# Asus P5B Deluxe, slow boots, USB problems..



## jonnex (Jul 2, 2008)

Hi,

I've got the above mobo, and untill now I've had no real problems with it. Just over a year it's been great. 

Just in the last week or so, it's started popping up with this error, in both my Vista and XP installation:

"One of the USB devices attahced to this computer has malfunctioned, and Windows does not recognize it."

It then says 'The location of the device is shown in bold type":
- USB Root Hub (2 ports)
- *Unknown Device*
- Unused Port

So, I naturally started to hunt for the offending USB device. This went to it's natural extreme, and I unplugged every USB device currently plugged in. The error still kept popping up. It pops up pretty randomly, sometimes it'll come 5 times in a minute, sometimes it'll be a few hours, and anything inbetween. It's totally sporadic, it seems to me.

I've been in device manager, and tried to uninstall the offending 'unknown device', but windows just then finds it again, and installs it. Problem repeats. I think this *may* have started when I tried to use an old webcam on my Vista partition, which I had managed to get working on XP. But then it started happening on XP, so I dont know if the 2 are related.

So that's 1 problem.

Since that started, i've noticed that when I boot up it takes AGES to get past the initial screens, like when it's showing the big ASUS picture. It took over 2 minutes to get into windows this time. 

Its slow the whole time getting in, like on the screen where I pick the OS to launch, it has a count down timer for 29 seconds. But it wasn't taking a second to count down 1 second, more like 5 or 10 per second it should have counted down.

that's all then, sorry it's such a long post, but if anyone has any ideas i'd really love to hear them, i'm really stuck with this..

Thanks for reading,
Jo


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## stressfreesoul (Mar 17, 2008)

Sounds like a corrupted system. You are likely to have unwittingly downloaded some sort of virus. Any issues with BIOS or POST?


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## jonnex (Jul 2, 2008)

Hey there, thanks for the reply.

I've thought maybe the system is corrupted, but the thing is that it's happened on both partitions, with XP and Vista, which makes me think it's something hardware related. 

How would I check BIOS and POST?


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## Houndog777 (May 17, 2007)

Hi, do you still have the software & drivers for this "old webcam" installed?
Check the Add/Remove Programs in XP and uninstall them if they are still there, and restart.
Same with Vista, in Programs and Features.


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## jonnex (Jul 2, 2008)

Well on XP I still have the drivers intalled (i found them on creative's website, as I didnt have the disk anymore) But with Vista it wouldnt let me install the drivers, so they wont be on it. In fact I just checked, nothing like that on the vista side. 

I'll check XP later, but if it's happening on the vista side without the cam actually having any drivers installed, that kinda rules that out i'd say?


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## Houndog777 (May 17, 2007)

(I'd still clear the system of drivers that are not being used).

Enter your BIOS by pressing F2 or Delete during boot. It tells you onscreen what key to press to "Enter Setup". Load the default settings, making adjustments only for settings you need like e.g. enable USB mouse & keyboard support. Save & exit.

You can also check your System Configuration to ensure no applications or services are being loaded at start-up that are not needed.
Click Start, then Run and type msconfig in the box that appears and click OK.
In the System Configration window, click on the Services tab and check the box that says "Hide all Microsoft sevices"............uncheck any you know you don't need.
Next, under the Startup tab, uncheck everything, unless you really need something to start along with windows. Click Apply and restart.


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## jonnex (Jul 2, 2008)

Hi there, i'll try all those things now. How do I get rid of drivers that arent being used? I looked in Programs and Features, and didn't see any programs there that needed uninstalling.


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## Houndog777 (May 17, 2007)

That's ok.......just follow the other steps to prevent programs and services from starting along with windows.
Here's a link to a free program to help identify "unknown devices"......

http://www.gold-software.com/UnknownDeviceIdentifier-review12752.htm

If we can identify it, we'll be able to do something about it.


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## jonnex (Jul 2, 2008)

ah, that software sounds like it could be the key! I'll give that a try once I get home tonight, and let you know how it goes. Thanks a lot for your continued help


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## jonnex (Jul 2, 2008)

Hi again,

Sorry for the long delay, i got into some really heavy stuff at work and i've been super busy.

Anyway i tried the app you suggested, but it didn't work on Vista (not tried XP with it yet). So anyway I searched for some more software for finding unknown devices, and got one from softpedia. 

I got the app to upload what it found to pastebin, so here's the link:
http://www.halfdone.com/pastebin/?id=1636-BE7

not actually pastebin i realise, but it shows the tree structure that it found with all my devices nicely for you to see. It doesnt show a lot more than i saw in device manager really.. just that there's 2 unknown devices with invalid hardware IDs.

Does this help to diagnose the problem?


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## jonnex (Jul 2, 2008)

I just noticed from further inspection that inside the 'other devices' bit, there's a 'creative webcam' listed. 

I think it was plugging this thing in a few weeks ago that started this problem! But i cant find that same entry when looking in device manager.. how can i go about uninstalling it?


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## jonnex (Jul 2, 2008)

gah... ok so i managed to uninstall the drivers for that webcam; it no longer shows up when i used the unknown device identifier. 

Still getting the problem though....


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## Houndog777 (May 17, 2007)

OK
What about the first USB Mass Storage Device:
Unable to Detect, Hardware ID: VID_0204&PID_6025
(From what can tell online that is Chipsbank Microelectronics Co., Ltd CBM2080 Flash drive controller)


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## jonnex (Jul 2, 2008)

Ooh interesting.. Just looked for which bit you're talking about, i hadnt noticed that. It does say 'unable to detect' like you say.. but i looked for it in Device Manager, and i cant see it. how do i go about uninstalling it (is uninstalling the thing i need to do?).


