Problems with the USB jacks disconnecting and reconnecting

Hi,
I am having problems with my Dell Inspiron 7537 laptop. over the last few years the USB's disconnect and reconnect at random. the touchpad cuts out and scrolling doesnt' work half the time, the card reader doesnt' work half the time. I of course have all the newest drivers and firmware.

Now in the last 5-6 days since around the 15th, whenever the screen goes off the USB disconnects and reconnects over and over for a minute and it does this about every 10 mins. I've been sick and couldn't even get good rest because of the computer making that disconnect reconnect sound over and over unless i mute the sound or shut it off. I can't figure out whats wrong. i even disconnected all the USB jacks and it still was doing it. i was getting error messages in the event viewer but not now. i had problems with some of the USB listings in Device manager but not now. But it still does the disconnect thing. At one point i had this message "Windows has detected a problem with Unknown USB Device (Link in Compliance Mode)." and this is the other "The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk2\DR2." I had lots more of these and with different numbers. I also have various other warnings and errors in Event Manager. Not sure if they're related. Do i have a motherboard problem or software problem? I tired to do a reset but that failed and i couldn't figure out how to fix it. system restore also failed. for some dumb reason with this computer everytime i need to so a system restore it always fails.

Check Control Panel, Power Options for settings you can change. Because of my needs I disable or set to Never many choices.

Caledon Ken said:

Hi chickadee28.

As you can identify the exact day this started and as it is the day after the updates were released I would start there. You said you had some errors in the Device Manager that are now gone. Another tip that drivers have been installed somewhere along the line, maybe even before the 15th. I don't update driver unless I have too. Not everyone agrees.

First I would head to your update history and see exactly what updates were installed. In particular I would be looking for drivers.

You also mentioned issues with touchpad and card reader. May or may not be related to all this.


Ken

The USB drivers were reinstalled several times because i uninstalled them in the device manager. This was after the more recent problem started. I got the problem in device manager sorted out but it's still doing the disconnect reconnect. I also reset the bios and power manager settings, I forgot to mention.

you may be drawing to much power on the USB devices. how many & what kind of devices do you have connected?

JLAF5150 said:

you may be drawing to much power on the USB devices. how many & what kind of devices do you have connected?

I bought a powered hub awhile back because of the random disconnects but that didn't fix the problem. I have 3 USB hard drives, the phone cable, wireless mouse, USB Blue Ray burner. I was told using a powered hub would eliminate power issues from the laptop. But i wonder if the mobo has issues, that no matter which port I plug into may still act up. I think I read before that this model of laptop and similar has USB problems sometimes. i was thinking of getting a new or refurbish mobo for this laptop because of this issue. And the recent problem seems to happen even when everything is unplugged. And i just tried to uninstall the windows update from the 15th but it doesn't give me the option.

check out this you may need to try installing USBDeview:



Find Out How Much Power USB Devices Need - gHacks Tech News

Caledon Ken said:

If I understood you correctly you get the connect / reconnect sound with all USB devices unplugged.

Personally I think you have an incorrect or "to advanced" driver.

Vendors also customize drivers for their devices and when we grab new drivers direct from adapter manufacturer it lacks these.

I would head to Dell and look for drivers for card reader and USB for Win 8.1 or Win 10.

You could also look at the driver properties for select devices and disable the power mgmt. @Berton also mentioned heading to Power Mgmt and disabling, setting to never, things you don't use like USB settings for suspend.


Ken

I looked at Dell and couldn't find the USB drivers and Windows says they're current. I have the newest card reader drivers already. I have some generic USB listings in device manager as well. Not sure if they're the external hub or the built in one's.

Ok so i experimented and it must be the desktop monitor. When i unhook the HDMI then the disconnects and reconnects stop. when i plug it back in it does it again. the drivers was updated via windows in feb so why it lasted this long is beyond me unless the newer win update screwed with it. when i moved the mouse to make the screen come back on i plugged the HDMI cable back in and I got a message i never seen before. i got a popup saying the USB got a surge and it shut off the port for the hub. i unplugged it and now plugged it back in and have power but i have this message in Device manager for one of the USB entries:

"Windows has stopped this device because it has reported problems. (Code 43)

A request for the USB device descriptor failed."

But why would there be a USB surge when plugging in the HDMI cable? a coincidence? Really makes me wonder if the motherboard is flakey. Is it possible given so many problems i'm having? I've had many of these problems all the way back to Win8 and through many reinstalls. the last install is on a fresh new hard drive.