Early 2011 Macbook Pro USB and ODD issues

Hey everyone. I'm primarily a PC guy with some Linux experience, but I recently came across an early 2011 Macbook Pro 13" (A1278) for next to nothing. A bit of background, I was working at an Apple and PC repair shop until recently, which is the place that diagnosed this machine as having a bad logic board, but I couldn't resist seeing if they were wrong and making some cash off this machine.

I've been messing around with it for a few hours to see what parts I need to order (if any) and have run across a few issues and no real answers, so what do you think?

I'm not at work today so I'm limited in tools and parts, but this is what is going on... The laptop doesn't recognize a USB stick formatted with Ubuntu install files or a Windows install disc DVD. I have swapped the ODD for a known working one... same issue. It only recognizes the SATA hard drive, which is a spare with Win 7 on it. Strangely enough, the MBP booted from the HDD (which had Windows 7 installed on it) before it blue screened (of course)... Not due to memory as I've installed known working modules also. I reset PRAM / NVRAM, same problem. USB and ODD do not show up in Startup Manager. If I hold C at power on, the ODD spins up for a minute before attempted to boot from the hard drive.

So I was trying to figure out if this is a hardware or firmware issue... I installed the hard drive in my laptop, and installed Ubuntu 12.04 on it. Slapped the drive back in the MBP and it booted fine after resetting video settings. Now it's running Ubuntu just fine, and it recognizes both the optical drive and flash drive without issues!!

Is this a hardware or firmware/software issue? Any ideas?

 

hardware

the early 2011 13 have this problem that the usb ports will stop functioning, the only solution is to change the mobo. It comes and goes btw

I had to change my mobo 2x

 

X2 , I have had to have numerous boards replaced in that model.