usb devices suddenly not working

I am suddenly having some troubles with usb devices. All of a sudden my usb wireless card just stopped working and none of my computers even notice it when its plugged in your not. Now I transfered some files on to a flash drive to transfer between files and all of a sudden now neither computer will recognize the flash drive. Is this some kind of virus or what? Any ideas ?

 

It sounds like one of your PCs USB ports is messed up, probably damaging any device you plug into it.

 

how can something like this just happen? i mean the computer isnt even 3 months old. how do I know which port it is without damaging anything else?

my bluetooth usb dongle is now added to the list of devices that are now broken. anyway to fix any of these broken things?

Would the culprit be more likely a usb port on the pc or the external usb hub that I have?

 

Could be either the hub or the notebook. One of them has some pins going crazy and burning out your equipment. If it were me I'd take the hub apart and see if it's pumping out too much juice. If all the ports are fine I'd assume it's the notebook and send it out to be fixed under the warranty.

Does the hub draw its power from the wall or the notebook? If it draws it from the wall I'd say it's more likely the hub... If from the notebook I'd guess more likely the notebook.

I can't think of any way to check for sure other than using a meter.

 

the hub draws power from the wall. The pc in quesiton is a desktop that I built in June. I think it must be the hub as I havent used it in a really long time and all of sudden everything breaks the first day I use it.

 

Yeah I'd say that gives us the answer. Either throw out the hub or give it to someone you don't like haha.

 

I stopped buying devices like that. I bought a Maxtor Free Agent drive from Office Depot. It blew out two USB ports on two separate computers before I realized it was the Maxtor drive causing the damage.

From now on I only buy USB products that don't require separate power.