Ok, firstly Hello to everyone on this board, im regularly lurking round here and find this place really helpful, but alas I finally have a problem which requires some help from u bunch of really helpful people.. :P

Ok, The problem has occured on my Dell laptop, which I use mainly for gaming/entertainment. While asleep last night I had left my laptop powered on and connected to the net to allow some downloads ( legal :P) to finish.. There was a bad thunderstorm the power was momentarily cut.. at some stage during the night. When i woke up none of the USB devices are responding. There is power going to them but thats about it. My mouse isnt working, my modem, webcam, nothing. I have tried lots of things including checking the multiple reboots/bios check/device manager settings and havent got anywhere all day. If anyone could help me out with suggestions or anything it would be greatly appreciated, regards,
Andy

no ideas? any help at all would be appreciated

hey Andy, i'm experiencin the same problem just now and was wonderin if u have solved the problem since then, it would be really helpful if u can help me on this, as i'm really stressed over this problem and have been tryin for days!

Reset your BIOS settings to default and restart. See if that works.

thanks for helpin, but they still dont work when i reseted the BIOS there, tried so many things that i found on the net, but nothin seems to work, i read somewhere that it might be the motherboard problem, i even tried reinstallin windows and still no luck, gonna have to go for PCI cards to replace USB ports and hope that works instead! :'( unless i find more help online.

Then it is a hardware issue. IS your laptop still under warranty? If so, call Dell Hardware support and they will run a 90/90 test. It detects 90% of hardware problems 90% of time. I used to work for Dell (just not the hardware department! It's in India)

my laptop is a NEC model, i've been lookin online for NEC Support helplines, but i can't seem to find any useful links regardin my model, so i'm totally screwed, i think what i really need to do is replace the motherboard, but that's like replacin the whole laptop tbh, gonna have to wait till i get the chance to repair it, :'(

One fo the *BIG* reasons I'm not a fan of laptops! I strongly advise customers against buying one unless they can truly argue they need the portability! You simply drop it and *BANG*, big repair bill or you have to replace it!

Laptops just aren't worth the nuisances, headaches and risks they bring!