I've been saddled with a computer to fix again and I've got a USB question.
It's a small Gateway Desktop that only has USB ports to connect the mouse, keyboard, etc. The ports in the back of the machine don't work, but there are 2 in the front that do. No problems shown in Device Manager and it looks ok inside the box (ports hard-connected into board).
I can't see that this came with 2 ports not working and I need one to connect a printer to. I know that there there is a USB splitter available, and may have to resort to that, but wanted to try to get these ports working first.
I was wondering if something was turned off or changed in setup, but I can't get in there. The screen says press F1 to enter setup .... but ... I press the keys and nothing happens, it seems like keyboard (USB) input is not recogized until later in the boot process way past the time that it's needed to enter setup.
I even tried tricking the system into entering setup. It doesn't care if there's no keyboard attached, it starts up anyway. Unplugging the hard drive (power) just makes it ask for a boot disk.
To back up a bit, this is not the original keyboard, and they changed the OS from ME to XP. Do you think either would make a difference in when the keyboard (or USB port) becomes active?
I have to believe that getting into setup worked before. Any educated opinions out there on whether it's the keyboard or the XP that's keeping it from working?
Bill
[This message has been edited by Bill Addiss (edited 08-21-2003).]
