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I recently acquired two Compaq Armada M300 laptops at auction. They both have
the same problem: they won't recognise anything put in the usb port (pendrive,
external cdrom, usb mouse). I notice a setting in the bios for 'legacy usb'
and tried both switching that on and then off, but to no effect. Any
suggestions, apart from 'broken'? TIA

"Joe" <> wrote in message
news:42ed76bd$0$6476$...
>I recently acquired two Compaq Armada M300 laptops at auction. They both
>have
> the same problem: they won't recognise anything put in the usb port
> (pendrive,
> external cdrom, usb mouse). I notice a setting in the bios for 'legacy
> usb'
> and tried both switching that on and then off, but to no effect. Any
> suggestions, apart from 'broken'? TIA
>
Since USB ports carry voltage, it's possible that the previous users shorted
them out. That may be repairable, but working on laptops is difficult. You
might check to see if there is a voltage on the port. There is a diagram on
this page:
http://www.usbman.com/Guides/BelkinM...e_assembly.htm

An alternative would be a PC card slot adapter for USB. The disadvantage
there is that the PC slot doesn't provide voltage to the USB device, so many
of them come with a pigtail to the keyboard port or built in USB. If the
built in USB is fried, but still provides voltage, that still okay. But if
there is no voltage, be sure to go for a card that uses the keyboard PS2
port.

Joe wrote:

> I recently acquired two Compaq Armada M300 laptops at auction. They
> both have the same problem: they won't recognise anything put in the
> usb port (pendrive,
> external cdrom, usb mouse). I notice a setting in the bios for
> 'legacy usb'
> and tried both switching that on and then off, but to no effect. Any
> suggestions, apart from 'broken'? TIA

Hmmm. I wonder why they were at auction. I think we know.

What operating systems are they running? HP/Compaq still has drivers for
lots of Windows os's for this machine. Here's a Tinyurled link:

http://tinyurl.com/ad4gn

You might try installing drivers, etc. and see if that does it. Another
good way to test if you have a hardware problem or a Windows problem is
to boot with Knoppix, a Linux distro that runs from cd. If the USB
ports are recognized by Knoppix, you'll know that it is a Windows
problem, probably drivers. If Knoppix doesn't see the USB ports either,
then sadly you know the answer is "broken".

Dworkin
--
"That'll be 10 quid."

Thanks for the two replies. Both laptops will now recognise most usb devices.
The problem turned out to be caused by my first trying a usb2.0 device
(external cdrom) on what I now believe to be a usb1.1-only enabled laptop. It
wouldn't recognise the cdrom but then somehow fouled the windows (98SE) system
up, refusing then to see any usb1.1 device. After shutting down and booting
windows it then recognised the 1.1 devices! This happened on both the laptops.

Is there no way to get a usb2.0 device that's not backward-compatible to
work on a machine with an older motherboard? I assume a bios update wouldn't
do the trick?

Everythink I've read says that 98SE is marginal when it comes to USB
support. Could this be the problem?

"Joe" <> wrote in message
news:42efedb3$0$6471$...
> Thanks for the two replies. Both laptops will now recognise most usb
> devices.
> The problem turned out to be caused by my first trying a usb2.0 device
> (external cdrom) on what I now believe to be a usb1.1-only enabled laptop.
> It
> wouldn't recognise the cdrom but then somehow fouled the windows (98SE)
> system
> up, refusing then to see any usb1.1 device. After shutting down and
> booting
> windows it then recognised the 1.1 devices! This happened on both the
> laptops.
>
> Is there no way to get a usb2.0 device that's not backward-compatible to
> work on a machine with an older motherboard? I assume a bios update
> wouldn't
> do the trick?
>

MrB wrote:

> Everythink I've read says that 98SE is marginal when it comes to USB
> support. Could this be the problem?
>
> "Joe" <> wrote in message
> news:42efedb3$0$6471$...
>> Thanks for the two replies. Both laptops will now recognise most usb
>> devices.
>> The problem turned out to be caused by my first trying a usb2.0
>> device (external cdrom) on what I now believe to be a usb1.1-only
>> enabled laptop. It
>> wouldn't recognise the cdrom but then somehow fouled the windows
>> (98SE) system
>> up, refusing then to see any usb1.1 device. After shutting down and
>> booting
>> windows it then recognised the 1.1 devices! This happened on both the
>> laptops.
>>
>> Is there no way to get a usb2.0 device that's not backward-compatible
>> to
>> work on a machine with an older motherboard? I assume a bios update
>> wouldn't
>> do the trick?
>>

You're just being hopeful, MrB. Win98 FE was iffy with USB; SE was
OK although of course you needed to supply drivers. I really think your
ports are broken. Try what I suggested with Knoppix - if you're unsure
how to do this or it feels too geeky, get a knowledgeable friend or
local pc shop to test for you. Otherwise, boot with Knoppix and plug in
a USB drive. If Knoppix sees it, then you know for sure the problem is
your operating system (Windows). If Knoppix doesn't see it, then you
know its hardware.

Dworkin
--
"That'll be 10 quid."