USB Issues with T41

[pcan]

USB ports are not working at all (spuratically I can get them to work for a few hours). When I plug an external Hard Drive in to the usb port, 9 times out of 10 the whole system will freeze. I have updated with windos XP Pro SP2, and the lenovo update software to get the latest drivers and bios. Still nothing is fixing this problem.

In addition to the USB, the wireless keeps cutting out and does not hold onto signal despite strong signal strength.

The laptop is a T41...just over three years old (literally December was the 3 year mark).

Any suggestions on what I can do to fix it.

[agarza]

Welcome here. All I can think which is most logical is your planar board has gone nuts and should need to be replaced. Are you still under warranty (guess not)

[coreman]

While it does sound a hardware proble with the USB, I'm not so sure with the wireless problem. I experienced the exact same problem after I upgraded to SP2 and documented it here. I'll save you the trouble of reading the entire thing...go to the last post (by me) and that fix is still working perfectly for me today. I would suggest you try it while you sort out the USB problem...I should add that while the SP2 upgrade caused me some nuisance problems, I had funny things happening "off/on" with drivers before I upgraded to SP2 so I think it is the "nature of the beast" for XP and T41s...