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## Houndog777 (May 17, 2007)

If you open Device Manager, up top, click on View and then select Show Hidden Devices.

Now go down to the System Properties tree and see if it shows up under the USB section. If it's not there, look in Non-Plug and Play Drivers. When you find it, right-click and select Uninstall.


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## jonnex (Jul 2, 2008)

Hey again Houndog,

I had a look in device manager, but I couldn't see anything that I could be sure was the right thing.. Nothing showed up in the USB controller area once I chose to see hidden devices, and the plug and play section has lots of things in it, none of which I could identify as the offending thing you pointed out.

Here's a screen shot of my device manager, with both those menus unrolled. You'll be able to see the 'Unknown Device' in the USB section, but that's just the one i already tried to uninstall. It just finds the device again and installs it, then complains about the same old thing. It manages to find it and install it even if there are no USB devices plugged in at all, again adding to the weirdness!

here's the link to the pic
http://i232.photobucket.com/albums/ee229/jonnexoi/deviceProblem.jpg

cheers man for your help, really appreciate it


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## Houndog777 (May 17, 2007)

Hi,
here's another download for you.....lol........
http://www.neuber.com/taskmanager/index.html?ref=file.net
The webpage explains what it's all about. See if it gives you a clean bill of health.

The "parport" thats flagged in the non-plug & play drivers section is usually for the Parallel Port of your PC, if you're using that port that is.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/883253


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## Houndog777 (May 17, 2007)

This is really puzzling me! Did you alter any BIOS settings just before this started; or did you have something installed that is no longer present?



Have a look at this when you have the time.........
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;310575


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## jonnex (Jul 2, 2008)

Hey again! Hehe, thanks a lot for your interest in helping me, nobody else I've spoken to has had any idea what could be going wrong! 

So I downloaded that task manager app, and when i click the exe (on vista, which it is supposed to work on apparently) it just says 'could not start application'. ha.. i'm beginning to feel cursed.

So i checked out those other 2 links you posted, and I suppose the parport thing where it says:

"The problem occurs because Windows XP and Windows 2000 automatically install the parallel port arbitrator (Parport) driver even if no parallel port hardware is present. When this behavior occurs, the Parport driver cannot load, and the device appears in Device Manager next to an exclamation point in a yellow circle."

could be true..? but would it be causing a problem which complains about a USB device? Plus, as i say, the USB device in device manager that's called 'Unknown Device' seems to definately be the problem, because when in right click and uninstall, the error message goes away for a few seconds and is replaced with 'windows found new device'...'windows successfully installed new device drivers'... before then coming back with the malfunctioned thing. 

Totally bizarre eh? So i didnt manage to uninstall the other thing you were talking about because i couldnt find it anywhere in DM. 

As for altering BIOS settings, i havent touched it in months, definately hadnt touched any bios settings any time before this started happening. The only thing i can credit it to was me plugging in an old creative webcam i had. The exact sequence of events were:

Plugged it in when on XP first time, spent a while finding some old drivers for it from creatives site, installed them, got it working on XP. Thought i'd try the same on Vista, but it couldn't get it working on it's own, and the drivers i got from creatives site wouldnt work (specifically because it was vista, and it's an old webcam, fair enough I thought). 

So I havent used it since, unplugged it from vista straight after that. The problem I think started that same day (I think the first time i saw it was when i was trying to plug my camera into vista via usb, which has never been a problem and doesnt need special drivers). It was happening on vista for a few days before i saw it happen on XP. now it happens on both of them completely sporadically. I had it not happen for around 2 days a few days ago on vista. 

I'm pretty sure there's nothing else I can think of! ...  It's making me sad! 

cheers again for all your help though  really appreciate your time!


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## Houndog777 (May 17, 2007)

Hi, Jon
How about you disable both of them, via Device Manager? Have you tried that?
Disable, Restart, clean up the Crive and Registry, Restart and hope everything works normally.
I'm going to do my sherlock holmes on this cos it's bugging me too.

Here's a couple of Disk & Registry cleaners I know work well and work in XP & Vista......
http://www.filehippo.com/download_ccleaner/
Top right of page, with the big green arrow "Download Latest Version".

http://www.wisecleaner.com/download.html
The 2nd download, i.e. Wise Registry Cleaner 3 Free

Hope this helps!


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## stressfreesoul (Mar 17, 2008)

Have you tried uninstalling the parport driver?
Be very wary using registry cleaners. They can ruin your OS installation. I recommend extreme caution using any of them, make sure you back up the registry before you make any changes.


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## jonnex (Jul 2, 2008)

Hey again!

I'm running CCCleaner as I type this, as it seems a good idea regardless of problems. But I have had a rather huge breakthrough, which I think (not holding my breath) has probably sorted the problem.

I was on my Vista partition, and looking in device manager, and I right clicked some of the USB hub roots and saw that they listed the devices that were currently drawing power from the hub. I saw my mouse and keyboard drawing power from one of them, and from another of them i saw.... the 'Unknown device' drawing power. So i disabled it. The unknown device immediately went away from the USB controller section, and I havent had the pop up since! So I guess I've sacrificed 2 USB ports, but to be honest that's no big deal considering the ridiculous frustration of having that pop up every few minutes. 

So I guess the problem is solved, but unforunately that doesnt get us any closer to knowing why it was happening, which is infuriating in itself!

But really, thanks a huge amount for all your help with this. Feel free to give me any more ideas for solutions to the actual problem, if you can think of a way for us to find out what it is! It seems that it can only be some kind of hardware fault to me, in which case the only solution was to disable the root hub in question. 

so thanks again  fingers crossed at least i can use my computer without annoyance! 



jonny


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## stressfreesoul (Mar 17, 2008)

Glad its sorted :wink:


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