Thinkpads Forum

I dropped my laptop with my wireless key in the usb port...Now the usb won't work. What now?

Open it up, and see what part has broken. You might be able to resolder it.
If yours is a T2x or T30, you might get away with replacing the I/O card. Don't know if T4x/T6x have a separate I/O card as well.

its a t21

Firstly, you have to be happy that your laptop works Going ahead, I agree that you have to look inside.

My girlfriend broke usb port in similar way. But the second one was still working. She brought new laptop, so i get her old one with non-working usb port and wanted to fix it up. I get simple 4 port usb hub. Removed plastic covers and i mounted this into laptop. I connect this with working one port inside. From that time her laptop has 4 usb ports It was same time ago and she dont have this laptop now. It a shame that I dont get any pictures. It was very orginall construction and hand-made

If you are fairly handy with a screwdriver, download a copy of the T2x Hardware Maintenance Manual. The unfortunate part in all of this is that you have to remove almost everything to get at the I/O (aka Sub) board. It's possible that all that is wrong with it is the connection of the motherboard to the I/O board, but if the USB is the ONLY thing that is not working on the rear ports, then it's more likely that the USB socket has broken away from the board. You can usually find a replacement I/O board (FRU 26P8023 or 08K3373) on eBay. In fact, at the moment there's this one:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 0113170874

Thanks Guys...I'll look into it