Thinkpads Forum

Hi all,

I have a brand new T410 (yes, new!) that is doing something perplexing. On one of the USB ports on the left side it refuses to recognize certain USB flash drives. Other flash drives work perfectly and some other USB devices I tried worked as well in that port. The same flash drives that don't work in that specific port work in others.

This is OS independent and it doesn't appear the BIOS is recognizing these flash drives. They are two Kingston and one PNY drives if that matters. Other Sandisk and Corsair ones seem to be working fine in the same port. The offending drives work in other machines as well.

Is this a motherboard failure? The machine is still under warranty but I'd hate to send a brand new machine to Easyserv as I've known them to scratch machines.

Any ideas of what could be causing this?

Being a T410, I'm guessing it has Win7 installed, but if not, what OS is installed? Is it 32 or 64 bit?

Also, I'm assuming the flash drive does not show up in My Computer. When this happens, have you looked in Disk Management for the device perhaps with a blank Volume Name.

If you search the internet for 'USB flash drive not recognized' you'll find many such issues discussed.

Good point made here by nikki605: If you want anything solved then please say exactly what Operating System you are using and any other relevant facts.

Windows 7 64bit or 32 bit. On one port the drive will be recognized but then disconnect then connect again repeatedly. On the other it is not recognized at all. On the other ports it works fine.

Sounds like a power issue.

T410 has 4 USB ports on the chassis. Can you say exactly which port(s) work fine and which have the problem?

The two bottom ports on the left side of the machine. The one top port works fine as does the right side "always powered" port.

Sorry for the delayed reply,

The T410 USB ports are split between two controllers - device IDs 3B34 and 3B3C. The left bottom ports go to 3B3C, while the top left and right ports go to 3B34. This explains why the different behavior among the ports.

It looks like either the 3B3C controller has a power problem and cannot provide sufficient power to some devices (others may require less power), or has problems working in USB2.0 mode. Unfortunately in either case it seems a motherboard issue.

The Bluetooth and docking station connector also go to 3B3C. Do you have your machine docked? If so, is anything connected to the dock? Is Bluetooth enabled?