Problematic USB port (Now ports)

[diony]

This is really odd, the comp that I built two weeks ago (thanks to BG for help in choosing parts!) has been working flawlessly until now. This case has 6 USB ports in the back and two in the front. I plugged my flash drive into one of the front USB ports and the monitor said "No video signal", and my computers memory LED's sloooooooooowed down, so I was forced to reboot. I later plugged in my flash drive into that same port again, and as soon as the metal contacted, the computer did it again. But, if I plug it into the other port, it works fine. This has only happened today... the USB port was working fine until then.

Any suggestions?

--Edit, now the OTHER front port is doing this too, if my back ports end up kicking the can....

[Cephius]

Did you check the USB headers on the mobo to make sure everything is seated correctly? You may have plugged on into the wrong place which might cause everything to act funny. Open it up and reseat everything and see if it still does it.

[Killgannon]

sounds like a short somewhere... make sure your motherboard isnt touching the case anywhere directly.... otherwise wtf did you do to your puter o.O

or see post above... i thought that too, but sounds more like a short really

[Cephius]

sounds like a short somewhere... make sure your motherboard isnt touching the case anywhere directly.... otherwise wtf did you do to your puter o.O

or see post above... i thought that too, but sounds more like a short really

I was thinking this too.. but if you short out a mobo usually you end up with a $200 piece of garbage. If you managed to short it but everything works except the USB ports... consider yourself very lucky!

[Furtwangler]

My computer had a similar but worse problem, 1 of the 4 on the back whenever something is plugged into it makes the computer turn off instantly, and one in the front doesn't work, also the ethernet jack is severely gimped (made me get like 1.2kb/s on a cable connection, while wireless etc works fine.

I never found out the problem though :/ never got around to flashing the bios (only other thing I had left to try) and I have a laptop now anyways so

[diony]

The problem is this only started happening yesterday, and the computer is still on and functioning afterwards.... I'm gonna stay away from the front USB ports for a while, guess in lucky I didn't ruin the motherboard.

[mootsfox]

Please tell me you connected the case USB ports to a USB header on your motherboard, and not a Firewire header.

[diony]

My board doesn't even have a firewire header, it's plugged into a header called "USB 1". The ports have worked perfectly well for 3 weeks

[mootsfox]

My board doesn't even have a firewire header, it's plugged into a header called "USB 1". The ports have worked perfectly well for 3 weeks

Does the flash drive work on any other computer?

Do the USB ports in question work with other things?

[diony]

Yes, the flash drive works on other computers, and oddly enough the front ports are now functioning fine, just tested them with the same flash drive, and with my PS2 controller.

Don't understand how one port shorted while the other one functioned fine, then the situation reverses, now their both fine... I'm gonna stay away from the front ports anyway, the back ports have never given me any trouble.

(I considered maybe static electricity from my body, but the part of the drive that I touch is plastic, so that can't be it).

[mootsfox]

Static charge can easily build up in plastics.

It's possible that the contacts are a bit off, or the flash drive is or they both are, so with that drive, and that port, and maybe a slight wiggle, it shorts the contacts out.

[diony]

Still odd that it has only happened on this specific computer and no other, but it's no biggie, thanks for the help!