USB devices not working, PC, Windows 8.1

September 19, 2014 7:38 PM

My USB mouse (often) and keyboard (sometimes) are not working on my Lenovo all-in-one running Windows 8.1. This makes Internetting hard.

My USB mouse and keyboard have had major problems being recognized by my PC for 3-4 weeks. Device Manager shows them as working correctly with current drivers. BUT, mostly mouse and sometimes keyboard will stop responding altogether. Note this Windows PC is not a touchscreen device, so this is very problematic.

I've Googled, and here are the steps I've taken so far (not necessarily in this order because I got so frustrated without a mouse and a keyboard, and being able to ask you folks) without resolving this.

Swapped out mouse (3 different ones) and keyboard (2) Obvious, but thought I should mention it.

Reverted the OS to a point before the problems started and turned off Windows updates.

Unplug PC to drain motherboard battery.

Switch from front USB ports to back and then front again.

Edited BIOS to change USB ports from 4.0 to 3.0.

Turned off Fast Start option in Windows 8.1.

I'm sure I'm forgetting things.

Mouse has been the first one to give out, then keyboard IF it also does. Mouse might give me traction for five minutes, or 24 hours.

Summary: I've done a lot of the things that Googling says will fix the USB Device Not Recognized problem to no avail. I have no reason to suspect all of the USB ports are bad, nor all of the devices I've tried.

I have not updated the motherboard drivers because the machine is just 10 months old and because I'm lazy.

Next steps? Please help me fix this bugger -- I'm at least 45 hours in working on this, and I really need this machine working. Ask anything, just please know I may be able to read but not respond quickly.

posted by vers to Computers & Internet (8 answers total)

Next steps?

This :

I have not updated the motherboard drivers because the machine is just 10 months old and because I'm lazy.

This could be down the chipset drivers, which on some has the USB controller built into it.

Couldn't hurt, anyway.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 7:55 PM on September 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

I've had this problem repeatedly with multiple different newer computers.

You know what it was every time? Shitty usb 3.0 drivers. I remember dealing with the same damn thing in the early 2000s with shitty usb 2.0 drivers before all the bugs got ironed out. I was actually just screwing with this same damn problem today at work(on a lenovo too, heh).

Update the motherboard/chipset drivers, and the USB drivers if there's separate ones, in that order. If it's intel chipset/USB stuff go get the newest ones directly from intels site.

I've had similar problems on 3 machines recently i can think of off the top of my head, and much more in the past few months. I've never made it further into the troubleshooting tree than just updating those drivers.
posted by emptythought at 8:45 PM on September 19, 2014

USB 3 drivers. It's a must. Dealing with this at work on a regular basis
posted by deezil at 9:24 PM on September 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thank you. And it's ridiculous, but I've reached the end of both my fix-it knowledge and my patience. I know this sounds completely clueless, but there's so much spammy crap in search results for this. A little more help if you don't mind? What's the best way to update the drivers I need?

The chipset driver available from Lenovo support is from 2012... this machine is from 2013, and there's no USB driver there for Windows 8.1 64 bit, only 8.
posted by vers at 6:41 AM on September 20, 2014

Response by poster: Intel Driver Update Utility finds only one driver on this machine with an available newer version, and it's the graphics driver.
posted by vers at 6:55 AM on September 20, 2014 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Please.

I went ahead with the graphic driver update, restarted, used the machine a while and the mouse is frozen again. If someone could please walk me through updating USB 3.0 drivers when it looks like this PC has the current versions like I'm 5, I'd be very grateful.

And if that's not the problem?
posted by vers at 6:44 PM on September 20, 2014

Windows 8 drivers work for 8.1. What brand/manufacturer does it list for the chipset and USB? Go directly to their site, or intel.com and search for their chipset driver download for that series of chipset(you can find this under the device manager in the classic/non metro control panels system panel). Their driver updater tool, like most, is garbage.

If it's a non intel chip, same strategy. Find the model in the control panel or on lenovos page, go to the manufacturers site and find the latest.

I've had intels tool not find a two years newer available driver more than once.
posted by emptythought at 7:23 PM on September 20, 2014

Response by poster: I sincerely appreciate the efforts to help, but between my peripherals freezing up before I can make any progress and me being in over my head, I'm not getting anywhere except extremely frustrated. It's seriously looking easier to me to drag an older homebuilt desktop up from the basement, replace the case fans and install Win7 rather than continue with this quest, which should have been the simplest thing.

Thrown by Intel's site; not only cannot find the right chipset INF based on the details I'm getting from Device Manager, the ones that looked likely had a message stating in part, if you're downloading this to fix a USB driver issue, this won't fix it.

This seems like an ideal issue for remote assistance in some form -- anyone have recommendations on that front? Willing to pay, of course.



I actually miss Win2000 very much right now and feel like I've gotten both old and incompetent overnight.
posted by vers at 11:47 AM on September 21, 2014