might not translate to your laptop.

Absolutely no other way of fixing your ports? I can't think of any other solution, sorry (you might be able to get a 3G router, and use a network cable to connect to it, and I've seen some routers that will work off a 12V car adaptor, but your heading towards less portability in that direction).

EDIT: If you do have a PCMCIA slot, there are also 3G PCMCIA cards available, but I've no idea how well they perform compared to the USB modems. Look here http://www.itreviews.co.uk/hardware/h592.htm or search google.

cabbott

thanks for that chw, i always wondered what that slot was for, i figured it was for wireless cards but i didnt know that it could be adapted to usbs. just been on the trusted ebay and picked myself up one. i still have power coming out of 2 of the 3 usbs so it should work for me. im using the other halfs new toshiba which i bought her for christmas at the mo.

Scruff

i think i might be having a fubared usb port problem too here if anyone can help me too

cabbott

got myself the card yesterday, and it has 4 usb ports, it doesnt even need power supplied to it from a usb but there is a lead to do so. i seem to have another problem since taking apart the computer the second time. i get a blue screen with white writing flash up the odd time, i dont get time to read it and then the computer goes dead and then starts up, i then get an error message saying the computer has recovered from a serious error.

CHW

You might be ok using one port, but may need the extra power if using 2 or more ports. May also depend on the particular device as well.

Is the laptop eventually booting up correctly? Did you install any drivers for the card? Did you try seeing if it would boot correctly with the PCMCIA card out?

You could try videoing the screen with a digital camera, and freezing the frame when the text appears on screen. May or may not be of help to know what it says.

Do you have any LiveCDs, like Knoppix or Ubuntu that you could try booting? - might help to eliminate any hardware problems.

cabbott

CHW wrote: »

You might be ok using one port, but may need the extra power if using 2 or more ports. May also depend on the particular device as well.

Is the laptop eventually booting up correctly? Did you install any drivers for the card? Did you try seeing if it would boot correctly with the PCMCIA card out?

You could try videoing the screen with a digital camera, and freezing the frame when the text appears on screen. May or may not be of help to know what it says.

Do you have any LiveCDs, like Knoppix or Ubuntu that you could try booting? - might help to eliminate any hardware problems.

thanks again for the help CHW. it seems to ok when i supply power to the card, but if i dont it might work for a few minutes then reboot. there is a cd for the card but it doesnt autorun, and is loaded with files.
i did think of the dv camera, but havnt done it.
it reboots ok, but says it has recovered from a serious error, and has rebooted ok with the card out but i only tried it once, ill see how it goes.
i dont have any of those live cds, nor have i even heard of them. ill work away for a few days with the power in, and see if it behaves itself.

Tony H

What model fujitsu siemens is it ,I have a fujitsu siemens Amilo L1310G with a working motherboard you can have if its compatable

cabbott

its an amilio pro v2000d not sure if there the same. thanks for the offer though.