The USB ports of a computer allow us to connect all kinds of peripherals in the form of keyboard, mouse, printer, hard drives, USB sticks, digital tablets, among others. When one of them stops working or works erratically, we start turning the device over to try to find out the reason why it is not working like the first day, without taking into account that it is not is not always the fault of the device.
Depending on the age of your computer, it may have different types of ports using different standards. Each type of port has different specifications and, depending on the type of device we want to connect, we must use one or the other. If you want to connect a mouse and a keyboard, you can use a USB port with the 1.0 standard, a standard that will only be found on very old equipment.
Currently, the 2.0 standard is used to connect printers, keyboards, mice, scanners, etc. But if you want to transfer content, in the form of data or video, it is advisable to use the 3.x standard. If we connect a device to a port that is not suitable for the type of device in question, it may work more slowly or simply refuse to work, probably due to lack of power.
Why are USB ports not working?
In this case, the reason may be due to a change in Windows settings, especially when we change the power plan to extend battery life. The different power plans that Windows offers us by default have different settings that we can customize, including the possibility of disabling the current that reaches the USB ports.
We can also deactivate them via the Device administrator or using the Windows Registry
If after checking all the options that we can use to disable the ports are disabled, if the USB port still does not work, the only solution left for us to rule out that it is a physical problem with the USB port is to use a voltage meter. On Amazon we can find a large number of this type of devices, one of the best and most complete options being that offered by the manufacturer YOJOCK and which has a price of 20.49 dollars.
We can use this device in USB-A and USB-C ports and it allows us to know through the screen the voltage, power, temperature, impedance, among other data. The data that really interests us is the tension. USB ports require power to operate. If the current is very low or non-existent, the connected device will never work.
If a USB port no longer works, there is no way to fix it, as long as we make sure that the problem is not related to a change in Windows or BIOS settings. If the other ports continue to work and we run out of free ports, we can purchase a USB HUB to increase the number of ports on our device.
The best-selling and highest-rated USB HUB on Amazon with Type-A connection is offered to us by the manufacturer SABRENT for only 13.89 dollars. If we are looking for a USB with a Type-C connection, we can use the model from the manufacturer UGREEN with a rating of 4.4 stars after receiving more than 9,000 reviews and which has a price of 17.99 dollars.