Loss of USB ports

[ratter]

. I have a dell machine with windows vista. Connected to the usb ports are mouse, keyboard and my wireless netgear usb model wpn111. Nearly every day I notice that I lose my wireless lan connection and this is when I notice ports failure. The led on the wireless key stops flashing and reconnecting it does not bring it back to life. The mouse and keyboard continue working, however if I disconnect and reconnect the mouse or keyboard these also stop working and are not recognised. The only way to restore usb ports is by shutting down pc. At shut down there is a problem, the shutting down windows screen hangs and I end up physically switching off the pc. Spoke to Dell they suggested downloading chipset software but this has not helped.

 

[Tedster]

this sounds like a software or bios issue, although you cannot rule out hardware failure. I suggest reinstalling all the appropriate drivers with updates. If that fails, you will need to get the hardware tested and/or replaced.