R51 usb acting screwey

[maro98]

Hi, I've got an R51 1830-BQU and the usb has been acting up for a while now. The problem is that instead of working in usb 2.0 mode, for some reason it is working in the slower usb 1.0 or 1.1 mode. When I plug a usb flash drive or a usb hard drive in, it displays the message in the taskbar about it being a high speed device and would work faster in a usb 2.0 port. The problem is that the usb ports ARE usb 2.0. They used to work fine and didn't start acting up until a few months back. Every now and then, on a fresh reboot, it will work at 2.0 speeds again until I either reboot or hibernate or something. Everything shows up how it's supposed to in Device Manager and the USB 2.0 Enhanced controller is in the list like it should.

I've bought two different brands of PCMCIA usb 2.0 cards and they both install correctly. When I plug a device into them it will show that it's found new hardware but seems to get stuck at some point so the drive never shows up, not even under Disk Management. I've asked around and I remember someone telling me that there was a problem with some of the T4X model thinkpads having their usb controller chip going bad because of some sort of short caused through the USB port from plugging and unplugging devices and it might be the same thing. I've searched but couldn't find anything on the subject unless I didn't go back far enough.

Any suggestions anyone? Do you think it could be the chip having gone bad like that person said? If so, I guess that means I need a new system board or do you think one of those services that replaces board components might work? Anyone got a board for an R51 for cheap? And of course, this all began about a month after it was out of warranty. I did have it sent in for warranty work a while back because of the dreaded ATI graphics chip coming loose and losing video. Unfortunately it looks like they used a refurbished board to fix it which I'm not very happy with.

Thanks for any help.

[andyP]

This thread has loads of info regarding the problem with T4* systems and USB and possible solutions that everyone tried / tested.

Why the PCMCIA usb cards aren't working seems to be another problem