Vaio Z no USB ports working

I was getting ready to install Ubuntu, did a partition resize, rebooted no problems. Went to insert the USB flash drive and received a "USB Power Surge" message. I'm assuming the drive was damaged, so disconnected it. Tried again, nothing. Both ports are completely dead, no power, nothing.

Tried reinstalling drivers, no luck. Tried deleting all USB ports in Device Manager and letting Windows reinstall, same thing.

Device Manager shows the following:



Intel USB eXtensible Host Controller cannot load, error is: This device cannot start. (Code 10).

Starting to think I fried something, although I surely hope not! Any ideas or suggestions would be very welcome.

 

Windows 8? Most likely just those sucky MS drivers... If you want to install Intel ones, you need to enable 'testing mode' for they are custom drivers without digital signature... Just download the Windows 7 drivers for the Intel USB3 eXtensible Host Controller and modify the .inf files to add Windows 8 operating system. The drivers will install and perform MUCH better than the stock MS ones... I'd give it a shot if I were you...

 

Windows 7. I am out of things to try. been at it for about 3 hours.

 

Try restoring your windows registry to a previous backup if you have one... This error is most likely software related, as with the USB technology, even if the pins of the contact are damages or the power-wire is fried, you don't have this MS error-code displaying in your device manager. Most likely cause of error is a faulty windows registry (and due to MS incompetency, these errors sometimes even persists after device uninstall(+) driver and consequent reinstall... So, do a registry restore from backup. If you don't have a registry backup, doing a system restore (after backup of important files) will restore the registry also. Another option is the 'Last working configuration' start-up option. Just hit F8 when POST ends the BIOS-phase and you'll see the Windows advanced start-up options. There's one there called 'last working configuratioon' or sumethin' to that effetct on English-language Windows OS. Good luck...

 

I am certain it's in the registry. If I boot to safe mode I can get one port to work. Unfortunately never noticed that windows recovery was turned off, so no registry backup. I did a full backup before the holiday weekend, so that's at least one positive.

 

So this is a fascinating waste of time. It's not the registry. I did a complete factory restore and still the ports didnt work.

What's really interesting is that if I enable 'boot from external device' I can actually boot from the USB port next to the HDMI port. The other one remains dead. Now I find that if I disable xHCI in BIOS that port works in Windows, although the other one is still dead.

What are the odds of a problem in the BIOS? This is a real stumper!

I called Sony, they suggested to restore to factory default and since that didn't work, ship it back. Being without a work laptop for 10 days is not good.

 

You are facing hardware problem, not driver issues.
"USB Power Surge" says it all even though I don't want to jump in at first to tell you that you are in dead end.

 

Problems fixed. Both ports now functional. It was a combination of the BIOS and a physical issue with the other port simply not making a good physical connection with the Flash drive.

 

Good news!