USB problems
Submitted by crivon1 on Thu, 05/24/2007 - 11:17.
Back last December, I reported on problems with the SpeechMike USB, when it stopped working in the middle of dictating, refused to respond and then would come back on of its own volition. The other USB ports were also affected, and I would get the awful popup telling me that a peripheral USB appendage was not working.
I tried all sorts of remedies, including uninstalling the root hubs and controllers, replacing the drivers, and each time I did this it seemed to remedy the situation for a short period, after which it started again.
In last couple of days, I decided to wipe out my C drive, and reinstall XP from scratch from the recovery disk. I then reinstalled ViaVoice and SpeechMike software, and everything worked fine.
I made a full copy of the newly installed basic (2004) System 32 using safe mode, and plonked it in another partition.
I then replaced, from image, my entire up-to-date 2007 XP OS, copied the 2004 basic drivers and system 32 files and pasted them into the reinstalled up-to-date Windows System 32, replacing the up-to-date files with the original 2004 files. Everything still worked, and there was no more problems with the SpeechMike.
I then went to Windows update, and of course it found that everything was out of date, and installed 30 mb worth of 48 updates.
For the moment, everything, particularly the SpeechMike, is still working.
I had a look at the USB drivers, and they're still the original 2004 XP.
I am convinced that there was something in the monthly Windows updates which caused the interference to the operation of the USB ports.
Has anyone else had this experience.
Quentin
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Replying to my own
Replying to my own post.
After massive experimentation, I finally seem to have tracked down the problem as a hardware one.
By restricting my use from 4 USB ports to 3 and not using the one which always gives me the most trouble, the cutting out seems to have stopped.
My conclusion is that port number 4 has a hardware problem, and when in use, it causes problems with the other ports.
This would appear to verify the conclusions of both Randy and Chuck.
I will have to use a hub or a PCMCIA USB port extension for additional peripherals.
Since moving the microphone USB connection from the bad port, accuracy has increased, and words, which had been missed whilst dictating, now appear.
Further investigation on the Net shows that this is not an uncommon problem, and is usually caused by a hardware problem on the motherboard. Unfortunately with laptops, this is not economically rectifiable, but with PC's the motherboard can be changed relatively easily at reasonable cost.
Quentin