USB Device not recognised

Omeceron

This message has started to appear intermittantly over the past week. Sometimes it will appear every few seconds and other times every few minutes and then not at all for a few hours.

It doesnt matter whether or not I have a USB device connected. It may or may not pick up a portable harddrive or USB key when I do try to connect them.

It has happened before but always disappeared after a few days. Ive tried disconnecting USB ports, updating drivers, running scans etc. but nothing fixes it.

It wont pick up my iPhone or iPad. Each time it has started to occur my iPhone was connected. My computer will charge the iPhone but wont recognise in My Computer or Itunes. It is an Inspiron 1545 running Windows 7.



Any help would be appreciated.

red menace

Maybe a dodgy USB port
Try disabling them in turn in Device manager.

What it could also be is a damaged USB cable
Check your USB cables for any sign of fraying or damage

From what you are saying about the iPhone/Ipad it could well be a dodgy USB cable, have you another one you could try?

Omeceron

Thanks for the reply. I've tried disabling all ports but it keeps occurring even if I leave them active separately.

iPad and iPhone won't work in any port.

Also tried 2 different cables but they are both old so I'll borrow a 3rd one and try that.

The message does appear when all ports are empty though.

red menace

Any errors showing up in Event Viewer mentioning drivers\usb?
Have you tried connecting some known good USB device to see if they work Mouse/keyboard or the like?

yoyo

Reinstall chipset drivers, see if that helps. Windowsd update can sometimes pull drivers that don't work well with the system, its rare but it happens, you can find chipset drivers on the manufacturers website, its probably Intel

Nick

Omeceron

red menace wrote: »

From what you are saying about the iPhone/Ipad it could well be a dodgy USB cable, have you another one you could try?

I've tried 4 different cables, all the same. My iPhone will appear on other computers.

red menace wrote: »

Any errors showing up in Event Viewer mentioning drivers\usb?
Have you tried connecting some known good USB device to see if they work Mouse/keyboard or the like?

I can't find anything in the Event Viewer but I'm not really familiar with it. I can connect a harddrive and USB web cam. Sometimes they work and sometimes they dont.

yoyo wrote: »

Reinstall chipset drivers, see if that helps. Windowsd update can sometimes pull drivers that don't work well with the system, its rare but it happens, you can find chipset drivers on the manufacturers website, its probably Intel

Nick

I've reinstalled the chipset drivers but it hasn't worked.

red menace

Does the message appear even when nothing is plugged into the USB ports?

Omeceron

red menace wrote: »

Does the message appear even when nothing is plugged into the USB ports?

Yes, repeats constantly every few seconds, or every few minutes. Varies sometimes.

Hijpo

Have you been using the "Safely remove" tray icon when removing usb devices??

Just hazarding a guess, maybe its confused the PnP side of things for your USB ports

Omeceron

Hijpo wrote: »

Have you been using the "Safely remove" tray icon when removing usb devices??

Just hazarding a guess, maybe its confused the PnP side of things for your USB ports

Wouldnt use it all the time.

Hijpo

Omeceron wrote: »

Hijpo wrote: »

Have you been using the "Safely remove" tray icon when removing usb devices??

Just hazarding a guess, maybe its confused the PnP side of things for your USB ports

Wouldnt use it all the time.

how many ports do you have and does the connection drop on all of them when your using them individualy? I know you said it happens even when theres nothing plugged in but it might still be just the one dodgy port.

Omeceron

Hijpo wrote: »

how many ports do you have and does the connection drop on all of them when your using them individualy? I know you said it happens even when theres nothing plugged in but it might still be just the one dodgy port.

I have 3 ports. Portable harddrives will connect and work away fine. The message will constantly appear. The harddrive will sometimes drop out and may or may not reconnect until the next time I restart. The message can appear and not affect the harddrive at all. This can happen for all 3 ports.

IPhone and iPad wont connect on any of the 3 ports.

If I turn off the ports and turn them back on it loads the drivers for USB harddrive, USB Camera etc without any problems. The drivers for the iPhone and iPad fail.

Hijpo

What if you tried un installing any of the iPodadone software and reinstalling it? Could me some driver/sync function/i dont know related to the apple software that could be causing it.

Omeceron

Hijpo wrote: »

What if you tried un installing any of the iPodadone software and reinstalling it? Could me some driver/sync function/i dont know related to the apple software that could be causing it.

Ive uninstalled itunes and everything apple related and no change. I then uninstalled all USB ports. When I restarted the computer the ports reinstalled. I connected my iphone and got these 2 messages.





Same for both iPhone and iPad and in different ports. Other devices are fine. Seems to be the iPhone and iPad drivers. They do get recognised on other computers though. Any ideas?

Hijpo

I would uninstall the Software and USB drivers again and reboot, let the USB drivers install and leave it for a day or so just to see if you still get the Unknown Device popups to varify that it is actually the Apple drivers causing the issue. Im wondering if it has to do with system updates on the iPhone and iPad, could be that a new software update for those two devices include drivers for Win7??
totally guessing there

Hal Emmerich

They're on the way out, my old computer USBs did the same thing for over a year before they stopped working one by one.

Omeceron

Hijpo wrote: »

I would uninstall the Software and USB drivers again and reboot, let the USB drivers install and leave it for a day or so just to see if you still get the Unknown Device popups to varify that it is actually the Apple drivers causing the issue. Im wondering if it has to do with system updates on the iPhone and iPad, could be that a new software update for those two devices include drivers for Win7??
totally guessing there

I tried this, they both initially failed to install the drivers. I left them connected and they suddenly appeared in "Computer" and Itunes. The message is not reappearing.

It seems to be working fine for now.

Thanks for the help.