Fried USB?

john bunsenburner · Sun Mar 15, 2009 3:18 pm

Well, today i connected a electric motor to a USB post of mine, electrcity went fine but now the mouse which also goes into a USB port(all of them have the same prob) doesnt work. It is a laser mouse and the light lights up, but nothing moves when it is moved, I am using the touch pad for now but it gets annoying when you need to click alot, any way, I would like to get things up and running again, maybe someone can help.

TurboSuper · Sun Mar 15, 2009 4:12 pm

Did the motor have any sort of back-emf protection (a diode in antiparallel does this)?

(May not make much of a difference in this case, but you never know.)

Does the port work with any other devices?

jonnyboy · Sun Mar 15, 2009 5:12 pm

Some new computers will shut off the port if you do something like that. Usually you can turn it back on from the computer. If it is a windows computer it appears in the bottom right corner by the time.

VH_man · Sun Mar 15, 2009 5:33 pm

Always make sure that you put an anti-parallel Diode with your motors. The 5v regulated supply from a USB port is very delicate. You did have it running off of the OUTER two contacts, Correct?

Id say that if the lights are lighting up then the power supply portion is NOT the problem.

john bunsenburner · Mon Mar 16, 2009 10:46 am

Well, harm is done already...Obviously the power is runnign very well as my laser mouse lights up normally. Anyway what can I do to fix the problem?

psycix · Mon Mar 16, 2009 12:57 pm

When shorting out the USB, shutting the system down and taking the power off for 30 seconds may work. But if not, then you may want to look into windows hardware settings (device manager, access by right clicking my pc -> properties -> hardware ->device manager)
Or you should look into the bios.

john bunsenburner · Mon Mar 16, 2009 1:13 pm

So what exactly happened to my PC?

Pilgrimman · Mon Mar 16, 2009 1:47 pm

It might just be your USB mouse... I had the same thing happen to my mouse, but I didn't do anything to my USB port out of the ordinary... Don't eliminate the possibility that the mouse is screwed up.

psycix · Mon Mar 16, 2009 2:23 pm

john bunsenburner wrote:So what exactly happened to my PC?

Possibilities:
-You fried your mobo and the USB will never work again.
-The safety feature kicked in and the USB is turned off.
-Your mouse is broken.

EDIT:
So your mouse does light up but doesnt give response? Then at least the USB port gives power so it is not screwed up, nor turned off. Its probably your mouse.

starman · Mon Mar 16, 2009 2:49 pm

There's a decent chance the USB is indeed fried...it really depends on the mobo design and make. You could have blown a trace on the motherboard which, if you can find, you might be able to repair. Chances are though, you have toasted the chipset driver.

Your best options are to get a USB add-in PCI card or replace the mobo.

.....and hopefully we have learned our lesson with non-dioded motors and coils?...yes? Also, the current draw limit on a USB port is 500 milliamps.

john bunsenburner · Mon Mar 16, 2009 4:49 pm

Well both the mice i tried dont work so its not the mouse, nor did I totally kill the port as I can get electricity from it, two causes eliminated, WCS is i use the touch pad till I get a new PC and give this one to my bro...

frankrede · Mon Mar 16, 2009 5:17 pm

I have had a similar problem! I don't know what caused it and I didn't do anything funny to my usb.
To this day it doesn't work.

daxspudder · Mon Mar 16, 2009 6:28 pm

psycix wrote:When shorting out the USB, shutting the system down and taking the power off for 30 seconds may work. But if not, then you may want to look into windows hardware settings (device manager, access by right clicking my pc -> properties -> hardware ->device manager)
Or you should look into the bios.

close... USB ports use drivers to process data through your CPU, when you ran a electric motor, which is essentially a solid state device that preforms a mechanical function, you fed a constant positive through your USB ground which your drivers didnt recognize since there was no correlated programing to tell it otherwise, which then caused your drivers to "shit-the-bed" as we say in the navy... to fix it, use START>CONTROL PANEL(CLASSIC VIEW)>ADD HARDWARE which opens the add hardware wizard, keep your device pluged in, RUN WIZARD>click that it is currently plugged in > NEXT>find the device driver in the list that is populated, should say USB mouse DLL. or USB memstckdll, etc select in and continue LOGICALLY through the wizard... YW

Hotwired · Mon Mar 16, 2009 9:04 pm

Hmm.

I ran a hacked plasma ball circuit off one of my computer USB ports the other day. A warning popped up that the power drain of the port was being exceeded and if I didn't acknowledge the notice and sort it then the OS would deactivate the port itself.

I've got a few "dumb" USB devices which include fans and lights so just having a motor connected wouldn't kill the port. Perhaps it was drawing too much power.

TurboSuper · Mon Mar 16, 2009 9:21 pm

Well, either way, the best place to start would be to have a looksee at the USB root hubs in Device Manager.

Another crazy idea would be to boot into a Linux distro and try it there. This would clear up the hardware/software dilemma.

A small PMDC motor running shouldn't kill the port, but a motor starting is a different story...

Fried USB?

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